The_Rocket

Seen that some member of the analytics community have been posting historic WAR player cards based on requests from Twitter users. Both burrows and Kesler have been posted. somehow, burrows was one of the best penalty killers in the league, while Kesler was one of the worst. it’s worth noting that PK WAR only considers DEFENSE. Scoring goals and generating rushes on the PK does not matter for this stat. how is it possible that Kesler and burrows, who spent most of their PK time TOGETHER are so drastically different? how did burrows defensive game get so awful in 2011, his best year? hiw is Burrows’s penalty differential so good, knowing how many minors he took? unfortunately, these cards get passed around like gospel but I often find they leave far more questions than answers. And the data behind them isn’t easily reviewed, and their compiled by one guy. is this stat Broken, or am I missing something?

Honestly don’t really see a spot for him unless the Canucks are trading away a top 9 player. canucks have more pressing needs, imo.

I believe money pick had the Canucks at 70% chance to make the playoffs when the pause happened. Interestingly, we had just gotten Boeser back after he missed significant time with injury, but we were about to lose Tanev to injury if not for the pause. So it’s tough to tell if injuries would have played a part in us missing or not Even still, there is certainly no reason to think the Canucks were on pace to miss the playoffs. A poor 10 games is not indicative of how the remaining 14 games would play out. Prior to the losing skid, they were one of the hottest teams in league. edit: just went and found an article from right before the pause about their chances. Hockeyviz has them down to 54% percent coming off a 6-9-3 skid. I forgot about the markstrom injury as well at that time. here’s a link to the article: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-archive/sports/six-reasons-why-it-would-be-disastrous-for-the-canucks-to-miss-the-playoffs-this-season-3118575 edit 2: ignore that 70% figure. I must be misremembering. Looks like industry consensus was putting them just above 50%

Been thinking about this topic a lot, and almost made my own thread about it, but thought I’d just do a post on here. TLDR Poolman could be just as useful at defending 5 on 5 has Tanev was in his final year with the Canucks, but his overall game is slightly below Tanev. Neither player is likely to perform at “peak Tanev” levels. from what I can tell, the main argument against Poolman is his underlying numbers are awful, whereas Tanev’s are really good. Many refer to this chart floating around to argue about how difficult it is to replace Tanev on the Canucks: this WAR chart from last season shows Tanev was one of the best Defensive Defenseman in the league and was fantastic at preventing chances against. However, this chart ONLY shows data from last season with the flames. If we want an idea of how good Tanev was with the Canucks, we need to look further back. this chart shows Tanev’s last 3 seasons: one thing to note is that his play with the Canucks, especially in their playoff year in 2019-2020, was significantly lower than his play with Calgary, at least from a WAR perspective. In fact, if we go back further, we can see Tanev was on the decline for some time... this final Tanev chart shows Tanev’s final three seasons in Van, and the trajectory is very obviously downward. In fact, his final season ranks him as below replacement level somehow. now let’s compare this to Poolman yeesh… that’s a lot of red. But there are some interesting things to consider here. First of all, for whatever reason, there is no data from Poolman rookie season in 2018-2019. He played 24 games that year, so maybe that’s not a big enough sample for the model? I’m not sure. However, if we look at the graph in the bottom right of his card, we can see that his even strength defensive war percentile (which measures how good he is compared to the rest of the league at preventing scoring chances against) was above 50% that season. In fact, last season, Poolman had a better defensive WAR than Tanev had in his final year with Vancouver. so, what can be gleaned from these stats? Well first it’s important to note that many metrics on here seem wonky, to say the least. Poolman had one penalty last year but apparently he is in the bottom quarter of defenders in the league for penalty differential. also, Tanev’s PK results apparently got worse in Calgary despite his Even strength defending being a career high, not sure what’s up with at. It could be that systems, coaching, teammates, etc. Influence these numbers more than the analysts think they do. It’s also important to note that neither of these guys are relied on for their offense. So stats like finishing, shooting percentage, g/60, A1/60 etc are all pretty much useless in evaluating how they will fit into the Canucks roster. However, I think it’s useful to not that Poolman has one bad season and one good season of defensive play, where has Tanev had been on the decline for several years and had one of the biggest bounce back campaigns (from a WAR perspective) of all time. Poolman next year could, in fact, be better than Tanev should Tanev go back to his 2019-2020 level of play. so what is the main conclusion here? Basically, from an (admittedly flawed) analytical perspective, it is very possible and reasonable (though not likely) that Poolman provides as much, if not more, defensive value to the Canucks that Tanev did when he was on the team. It’s a gamble for sure, but it may pay off better than many of us assume

I really don’t understand the fascination on this thread with trading away our forwards. Canucks FINALLY have a good forward core and everyone wants to trade them away? Just can’t stand being good I suppose. I don’t think the plan is it rebuild the blue line. It should be, but I don’t think that’s the plan. Canucks have rebuilt their blue line every year for the past 3 years. We can’t keep doing it every offseason i think this is what we get. This is the team we go with for the next 2 or 3 years. If it fails, it fails

Yeah I know that but he moved to Quebec when he was 16 and still lives there in the offseason and speaks French. That makes him a French Canadian by definition. If MTL does want a Francophone, Roussel fits the bill

Long time no post for me on here! But I got this idea today and wanted to seek some feedback on it... so here I am! as the title says, I’m proposing Roussel to MTL one for one with Paul Byron. Here’s my reasoning: TDLR: Canucks get the better player while MTL gets a French guy with one less year on his contract. long version: Habs will likely lose Danault to FA and I think Drouins days in that city are done as well. If both of them leave, habs will have 0 Francophone players. I’m not sure how important it is to them to have a French guy, but I think there is some serious consideration by ownership there to have at least someone who speaks French as their main language. Roussel is a decent enough pest but his offense has evaporated and he has to be in sheltered minutes to be at all effective. Byron, on the other Has decent underlying metrics, is a good pk/2-way winger, and would fit in nicely beside Dickinson and Podkolzin on a checking third line. the big factor here are the contracts. Similar AAV (Roussel 3 million, Byron 3.4 million) BUT roussel has only one year left where as Byron has two. This matters because the Canucks will be shedding a ton of cap hits after this season (LE, Beagle, Luongo Recap, etc.) with no major RFA’s to sign (aside from Rathbone and Depieteo, who should be cheap) so they can afford to have Byron carry over one extra year. MTL on the other hand, have to re-sign Suzuki after this coming season. It would benefit them greatly getting Byron’s AAV off the books for that year, especially considering it looks like they will try and keep Armia who fills a similar role anyways. this would give the Canucks a top 12 like so: Miller - Petet - Boes Pearson - Horvat - Hoglander Byron - Dickinson - Podkolzin Motte - Beagle - A Guy (“a guy” is one of highmore, MacEwan, Lind, lockwood, etc.) imo its a pretty decent lineup with 2 lines of high scoring, a solid checking line, a 4th line that can actually tread water, and overall a good defensive group especially compared to last year.

Best I’d do is something like Eriksson + 9OA 2021 (Van) to Detroit for 27OA 2021 (WSH) basically trading down in the first round. Even then I’m not sure it’s worth it

Forget Tampa, we’re not getting Cernak or Foote pretty much guaranteed. They will go 4-4-1 and then dump Johnson and palat in the offseason. Their situation isn’t as bad as everyone says. All their cap dumps are still good players. Should look at the canes or Colorado or Anaheim or Pittsburg or Florida. Rathbone and woo are very valuable trade chips in this instance due to their ED exemption status. A team can trade away a defensemen without totally giving up their depth in the position

I think Virtanen will be a pretty tantalizing piece for Seattle, given the other options that will be available. We would be lucky if they took him. I’d go: pettersson boeser miller horvat pearson lind motte schmidt juolevi literally anyone demko canucks clearly have an opportunity to add a defenseman via trade before the draft as the have what is basically an unused spot. Myers doesn’t really need to be protected since I can’t see Seattle wanting to pay him a 5 million dollar bonus this summer that he’s due

3 years for a guy with 0 nhl experience????? What an albatross of a contract !!!! jb gonna jb

Pettersson and Hughes will both hit new career high point totals this season

It’s based on percentage. IE if the Canucks retain 3 million, they retain 50% of whatever salary is still owed Eriksson. So 500k salary retained but $3 million in cap relief

Exactly. OEL is going to be paid his money whether Boston signs him or not. It makes no difference to the players on the team if he makes more, just as long as he helps them win

You’d have to be exceptionally petty and narcissistic to be upset that your GM traded for a good player just because he makes more money than you.

True but I think they will put benn in. Honestly though might be worth while running 7 D and 11 F. Sit Virtanen or MacEwan or one of those guys only playing 5 mins a game

honestly I think Stecher should be the point man on PP2 if Myers can’t go. Spread out the ice time and keep everyone fresh

Honest question, how much is Marner worth? I see a lot of leafs fans demanding he be traded, but his contract is truly awful. There are far better RFA’s from last year who signed way more team friendly contracts (point, tkachuk, Boeser, Mcavoy, provorov, etc.) 10 million a season for a first line RW? Seems like a lot. TML will have to take cap back if they want to trade him. horvat and miller together are the same amount of cap hit as just Marner

Myers and Eriksson for Mitch marner who says no?

Both teams have been bad recently. That said, Blues are deeper. I think Petey will feast on the stars

Really I think centre is one of our biggest strengths right now. A superstar in Petey, high end 60 point two-way guy the size of a barn in Bo, a PP specialist in Gaudette, and a PK guy in Beagle. I can understand wanting to swap out gaudette for some one more defensively minded but at the same time, there are far bigger holes in the Canucks line up right now. one thing to consider as well is, due to the fact he is ineligible to be offer sheeted and has no arbitration rights, the Canucks can probably get Gaudette in a 2 yr deal for under 2 million per season. You won’t find many 3rd line centres for that cheap in the NHL

Would expect Gaudette to be around the same

Louis Eriksson turned 31 17 days after signing with Vancouver. 3 yrs older than Toffoli is now

Good deal for the flyers and lindbolm. Gotta imagine a Virtanen extension will come in at less than this one, which is good news for the Canucks