GritGrinder

Hmmm. What the Leafs just did looks familiar.

I should clarify, I don't think Tryamkin is coming back to Vancouver. My understanding is that Tryamkin would be a UFA in 2022 if he plays one more season in the KHL. He's already been gone 4 years so if you're him, his agent and family why not wait the one more year and then likely have your pick of half a dozen or more NHL teams that might be interested?

A couple of things. Would be 4 dmen making $6m+ and probably close to $30m for that d-corps and I'm very skeptical that Tryamkin is coming back. Edler is not having a very good season and turns 35 around the trade deadline so I can't see him getting a 1st.

I noticed they put Hamonic on the LTIR yesterday which means a minimum of 10 more games missed. Do you know if that can be retro-dated to the games he's already missed or is it another 10 games he's out? If its an additional 10 games that puts him out until the Leafs game here Mar. 4th and they could obviously really use him for this next set of games against CGY, EDM and WPG.

The vast majority of 1st round picks outside of the top 3 take 2-3 years before they are in the NHL if at all so this was hardly a shrewd move by JB. Only 9 players from his draft year have played NHL games and only 3 of those have played more than 10 games, the aforementioned top 3.

Its looks like you're just replacing Pearson with Podkolzin and you think this will make up for all the current defensive and intangible woes the top 6 is currently having? Or are you anticipating a new coaching staff that will implement a new D strategy that the current top 6 can be successful with?

Hamonic was just placed on LTIR. Does anyone know if this was cap related? Once a player is on LTIR they have to miss a minimum of 10 games and I'm not sure they can back-date it. If he has to miss 10 more games minimum that's a bit of a blow to the d-corps that could definitely use his help.

Here's where that logic kind of has some holes in it. Schmidt is only a year and a half younger than Tanev but is signed for an additional year. When Tanev's contract ends he'll be 34 yrs and 7 months old, when Schmidt's contract ends he's 2 weeks from turning 34. I know Tanev has missed significant time previously to injuries but Schmidt has also missed a large # of games (50+) to injury the last few seasons. And lets not forget the $1.5m aav difference as well. Markstrom just turned 31 and he hasn't exactly been a workhorse, only 125 total NHL appearances in his first 7 seasons. Most would say he is just entering his prime so him performing well until he's 36-37 isn't that crazy. JB could have either traded Demko (probably for a 1st or some high-end prospect) or could have made a deal with Seattle to ensure Demko wasn't taken and have him as Marky's back up for another couple of seasons and hope his trade value increases. Either way JB had a few different options here and basically took the easiest one. Toffoli is only 28 and it was only a 4yr deal so I'm not sure his deal will be as "aging poorly" as you assume it will. Let JV walk and the extra $1.5m JB spent on Schmidt over Tanev makes up the difference to sign Toffoli. Again, there were options and JB took the easiest one. JB not making enough "bold" moves will likely cost him his job, probably at the end of this season or sooner if things progress the way they are.

So why aren’t the “key pieces” putting all that “battle testing” to work right now? They don’t know what to expect now but they will in April/May of 2022 when they maybe make the playoffs again? If they really are “battle tested” then they wouldn’t be one of the worst teams in the league right now and it’s likely that they won’t even see the playoffs for 14+ months.

He’s 26 in a couple of months, Miller is 28 next month.

Do they though? The best defensive dmen are probably Edler, Benn and Hamonic. The best defensive forwards are probably Beagle, Motte, Sutter, Horvat, Roussel. I'm willing to bet 6 of those 8 are not on the team in the next season or 2. And the vast majority of the salary cap those 6 take up will go to players already on the team and they will still have to be replaced. It might actually get a bit worse before it gets better. :|

Makar, Heiskanen, Girard, Dobson just to name a few have acclimated themselves well to both sides of the puck so far at 21. If QH wants to be mentioned in the same sentence as these guys going forward he's going to have to improve defensively by quite a bit.

Can't see them getting less than the $7m that Barzal got. He's very comparable to both. The most JB thing of all would be to sign EP and QH to 2 year bridge deals and then give Brock a 1 year QO for 22-23 and have all 3 plus Bo and JT as FA's of varying degree in the 22-23 offseason. Also its my understanding that only EP is eligible for an offer sheet because QH burned a year of his ELC by signing out of college and playing the 5 games at the end of 2019.

Yeah well unless they resign Edler or give $8m to Dougie Hamilton then the top 4 next season looks like Myers, Hughes, Schmidt and Juolevi. No offense to those 4 players but that has to be the softest top 4 in the entire league.

The biggest difference is pretty easy to see in terms of deployment at least in Schmidt's case. Here are his zone starts for his entire career. 13-14 55.8 oZ 44.2 dZ 14-15 58.7 oZ 41.3 dZ 15-16 55.5 oZ 44.5 dZ 16-17 59.4 oZ 40.6 dZ 17-18 46.7 oZ 53.3 dZ 18-19 46.4 oZ 53.6 dZ 19-20 49.7 oZ 50.3 dZ 20-21 37.5 oZ 62.5 dZ Always in the 40-50% range for DZone starts until this season where Green has him at 62.5% DZone starts. 10-20% more Dzone starts than at anytime in his career is not letting us see the Schmidt that was in Washington and Vegas. So either Schmidt gets better defensively, Green evens out his zone starts or he just continues to be un-impressive in his current role.

Both goalies in CBJ and NYR and the kid in Chicago lighting it up this year for starters. Oh and Demko isn’t a prospect anymore, he’s the Canucks starting goalie so it’s sink or swim.

Completely different players. A couple of examples: Bure scored 35 goals in 44 games in his last season in Russia as a 19yr old. Podkolzin has 5 goals in 33 games in what is likely his last year in Russia as a 19yr old. Bure scored 27 goals in 21 World Jr games. Podkolzin scored 3 goals in 21 World Jr games. About the only comparison you can make is that both probably love their mom’s cabbage rolls.

With no back-to-backs in the next 6 the Canucks are likely to face Markstrom and Hellebuyck in all 6. Just the defending Vezina winner and Marky. No pressure.

Ugh. Not implying anything. Just stating a fact, the Myers signing has been getting roasted on CDC since day one and so far the Schmidt acquisition seems as bad or worse and you barely hear anything about it here.

Not my point. JB gets crucified on here for signing Myers to a 5x$6m contract on a daily basis and the acquisition of Schmidt is even worse because of the 3rd rounder. I know its a small sample size but so far Schmidt offers little to nothing and him and Myers are not worth anything close to $6m.

Also if JB had signed Nate Schmidt to a 5yr $30m contract as a UFA people would have freaked. But give up a 3rd rounder for him and he seems to get a pass.

This is more of a dream than a hope. Aho's cap hit is nearly $8.5m which is not "relatively low" but is what EP could ask for but I'm thinking something closer to the 3x$7m Barzal signed this off-season. As for Hughes, he will likely lead the league in dmen scoring and be in the top 5 in assists for the whole league. Werenski signed a 3x$5m which Hughes' agent would laugh at. A 3x$7m matching EP is likely what will happen.

Lets say you're JB or whomever the GM might be on July 1st 2022 and you have $20m to spend. Bearing in mind that some of the younger guys (Jones, Barkov, Parayko, Ristolainen etc.) will likely sign extensions prior to becoming UFA's who on this list do you target that would make an impact on the Canucks?

Yikes. Unless some are willing to take a significant pay cut I wouldn't touch 80% of this list.