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Everything posted by IBatch
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Not to be a downer but the way things are going in the US right now I really don't see how this season is going to be played out. It took China five months to re-open and they took and continue to take the strictest measures - a lot more then the US is doing. Plus the experts are telling us there will be additional waves and new curves to deal with once this one is over....most countries curves are decreasing in the 35- 45 days after the first 100 cases ... but still the US is facing millions of cases giving the sheer numbers they already have and that is with social distancing in affect.. Take that out and let fans congregate in the hundreds of thousands over a course of a playoff and those numbers go way up again, not something our PM would allow. At this point a more realistic topic could be will there be a season next year. Until a vaccine and testing is available to find out who in the population has already had it and has their own anti-bodies (as much as 10 per every person that is actually is tested has it too) and everyone has taken it - I have serious doubts sports fans will be getting their live fixes.. next summer hopefully we all will be going through the vaccination and or testing process which will also take months to do...2021-2022 is the realistic re-opening of the NHL.... Maybe what could happen is the NHL re-opens in about a year and they play out the rest of this season in its entirety and playoffs. Freeze all UFA's because if their is no NHL next year they won't be paying their athletes - they will have to suck it up like the rest of us. And keep rosters exactly as they were when they closed down...
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Liked your post about " Now that we got that away from that can we get down to business" but I fear Lidster is going to have to wait ... at this point I'm voting for the main guys that others are that I think should get in over the other ones getting enough votes to win - it didn't help much recently but it looks like Boudrias is getting his due (a little late but better then a lot late) ... and I also have LIdster close to Boudrias - although in the 14-16 range....Williams is coming soon on my list for nominees...so is Butcher - those guys were important to us - at least we were never slouches in that department despite a lot of tough competition in our own division back then. Don't mind the Jovo votes at all - he should also be in by now too...was a popular enough Canuck and one of a few to get multiple all-star selections especially as a defenseman and played close to the same number of games as Boudrias. The older era players are getting representation - the votes are so split up that I fear the WCE and Sedin guys are going to get in before others that really should be getting in first. Oh well...still a lot of fun - and so far nobody is undeserving of the top fifty - just a little off on a few.
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Voted Boudrias nominate Mustachiod Strongman Babych...could grow a beard in two days number one in those rankings ha ha.
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Probably thinking about which young guy he's going to lay a beat down on next ha ha Edit: Just saw what its says for the penalty...that's hilarious.
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He always looked like he hadn't slept in a week and was mad that someone told off his Nona (Italian for grandma)....Sergio Momesso - one of the better hockey names ever. (Sprague Cleghorn might be the best). Bieksa is known for his hockey mug too - but got to say he's got to wait in line behind this guy. We had some scary dudes back then - Hunter might win the ugliest ever - and one of the scariest too (one of my first live games was front row seats and he took a slap shot right at my face pre-game - and then skated by with a smirk - thanks Tim for that) .... and even though he wasn't here long and a waste of a first rounder Antoski was a huge pile of scary too. Does anyone else remember the " Fear Line" posters? Odjick Antoski Hunter....wouldn't want to be playing hockey against those guys. And I'm sure the rest of the league wasn't fond of it either.
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Sopel was a minus magnet... that said top ten for hockey hair for sure.
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Momesso is also one of my all-time guys - as in ones in loved watching play. He was mean - tough and put added scoring and played long enough to be worthy of consideration in this top fifty in the later rounds. Who would you want on your team - him or Cook? I'd take him every time. Had a regular fight card with the flames - those games were always fun to watch and often nasty. The best rivalry we've had IMO and he was a gamer. That said there is no denying that in the regular season the Sedin teams were the best we;ve ever had - and in the playoffs it was the Linden teams that shined the brightest - series won is a pretty good indication of that. Edit: On Cloutier. I think the entire fanbase had Stockholm Syndrome after the musical chairs of goalies we had back then - every single former number one back-up in the entire league ran through Vancouver at one point - and he at least won more then lost in the regular season and showed promise at times. Lidtroms goal from center ice unfortunately is what he's most known for....a top 25 fail moment. Up 2-0....and ahead in game 3....imagine losing like that ...WTF is wrong with our franchise worst luck ever.
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Sedin, Sedin, Naslund, Ohlund, Luongo, Bertuzzi, Kesler, Jovo,Edler, Bieksa Burrows, Hamhuis, Salo, Morrison, Cloutier (42) Hansen (43) Cook (45) MItchell (50) were the only players to make it from WCE and Sedin teams in THN book top fifty by franchise. 17 overall. In that order too. Could add Aucion too but it was only one year...Of the current team only Horvat and EP should earn nominations IMO - and not for a long time yet. Edit: The Sedin teams should have all those guys in it - their first presidents trophy we were first in offense and first in defense in the entire league - plus first in PP percentage and 2 in PK. Over the entire course of the NHL's 100 plus seasons we were the most dominant club NOT to win the Stanley Cup. Only the late 70' MTL dynasty managed that too...so I get those nominations even though they aren't too far in the past (recent). The WCE ones..well they better stack up against the Lindrgrens, Ververgaerts, Rotas, McCarthys,Lanzs and Murzyns of the world. If I see Vrbata or Vaneks name I might barf.
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If the list was 50 Favorite All-Time Canucks - i would have Bieksa in there already - he was a throwback - our version of Chris Chelios during the peak Sedin era. And he started with a bang and personally felt was never used on the PP enough..one year he led the league in even strength points (little known fact)..a junkyard dog - who punched well above his weight class at under 6 feet ( well maybe if you count his hair ha ha). Probably my favorite player from the Sedin teams. Since your on the topic of how to choose - here is some insight into what the pro's do when making these lists. Benesh a member of the Society of International Hockey Research with impeccable credentials and was one of the four historians that helped THN make their now three year old book on Top 50 (players all-time by franchise) ... he's a strong advocate of evaluating players based on their peak seasons using a formula called VsX - it adds another layer to points adjusted per era. What it does is creates a percentage against the second overall scorer over their peak - usually around seven years. " Once you stop worrying about career totals and focus on dominant seasons and outstanding peaks and primes played consistently you will see the cream of the crop and why" Benesh says - A seven year period is a good measuring stick but its also only the start. Linemates, defensive skills, TOI (how much the coach values you - more on that soon), intangibles, playoff and team success also matter. For defenseman TOI is a great indicator of how the player is viewed compared to his peers as the coach is the one guy who see that player the most and makes the decisions on ice time. Benesh says ' A focus on ice time may look like statiscal crunching, but really its' shorthand for what the players coaches thought of him" - Snepsts, Kearns, Jovo, Ohlund, Edler, Bieksa, Lumme ... plus plus. Also goes on to say that evaluating the importance of players over the course of a teams history goes beyond the eye test and studying statstics and data. Who was better Borque or Shore? No Norris pre 1953...how many would Shore win? 10 probably..and a finalist almost every year he played...so Shore. Benesh finishes by saying this " Coming to the final conclusion about a player's greatness still requires that one has a set of values that they apply subjectively - how do you weigh career value over peak perfromance? Offense vs Defense? Playoffs vs Regular season? And so on - there will never be a "right" answer or a consensus". To me I group players into games played and go from there - it pretty quickly separates the list and then value longevity vs peak performance....the article also goes on to explain how the last ten or so are much harder to do then the first ten - and where to rank the enforcers that made an impact (40-50 is where they went) as obviously they weren't great at playing the game for the most part. Not sure if this helps but it's how the pro's do it - hard for me personally to separate my favourites from the rankings - and not give them more extra then they probably deserve. When I see Tanev and Horvats name mentioned - I get it - But for me its the Ronning's, Courtnalls, Babych's Murzyn's and even Hedicans and Diducks that are crawling around my brain asking for some support.. Butcher too. Fond of tough SOBS and fond of the Linden teams that made me fall in love with the Canucks in the first place - disclaimer always liked them but WG took and the Oilers were never going to let the Canucks in during the 80s so growing up it was too easy to cheer for them too. Think you'd be happy to know Juice took their 23 spot...three after Edler and three before Hamhius, four before Salo. Playoffs do matter and all the rest.
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One of my favourites all-time and have been itching to nominate him for awhile. A few around now that still deserve consideration - looks pretty split. Saw your 1993 post and was just watching the first few minutes....glad I made that decision. Didn't know about that (Hamrlik). Think others try but failed to be like him - WD, Snepsts...altough pretty good lip dusters too ha ha
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Vote Boudrias this round...looks like this time the vote might matter more. Nominate Dave Babych.....
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Those were the top twenty of the time .... not all-time just back around 1994-95 (mid-90's)... all-time would be quite a different list for sure. Coxe/Probert are involved with the best hockeyfights.com ratings ever..10/10. If you watch those (Crowder ones were great too) then the best of the past few years its a little deflating. Reaves wouldn't make the top 20 back in 1994/95 would be a tier below with guys like Kruse, Brashear (although he did become a top fighter for sure), Bonvie, Peluso etc....forgot about Severyn he'd bump someone out of my top 20 - maybe Laus....add all the Nealy,Shanny/Tocchet/Clark/Stevens types it was one rodeo for sure...McRae was one tough SOB too long in the tooth by then..
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Salo was a big injection when he played - pretty sure our winning percentage went up when he was healthy....he just couldnt stay in healthy which is the only strike against him and it was a big one....many times I hoped we traded him just to give another team a problem in their line-up. It's also why I have had some hardship with both Tanev and Edler at times but with them it was at least more understandable given for a lot of the time there really wasn't much else and they were taking the hard minutes...this was not the case with Salo we had Jovo, Ohlund,Bieksa, and later Mitchell and even Hamhuis to split the time with...the guy was made of glass. Not a huge fan of BMO either but would definitely put him ahead of Salo. Back then fans wondered what we could do with a real first line center - its not like he was the offensive engine on that line - much like Burrows was a bit of a hanger on - but he did play and he was more defensively inclined then both Naslund and Bertuzzi. Still both these guys are a bit early considering who else is on the list..,,not that they weren't great Canucks because they were - one needed more health the other more skill.
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Tiger and Gino in the ring of honour would be awesome...fortunately I remember the higlights from Gino's first game fighting first Manson (Butcher reminds me of this guy - one tough SOB - trivia but it was a throat punch from Mommeso that damaged his voice so he only talks in soft raspy notes) and earned a lot of respect for for hanging in there - and then scored a near decision against Grimson - who also became a pretty good enforcer...no player on our team ever started his career like that. Have a soft spot for enforcers in general (not goons there is a difference) - guys that would protect our stars and keep the game clean (I'm on the side that argues that the league won't ever police itself - a rash of hand injuries came in at the same point they left the game - a rash of hand slashes - a code violation - no coincidence there - Methot's finger came nearly clear off from one from Crosby even the stars got involved) .... of course the league had to step in but it should never of happened in the first place. Watching old highlights the game has changed so much ... finishing your checks now has a different meaning. Like that obstruction was finally beaten out (check out how many PP's it took to get there) and that the red-line is gone as it speeds the game up and puts an emphasis on skill.. Technically with four lines rolling again things have reverted back to how they used to be pre-expansion with one glaring obmission. After decades of enforcers on virtually every fourth line players grew up not having to protect themselves and fighting their own battles. Aside from a small handful of "policeman" like that existed before then - who could also play the game - like Ferguson - the rest of the players were expected to get their own respect, space and fight their own battles. When did Howe, Makita, Lindsay, Richard ever look to a Semenko, Williams, McSorely, Brashear etc to fight for them? Never really. Think this will come back as guys that fight and can play are more valuable then ever,...Milbury was eventually correct in his vision of league wide "pansification" who would have predicted that 20 years ago... Maybe even a GM will go out and create a PHI re-boot one day and start the arms race again (doubtful but one can hope ha ha ).... Takes a certain type to go out and fight 20-30 times a year...bravehearts for sure - and most were loved by their teammates and fans for it. These are the top 20 enforcers off the top of my head (not including guys like Tochett, Stevens, S Stevens, Odelien, Clarke, Mommeeso, May)etc that could play the game at a higher level and fight too back in 1995ish Probert, Brown, Baumgartner, Twist, Simon, Ewen, Kocur, McCarthy, Berube, Gino, Grimson, Churla, DeBrusk, Manson, McKenzie, Domi, Crowder, Ray, Kruse, Ciccone....and that's less then half the list of guys that played that role, was also a tier down that would include Antoski, Bonvie, Tamer and Brashear who was just getting started - Parker too etc Times have sure changed.
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I have Lidster, Boudrias and Jovo in the top 20 already off the list...early 20's Lever, Kearns, Sundstrom and Bieksa.... Like your nomination for Williams and mentioning Gino - not sure where to put him exactly - as far as a greatness goes he's definitely a fan favorite even to today (Gino). That said his inclusion will bump someone out who was for sure a better player and a good player for us..for those that assume he was part of the 94 team - he wasn't he was benched in favour of Antoski, a better skater (not fighter)....these lists aren't easy. Have him somewhere in the mid 30's for now. Surprised to see Salo beating out guys on this list, even defenseman - he played less games then Lidster, Kearns and Bieksa - and was arguably only better then Bieksa - but I would still take KB over him anyday because of his intangibles and better health. Kearns was an excellent rusher and put up his points, also played a decade and put up 75 more points in 111 more games, and averaged 23 minutes....Salo was good when he played, but that wasn't often, wonder why that's forgotten so easily. THN has him one after Hamhuis at 27 so I guess he's not that far off. Jovo played 132 less games and scored 2 less points ... three all-star games - Olympic Gold, Babe Pratt awards etc...he should also get the nod first but at least he's getting some votes....THN had him at 16 - if he played most of his 1100 game with us no doubt he'd crack our top ten - didn't play long enough for us - personally wish the WCE era gave him the C and we kept him. On Tiger- he played 4.25 seasons for us and probably has the highest PIM per game of anyone who ever played with us...what did he get? - over 1200 PIMS for us during that time (and he played between 66-77 games for us in his full seasons)...he was part of our first run to the final - and he is the leagues all time badass. Could play the game too..he's one of a few Canucks that played 280-310 games for us and deserves a spot. Mogilny, Courtnall, Kurtenbach, and Rota are the others...
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Either Lidster or Boudrais - Lidster for now - Nominate Adams...
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This is true. It was almost like he kept riding the edge to the point he fell off and didn't know how to get back (well eventually near the end of his career he did but even then it only lasted a couple years and he did it again in his last gig). Savard was a great player that lost his career to a head shot and as a result finally woke the league up to actually changing the way the game was called. Cooke is a footnote on how that all unravelled. It also needed an ammendment -thanks to Cooke and others antic's to include all head shots not just the primary point of contact. Stevens crushing hits would be suspensions now...Cooke was a pretty popular player well here and scored some big goals. Later he became the most hated player in the league - sometimes even on his own team (Mario was lambasting the league to clean things up - then Cooke went out and did his thing - and made them fools - soon sent packing).
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The only way this will end for good is testing everyone for ant-bodies and vaccinating those that don't have them. Either that or every single person stays away from each other for two-three weeks .. the first seems more likely but have to be proud of the way our nation and the world is putting such an effort to save people.
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Good call...He went on to appear in a couple all-star games in PHI and set some records for them - a big part of Quins team that went to the final too (and had that crazy unbeaten streak that won't ever be broken now with ties gone). Big Bob Dailey was PHI answer to Robinson in MTL (not that it helped much - he came in and made mince-meat out one flyer after another and helped the Habs lose their PHI flu). Sad that his career was cut short and that he passed away too young. RIP. Our team should have kept him obviously - turned into a not so good trade for us.
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Rick Lanz...the Salo of the 80's with his howitzer.Ververgaert a hyped power forward with defensive lapses but still a big part of his teams..would add Lindgren and McCarthy - too bad he was injured in 1982. Those guys are in my list somewhere later on.. Oddleifson too solid playmaker and checker on long forgotten teams. Nice to see some air time. When (and it will happen) that some of the lesser players from the WCE era and the Sedin teams start to pop up I hope these guys are not all bumped out of the top 50. Cooke, Horvat, Tanev and EP have a lot of waiting to do (same with BB) before they bump some of these guys - or a player like Rota...
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Only on what you sell.
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Relive the 1989 Canucks vs. Flames 7 Game OT Series...
IBatch replied to Kevin Biestra's topic in Canucks Talk
Haven't watched the video's yet....but I can still count the ways Otto's goal shouldn't count. Those close to Quin say he never forgave the league for that and never got over that loss completely too. Goaltenders interference and he kicked it in - there I said it. Even he admits he got away with one now - and that if it wasn't for that series the rest of the way to the cup wouldn't have been possible it galvanized their team...Vernon not in the HHOF? Well how many great saves did he make just in OT? Robbery. One of the biggest fails every by a non-call in the history of the league. No video review provided an out. -
Will start this just like last one vote Lidster - nominate Ronning. Edit: The talent level is still very high in the guys available to select with a few still outside looking in that were good-great players for us. Lidster, Lumme, Boudrias, Jovo, Ronning, Bieksa, Lever, Sundstrom, Kearns, Babych, Morrison round out my 19-30 list of who's still there - pretty much in that order. Honourable menations to Salo, Hamhuis and Courtnall who just miss the cut. Edit: Three of the top ten I'd have in the 10-20 range - and one of the 10-20 so far i'd have in the 20-30 so some guys got displaced...like the first four on the list above.. won''t mentions names as i know everyone including myself has their favourites.
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Not the important ones like games won, single season or overall, team MVP, all-star selections, Vezina finalist selections - all-star games or second team all-star selections or playoff SP (McLean had .928 in 94) ...a tad early but I also have him in the top fifty - near the end. He's probably our fourth best goalie but some would have Smith higher. Playoff gaffs don't help his legacy - that said despite his failings he was a number one goalie at the time - and did have seven shut-outs for us one year. And if needed we also had one more puncher in the line-up which was pretty cool. Have him in the top fifty too - but not for a while yet.