Where Would We Be, If...

[Nuxfanabroad]

...we'd been healthy? Some don't have time for hypotheticals, but I think it's fair to ponder this question. Imagining we'd been on the lower range of the spectrum(say, 50-75 man games lost to injury). That's quite a leap, considering our recent seasonal-trends..but doesn't the "law of averages" indicate we're due for a healthy yr? Let's hope.

 

I guess we'd be around 82-85 pts, had our roster stayed that intact.

 

1- Maybe we don't make the Leivo trade, if there were no injuries? I think the Gud, MDZ, Gagme & Nils ones were probably destined to happen.

2- Still don't think we'd have made noise in playoffs, had we squeaked in(too early in rebuild)

3- Fortunately the injuries were mostly to elder players. Better the kids to stay in one piece, & we could give some depth-youth a gander.

4- Psychologically, I think our youth are fine with the season's trajectory. They realize we came up short, but injuries played their part. The kids know they make up over 50% of the team's offense, & more good ones are in the pipeline. They've gained valuable experience to assist the 2019/20 prospect wave, that seem to keep rolling in.

5- Wherever we wind up drafting(perhaps #7 or 8 OA?), you can probably tack on 8-10 slots lower, if we'd finished in WC-range. In 2017 & 2018 we can see how valuable these high picks are. It's more important(IMHO) that we land at least one more.

 

So many haters & trolls getting their cheap shots, slights & digs in. Guess it's a crappy existence, or just the kinda fuel they run on? This crap won't deter true fans of BC's Canucks!

 

As I see it, not hard for fans of this team to view many aspects of this season(90% done) as a fine success. Our youth have learned a lot, & will be eager, hungry & a little more savvy next season.

 

To JB, the coaches & players, I sure look forward to the continued progression in our young cast next season. Thanks gents for your dedicated efforts!

[smithers joe]

i’m with you nuxfan, people can lament that the rebuild should have started earlier, but it didn’t. people can complain that if they were rebuilding this team, we’ld have a cup by now, but they didn’t. 

people want everything their gm does, to be perfect. benji has corrected some of the un perfect moves he has made. gudbranson, delzotto and gagner. if he could correct the louie contract, he would. other moves may come this summer. 

the things he’s done that i love the most, is drafting jake, petey, boeser, hughes, gaudette, lind, woo, demko, dipietro, tryamkin and brisebois. plus others not determined yet.

trades for leivo, motte, baertschi, pearson, dahlen, granlund, sutter and goldobin.

FA signings, roussel, beagle, dorsett, hutton and stecher 

moves that didn’t work out the way he wanted were, eriksson, gudbranson, gagner, del zotto, and pouliot.

others may see things differently and that’s okay. this is an opinion site. we may not have the greatest hockey minds, but we all have opinions. this is mine.

[Samgagner'sface]

We'd have far more wins. Losing edler and tanev at the same time cost us. Our record without those 2 was abysmal, especially the first bad stretch where beagle and sutter were both out too. Shame, really. Excited about the team we have though. GCG!

[Hindustan Smyl]

When relatively healthy, I do believe that the Canucks are a Wildcard caliber playoff team.  This hasn’t changed since 2014-2015 in my opinion (ie the year that the Canucks were very lucky in terms of injuries and qualified for the playoffs).

 

Unfortunately, during a rebuilding stage, teams are susceptible to a massive free fall when dealing with 1-2 key injuries, and that’s where the Canucks are at the moment.

 

They simply don’t have the depth right now to consistently win hockey games when they have injuries......although to the Canucks’ are slowly starting to get deeper.

 

As the Canucks continue to get deeper and more talented, two things will happen:

 

1) Edler and Tanev won’t be over exerted and over worked which will allow them to stay a little healthier.

 

2) As the Canucks talent level increases, their team possession numbers will increase as well.....and this will also lead to less injuries.  A strong correlation does exist between team injuries and poor team possession numbers.

 

We’re getting better but we’re not there yet.

 

I think the combination of some of our prospects graduating to the bigs (ie Hughes) + some help in the UFA market will help us next year.

[Rindiculous]

I don’t really believe in considering these what ifs because we’re always gonna get injured no matter what, but back when we beat Colorado 5-1 right before we went on that long losing stretch with injuries I decided to calculate where we’d be without that 1-10-2 stretch in November.  Extrapolating we would have been tied with the Sharks.  We had two major losing skids this season, but without them we’re a top 3 team in the pacific 

[snucks]

Team is too small . Edler and Tanev are over rated. Fans keep going to games so its not really a problem, right ?

[Sbriggs]

1 hour ago, Hindustan Smyl said:

When relatively healthy, I do believe that the Canucks are a Wildcard caliber playoff team.  This hasn’t changed since 2014-2015 in my opinion (ie the year that the Canucks were very lucky in terms of injuries and qualified for the playoffs).

 

Unfortunately, during a rebuilding stage, teams are susceptible to a massive free fall when dealing with 1-2 key injuries, and that’s where the Canucks are at the moment.

 

They simply don’t have the depth right now to consistently win hockey games when they have injuries......although to the Canucks’ are slowly starting to get deeper.

 

As the Canucks continue to get deeper and more talented, two things will happen:

 

1) Edler and Tanev won’t be over exerted and over worked which will allow them to stay a little healthier.

 

2) As the Canucks talent level increases, their team possession numbers will increase as well.....and this will also lead to less injuries.  A strong correlation does exist between team injuries and poor team possession numbers.

 

We’re getting better but we’re not there yet.

 

I think the combination of some of our prospects graduating to the bigs (ie Hughes) + some help in the UFA market will help us next year.

1 or 2 key injuries? I believe we had our 2 best defensemen (Edler & Tanev) and 2 of our top six( Sven & Sutter) at the same time? Hard for any team to move forward after that especially a rebuilding young team. To loose all that leadership at a crucial time of the year is hard for any team to overcome especially ours.

[Ghostsof1915]

Actually despite the standings. The team has more points than last year. 

Sautner, Brisebois, Beiga, and Schenn are showing as good injury replacements. 

Losing Baer and Sutter, has given the team more time to evaluate Gaudette, Goldy, and Schaller. 

Injuries to defence will make it easier to slot in Hughes when he's ready. 

I just hope the injury to Hutton doesn't derail his development and career like the last time he was injured. 

 

This will be an interesting offseason for the team. 

 

[Hindustan Smyl]

17 minutes ago, Sbriggs said:

1 or 2 key injuries? I believe we had our 2 best defensemen (Edler & Tanev) and 2 of our top six( Sven & Sutter) at the same time? Hard for any team to move forward after that especially a rebuilding young team. To loose all that leadership at a crucial time of the year is hard for any team to overcome especially ours.

Fair enough, and I agree with you by the way.

 

Having said that, this has been the same song and dance for the most part since 2015.   

 

-Canucks are competitive up until the trade deadline.

-Canucks get key injuries to Edler, Tanev, Sutter, Baertschi, Gudbranson, etc.

-Canucks Free fall

-Canucks go on “Corky Thatcher like” winning streak to end the season.

 

At some point, we have to realize that this is more than just bad luck....and that, these injuries are likely occurring to some of these players due to over-exertion (Edler and Tanev).and poor team possession numbers.  Thankfully, I believe that this will change over these next few years as we increase our talent pool.

 

 

[xereau]

More evidence that Bo is even more than advertised, more than most realize.  He put this whole team on his back for most of the season, and, still managed 60+ points in this role.  Amazing.

[Ghostsof1915]

2 hours ago, xereau said:

More evidence that Bo is even more than advertised, more than most realize.  He put this whole team on his back for most of the season, and, still managed 60+ points in this role.  Amazing.

Doesn't surprise me. Remember the Sedins were only 2nd liners at best? And Kesler was only a 3rd line centre? 

[Sbriggs]

5 hours ago, Hindustan Smyl said:

Fair enough, and I agree with you by the way.

 

Having said that, this has been the same song and dance for the most part since 2015.   

 

-Canucks are competitive up until the trade deadline.

-Canucks get key injuries to Edler, Tanev, Sutter, Baertschi, Gudbranson, etc.

-Canucks Free fall

-Canucks go on “Corky Thatcher like” winning streak to end the season.

 

At some point, we have to realize that this is more than just bad luck....and that, these injuries are likely occurring to some of these players due to over-exertion (Edler and Tanev).and poor team possession numbers.  Thankfully, I believe that this will change over these next few years as we increase our talent pool.

 

 

Yes I agree as wellwe will loose over the next few seasons these palyers that are not durable. I hope we don't sign Edler but if we do Tanev must go and Sutter and Sven I am sure are gone as well.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, smithers joe said:

i’m with you nuxfan, people can lament that the rebuild should have started earlier, but it didn’t. people can complain that if they were rebuilding this team, we’ld have a cup by now, but they didn’t. 

people want everything their gm does, to be perfect. benji has corrected some of the un perfect moves he has made. gudbranson, delzotto and gagner. if he could correct the louie contract, he would. other moves may come this summer. 

the things he’s done that i love the most, is drafting jake, petey, boeser, hughes, gaudette, lind, woo, demko, dipietro, tryamkin and brisebois. plus others not determined yet.

trades for leivo, motte, baertschi, pearson, dahlen, granlund, sutter and goldobin.

FA signings, roussel, beagle, dorsett, hutton and stecher 

moves that didn’t work out the way he wanted were, eriksson, gudbranson, gagner, del zotto, and pouliot.

others may see things differently and that’s okay. this is an opinion site. we may not have the greatest hockey minds, but we all have opinions. this is mine.

Yes!  

 

You just listed all his best moves that I'm very much in agreement with.  Two guys that are really standing out to me this year (as far as trades go) are Leivo and Motte.  In a redraft, they'd both go in the 1st round (20th-30th overall) of their draft years.   

 

 

Now if we were healthy, we'd probably be sitting in a wild card spot right now (we'd have an extra 4-6 points).  I think that our season has been written by Markstrom's performances.  Edler's injury was the main influence on our play.  I don't think that other guys being out had as much of an impact.  

 

 

One more comment @Ghostsof1915 How far do you think that Hutton can evolve?  I haven't been a big fan ever since last year.  Admittedly, he's had a good stretch of games this year when Edler and Tanev went down, but he still didn't jump off the page at me.  I also thought his play had regressed right before he was injured.  He's 25, so fairly young as far as defencemen go. 

[6string]

To close out the season I sure hope they sit Eriksson for most of it and dedicate their time to player development or evaluation for next year's camp.

[John McClane]

Agreed 

[oldnews]

If you're going to go through consecutive seasons with injuries that run deep enough - principally to your 'foundation'/veterans - that it effectively handicaps your season - then you may as well do so in the midst of transition seasons when it actually enhances your draft position - honestly - and gives you chances to audition players that are legitimately near NHL ready.

In the early stages - that homegrown prospect talent from within was not there.  But last year, and this year, arguably, the counterpoints to the injuries are increasingly more positive, if that makes sense.

The team is clearly deeper - with more young talent pushing for ice time.  I think management may have conceded at the deadline that a cinderella playoff birth was probably not going to happen - however, those guys remaining standing evidently didn't get the memo and acquitted themselves awfully well down the stretch thus far.

 

Hopefully the consistently excessive amount of injuries can come to an end however - because moving forward the team is 'transitioning' back to competitiveness imo - so ideally that M.A.S.H. reality can cease / coincide with when the results didn't necessarily matter as much.  I do think the group can take some pride in never really resorting to a shameless, intentional tankshow - hopefully that honesty, work ethic, do-it-yourself thing can continue to translate.  When you look at the character of players like Horvat, Pettersson, Boeser, Stecher, etc - it's a pretty promising core of character imo.

[oldnews]

9 hours ago, snucks said:

Team is too small . Edler and Tanev are over rated. Fans keep going to games so its not really a problem, right ?

you sure you're in the right thread?

 

seems the OP was referring to the team's health.

 

Folks here are interested in winning btw - going to the games isn't really the measurng stick.

[ButterBean]

No surprises here. Ice the same injury-prone players (Edler, Tanev, Sutter, Baer) and get the same results. Don’t answer the bell when our star players like Pettersson get hit and teams will won’t think twice about playing dirty. We’d def be in the playoffs if healthy but I’m glad we’re not I don’t mind moving up a few spots in the draft. 

[189lb enforcers?]

6 hours ago, oldnews said:

If you're going to go through consecutive seasons with injuries that run deep enough - principally to your 'foundation'/veterans - that it effectively handicaps your season - then you may as well do so in the midst of transition seasons when it actually enhances your draft position - honestly - and gives you chances to audition players that are legitimately near NHL ready.

 

In other words, Accidentally. 

Looks like we’re on the same page now, ON. 

 

[Ghostsof1915]

14 hours ago, VancouverHabitant said:

Yes!  

 

You just listed all his best moves that I'm very much in agreement with.  Two guys that are really standing out to me this year (as far as trades go) are Leivo and Motte.  In a redraft, they'd both go in the 1st round (20th-30th overall) of their draft years.   

 

 

Now if we were healthy, we'd probably be sitting in a wild card spot right now (we'd have an extra 4-6 points).  I think that our season has been written by Markstrom's performances.  Edler's injury was the main influence on our play.  I don't think that other guys being out had as much of an impact.  

 

 

One more comment @Ghostsof1915 How far do you think that Hutton can evolve?  I haven't been a big fan ever since last year.  Admittedly, he's had a good stretch of games this year when Edler and Tanev went down, but he still didn't jump off the page at me.  I also thought his play had regressed right before he was injured.  He's 25, so fairly young as far as defencemen go. 

Considering it was the first time in his career he was playing over 20+ minutes a game. I thought he and Stecher were doing as well as they could. I don't know where he can top out at. The Left side is getting more and more crowded with prospects. He will be qualified. Where he fits long term remains to be seen.