gameburn
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Everything posted by gameburn
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Benning is the one who iced this team. Who failed so catastrophically this summer/fall. When the team is very good again (when Eriksson, Beagle, and Roussel are bought out/gone and the Luongo contract is finally done with) -- we will probably benefit from a different coach. I'm not sure it matters that much until Benning/the contract situation is fixed. However, management might still want to fire him in the next few weeks. I don't think Benning will survive March unless there is just an enormous turn around with a real shot at the playoffs. The team we had in the playoffs last year could have beaten this Leafs, which kind of tells us how quickly and completely the team has worsened.
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I think it's best to trade over-the-hill/no longer signable players as early as possible in a season you are not going to make the playoffs (like this one.) But keep your younger players and players with contract value til later or just keep them. 101 asset management I would think. Throwing Virtanen in for another player doesn't make as much sense as dealing a lot of other players first (e.g., Beagle, Roussel, Pearson, Sutter, Edler, in particular, and obviously Erkisson, although he is looking like a buyout.) I'm in the group that would like to see the Canucks go back to a version of a rebuild: get rid of all the players who are not working out/not in the plans/take up valuable cap space and build for a run in a year or two. Getting rid of Benning would have to be part of this. And by the end of the homestand coming up. The trade value of everyone they need to get rid of would seem, to me at least, to go down every day now. Teams trying to make the playoffs need the new blood now, while there is still time to make the playoffs.
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That's a really good idea. He has breakaway speed and good takeaway skills, and should be ideal for this.
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I think the problem is talent. Not enough. Benning's signings have finally caught up. Too many older, slower players taking up too much money means that we can't get the players in who could provide the team speed/quality we need. Beagle, Sutter, Eriksson, Roussell, and Edler and Benn: not good enough for the money and space they take up. The summer was, as everyone knows, a disaster. Stecher, Tanev, Toffoli, Markstrom are gone; not nearly enough quality replacements. All these guys left without anything in return for the team. This was all predictable, should have been dealt with. This is why Benning is said to be close to being fired. (Don't know if that's true, but it is not a surprise.) When you have a team with too many slow players there is a tendency to take penalties -- an absolute killer for the team this year. This also sidelines the Boeser/Pettersson types who usually don't kill penalties. Morale appears to be an issue: you lose 4 starting players (5, counting Leivo) and you have not only a talent problem but a morale problem -- some of these players were important leaders/go-to guys.
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His lack of effort in this last playoff run was hard to watch. He has the brains for the game, but not the will or energy. And he's too old now too, which just makes the whole thing ridiculous. I almost cannot remember what he played like when he first got here, but a couple of the commentators (not play by play guys) suggested that as much as 2 years ago LE could play a whole game and not work up a sweat. I think he will be in Utica when the season starts; don't see what other choice the team has. Give up a draft pick and throw in Virtanen to move him somewhere? Lol, there would be such a fan revolt.
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Yes, I think you have it. One thing Vegas has shown us is that team speed lets you play a different kind of game. Depth doesn't hurt either, and Hoglander and Podkolzin will provide that. Don't forget the D too: Rafferty and Rathbone look pretty good and Juolevi actually looks NHL ready (we saw him play in the NHL finally lol!) All five of these players have speed and look like they can make decisions quickly and in tight spaces. Guys like Benn and Beagle are placeholders only, and when Edler is replaced by a speedier player the D will look more like Hughes's sort of team. Not saying we have a dynasty, but it will be a much quicker, better rounded team. Overpaying Beagle, Eriksson and Edler (relative to the young guns) will be I think a thing of the past. And the timing couldn't be better: going to have to come up with some serious cash for Pettersson and Hughes, as we all know.
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It looks that way, true. And their record suggests it. Funny though: they have an awful lot of players that wouldn't make the Canucks. And no Pettersson or Hughes caliber players. So why are they better? Better balance/depth? Better D? No super bad contracts (such as our LE) so more money for more depth? To me, their success is a bit of a mystery.
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I just watched Bayern Munich dismantle other teams on the way to the Champions League Title. (Wanted to see Alphonso D play.) Got hooked watching this team play. Their team philosophy and culture is incredible. They are constantly re-tuning. Never rebuild. Different sport, different collective agreement for sure, but the philosophy is good: always bring along young players at every position, and NEVER keep a player past a certain age for sentimental purposes. Basically, never keep older players a second longer than they deserve according to their play. I know our contracts and equivalent to "transfer windows" is very different, but I do think acting on the principle that older players cannot be carried ONLY or primarily for "locker-room value" or "mentoring" is interesting. This team had to find some way to get rid of LE long before this, at least last year. They had to do the same with the Sedins, and never did. Arjen Robben and Frank Ribery are still playing -- they didn't get their contracts renewed in Bayern and it certainly felt like they "retired", but in fact both continue to play somewhere else. By some miracle of Bavarian logic, the players and the management knew when the players could not contribute at the level Bayern requires, and they all went their own ways very happily. Gabry and Davies and Sane have more or less replaced them, the team never missed a step.
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Because LE has not done a lot since coming to Vancouver -- and his body has taken so little wear and tear -- I think he probably thinks he can still play. And because he hasn't done much, he probably thinks he has something to prove. Which makes it hard for him to retire/go back to Sweden. If this is the case, it's kind of sad. But his lack of finishing and general lack of ferocity without the puck kind of says it all. He needs an agent who can be honest with him? Not sure how this works, but he has to do something. Otherwise the team will park him in the minors much as what happened with Higgins. They certainly can't trade him. (Imagine throwing in Gaudette or Virtanen as a sweetener n a trade where we dump LE's contract and get a Lucic type guy back. The fanbase would freak.)
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So right. When we really needed a game, he wasn't in the lineup. If Ferland weren't so unlucky, and could play, it would be even more obvious that LE is not needed.
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The fact that Eriksson doesn't block shots or do a version of what a real penalty killer does -- e.g., Motte -- is what makes his "role" such a non-starter. The fact is: he has no role on this team, that's why he started so few games the last year or two. Motte, Sutter, Toffoli etc. all do his alleged role better. Eriksson also doesn't take faceoffs (like Beagle, another guy we worried was not doing enough.) He doesn't "rise" to the occasion with physical play or stand up for his mates, like Jake does. People who say that LE does more than Graovac or Bailey and therefore deserve to play, forget the actual situation of the team: we have a LOT of forwards, and if not for the bad luck of Ferland and the bizarre decision to make Jake a scratch, LE would not have seen one second of playing time this playoffs. He was brought here to play with the Sedins, he was expected to get points, lead with his play. He didn't do it, he doesn't do it. He is now too old to even imagine doing it. He is a by-product of a new GM's learning on the job, and of a legally binding contract that the Canucks are too nice to to find a way around. He should have been sent to the minors back in November.
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Prescient comment. Because that's exactly what happened a few hours later. I love it when one of our own gets it exactly right. Toffoli makes Eriksson completely unnecessary. I'm not sure Gaudette and Lind don't as well. Or Ferland, or big Mac. Or anyone else in the organization. The truth is: Eriksson is done. It isn't only that he can no longer score or impact the offense -- that's bad enough -- but he doesn't seem to do much defensively either. He's a good enough athlete that he can still more or less skate, but his hands are gone -- this is what it is to be too old to play at a high level. If he were paid what Jake is paid, he'd already have been traded/sent to the minors months and months ago. He is the worst contract around. Breaks my heart to think that classy guys like Higgins were "dismissed" and set up to retire, but a guy like this is carried, and carried and carried and...