GoldenAlien
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These are false equivalencies. Teams use logos that go with their names. It's the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Edmonton Oilers and so on. Montreal's logo is actually two Cs and a H -- their official name is Le Club de hockey Canadien, or CHC. A double lined B represents the Boston Bruins, while the spokes were to signify Boston as a hub. American physicist and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. described the Massachusetts State House as the hub of the solar system, presumably because of Boston's significance in the American Revolutionary War and early U.S. history. No one is saying that the team logo needs to be something exclusive to the area. Otherwise none of Johnny Canuck, orca, or lumber references would make it. What, you mean there are trees outside of British Columbia? The Canuck equivalent would be if the Hurricanes used a racing car as its crest. But isn't North Carolina most famous for its races? Why can't the logo just symbolize the location? Do you think it makes sense to use a car as the logo if you name the team hurricanes? The team should've been named the Carolina Racers if that's what they wanted to use. Florida is known for its swamps and crocodiles/ alligators. Do you not think it's ridiculous if the Bolts used a crocodile stylized into a L as their crest? What exactly is the difference between that and the orca? The crocodile is native to the area, and the L represents Lightning, just like the orca is native to the coast of B.C., and the C represents Canucks. There is no more relation between a whale and a Canadian than there is between a crocodile and a lightning. You can use the stick in rink because the V signifies Vancouver, or you can use Johnny Canuck because he symbolizes the Canucks. Or you can use JC with some sort of V symbol to represent the Vancouver Canucks. JC can be redrawn, it doesn't have to look like it does now. Here are all the logos in the NHL: http://www.sportslogos.net/teams/list_by_year/12019/2019_NHL_Logos/ Please point out one other logo that uses an animal or symbol that is completely unrelated to the team's name. In fact, check out the other three major professional sports leagues in North America: NBA: http://www.sportslogos.net/teams/list_by_league/6/National_Basketball_Association/NBA/logos/ NFL: http://www.sportslogos.net/teams/list_by_league/7/National_Football_League/NFL/logos/ MLB: http://www.sportslogos.net/teams/list_by_year/42019/2019_MLB_Logos/ Out of 123 teams across four leagues, Canucks are the only ones that use an animal unrelated to its name.
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Did not scroll through all 19 pages of this scintillating discussion so my apologies if this has been posted before. But I think this is the best design I've ever seen: You have Johnny Canuck from his war pilot days, the V collar from the Flying V, and the stick in rink in the goggles. Could do another stick in rink patch on the shoulders. Or could do stick in rink as the main logo, and this Johnny Canuck as the shoulder patch. Use JC as the crest for the third jersey, maybe in green. Rotate in the orca, without the Vancouver lettering, every five years (55th anniversary, 60th anniversary, etc), as the third jersey or special edition jersey. Then we can keep Finn as the mascot for the kids. The current Johnny would be great for a farm team if we ever relocate one to the Pacific Northwest. It's just too cartoonish for the big club. I love the flying skate but it has zero symbolism -- no connections to the Canucks, Vancouver or B.C. If you changed the Canucks lettering to Flames, you could plaster it onto their jerseys and make it work. IMO it's best to keep the flying skate and the millionaires jersey for special occasions -- throwback night, Winter Classic, etc.
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I wouldn’t read too much into the results. Which team had the better players, the Blue Jackets or the Bolts? You don’t need to have the best players to be the best team. Particularly for these tournaments, sometimes you throw together a bunch of great players but they don’t mesh well. The U.S. has absolutely dominated — 10 golds and 4 silvers in the past 20 years — but it hasn’t been the clear #1 in producing prospects over the same time period. Difference is because of the USNTDP, the U.S. always puts together a good team, while everyone else put together a collection of good players. The Euros may have assembled a better group with more complimentary skill sets this year, but that doesn’t mean they have a higher number of great individual talents.
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I'd be surprised (and a little dismayed) if Boucher was re-signed. He's turning 26 in September. At the NHL level, he's not a penalty killer, or a physical presence, or a defensive force. He has little to offer besides offense, except he had 5pts in 20GP (2016-2017) and 7pts in 27GP (2017-2018) the last times he had prolonged stints with the Canucks. It's one thing if Boucher had a late growth spurt and needed years to adjust, or if he started off playing in some obscure lower league, or if he was spending time to re-mold his game to be a defensive player. He's none of the above. He's an undersized scoring forward, and to be a scoring forward in the NHL you have to have elite skillset. That type of skill is going to show itself before 25 years old. The oft-cited exception to the rule, St. Louis, had 40pts in 78GP at Boucher's age. Boucher, on the other hand, played a grand total of 5:28 in the NHL for all of last season. He's simply not talented enough to make it. Instead of sticking with Boucher, why not try for someone who might still have a chance. Someone like Reider, who's motivated to work his way back into the NHL. Or a guy like Lazar, who's looking for his last chance, or Dano, who was a promising rookie but never recaptured that form again. Sure, maybe none of these guys are NHL material but at least there are possibilities there. We know what we have with Boucher. Unless he's willing to take an AHL-only deal, wasting a contract spot on him seems frivolous. If we signed a couple extra Bouchers we wouldn't have Rafferty or Kielly right now.
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From our last Calder winner:
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All players are products of their teams, no way Quick puts up 1.95 GAA in 2011-2012 if he was playing on the Oilers. But among OHL goalies, DiPietro's playoff stats have been impressive. Among goalies who have started at least one game, DiPietro is first in GAA (2.26). The next two, Dhillon and Prosvetov, have 2.36 and 2.38. Among goalies who have started at least one game, DiPietro is fifth in SV% (0.913). He's third among goalies who have played more than five games. Prosvetov (0.930) and Keyser (0.925) are ahead of him. DP is also third in the league in minutes played. Was Tim Thomas good because he had prime Chara and Seidenberg in front of him? Or did Boston's defense look good because they had Tim Thomas? One of the reasons Ottawa is stacked is because they have a top goalie on their team.
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Utunen's season is over, Tappara won the Bronze game (the winners of the top four plays for the championship, while the losers play for the Bronze). No points in 11 playoff games, though he's still 18 for a few more days and spent the whole season on the second ranked team in the Liiga. Some praise from Judd Brackett:
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Judd Brackett's review: Full interview: https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/q-a-with-canucks-scouting-director-judd-brackett
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It's not just Kovalchuk and Radulov. It's Nichushkin leaving because he didn't want to play for Ruff. It's Burmistrov bolting (twice) because he didn't like his role. It's Grigorenko refusing to report back to the Q as a 19 year old and Kostitsyn getting suspended because he didn't want to play in the AHL. It's Komarov (leaving twice), Datsyuk (leaving with a year left on a 35+ contract), and Shipachyov (terminating his contract the second he was headed to the AHL). Sure, there are family reasons, but do you see any Swedes or Finns bailing out early and leaving their teams with empty cap hits? It's Varlamov and Bobrovsky publicly threatening to go to the KHL during contract negotiations to gain leverage. It's this attitude: Podkolzin is not Ovechkin or Malkin. Ovechkin and Malkin were never in the conversation of dropping to #10. They were not possible candidates for #3. They were like McDavid/ Eichel going #1 and #2. Nobody is thinking they could still get one outside of top two. Not to mention both were committed to coming to North America and did so as soon as they were able. Podkolzin is much closer to Nichushkin, who also had top 5 talent and was an incredible athlete at 6'4" (Podkolzin is 6'1"). Their draft year stats: Nichushkin: 6pts in 18 KHL games, 10pts in 15 VHL games, 8pts in 9 MHL games. Podkolzin: 0pts in 3 KHL games, 5pts in 14 VHL games, 8pts in 12 MHL games. Assuming that Byram, Hughes and Kakko will be long gone before #10, then at least three of Dach, Cozens, Zegras, Boldy, Turcotte, Krebs, Caufield, Kaliyev or Newhook will be available. And that's if no one before us goes off the board, or if we don't want a D like Soderstrom, Broberg or Harley. Want a project? Kaliyev scored 31 goals as an OHL rookie and has 51 goals and 102pts in 67 games this year, and he has a June birthday. Concerned about his consistency and two-way play? Well, you can stash him in the AHL for three years while he works on his game. Unlike Podkolzin, he's got no choice but to figure things out with the team that drafts him. It's one thing if you got a guaranteed superstar like Ovechkin, or if you want to take a flyer with a late second like Kucherov. Want to swing for the fences, take Dorofeyev at #40. But stay away from using a top 10 pick on a guy who can use the KHL against you any time he's unhappy.
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Lockwood had Quinn Hughes.
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ESPN repicks the 2018 draft: http://www.espn.com/nhl/insider/story/_/id/26553504/regrading-repicking-2018-nhl-draft Here's their top 10 in a redraft: #1 Dahlin #2 Svechnikov #3 Tkachuk #4 Kotkaniemi #5 Hughes #6 Zadina #7 Hayton #8 Dobson #9 Kravtsov #10 Bouchard I think in a few years Hughes could be top three in his draft class, ahead of Kotkaniemi and one of Tkachuk/ Svechnikov.
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The Hockey News released its Future Watch top 100 prospects list and the Canucks have four: #2 Quinn Hughes #35 Thatcher Demko #66 Olli Juolevi #70 Tyler Madden Full list here, though it’s subscription only: https://thehockeynews.com/all-access/article/future-watch-top-100-prospects Biech had his own write up: https://www.nhl.com/canucks/news/vancouver-canucks-the-hockey-news/c-306699334 Hughes is only behind Makar, who’s at #1. Unfortunately Juolevi dropped 45 spots (#21 last year) because of his knee injury. Demko rose 3 spots and is the third ranked goalie behind Luukonen (#21) and Samsonov (#29).
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2018-19 Utica Comets Thread
GoldenAlien replied to stonecoldstevebernier's topic in Prospects / Farm Team
Gadjovich with a fight, MacEwen with a goal, Jasek collects two assists and Lind scores the shootout winner as the Comets come back from a 2-0 deficit to win it 4-3. Syracuse is the division champ and second in the entire league, so all in all a nice finish to the season. Final stats for the rookies: Jasek: 63GP - 9G - 29pts Lind: 51GP - 5G - 16pts Gadjovich: 43GP - 4G - 10pts MacEwen ends the year with 69GP - 22G - 53pts, good for third in team scoring behind Boucher and Kero. He's eighth in points among U23 players in the AHL. Hopefully he'll come into camp next season and grab a spot like Motte did. The goals: -
2018-19 Utica Comets Thread
GoldenAlien replied to stonecoldstevebernier's topic in Prospects / Farm Team
New interview with Sautner: https://canucksarmy.com/2019/04/10/ashton-sautner-played-17-nhl-games-this-season-what-did-it-take-for-him-to-get-to-that-point/ Some good insights. I think this is pretty applicable to a lot of prospects making the jump to pro: On coaching and resources in Utica: -
2018-19 Utica Comets Thread
GoldenAlien replied to stonecoldstevebernier's topic in Prospects / Farm Team
Yes, look at the top. It's players that the ECHL says is on the 2018-2019 NHL opening night rosters. Though Burrows is another example where good scouting picked him up while he was playing in the ECHL -- he never played in the ECHL as a Canuck. This is more like the Comets signing an ECHL player they like, then they impress and work themselves up to an NHL contract. This isn't like the Canucks sending its own prospects to the ECHL because they couldn't hack it in the AHL. Anyways, goals by the kids: -
2018-19 Utica Comets Thread
GoldenAlien replied to stonecoldstevebernier's topic in Prospects / Farm Team
The issue with the ECHL is it's almost completely useless for developing NHL players outside of goalies. People like to say that guys like Girardi came up from the ECHL because it's a good story, but he actually only played 7 games in the ECHL. If he just sat in the press box in the AHL for a couple of weeks, he would've turned out exactly the same. The ECHL claims that 66 of its former players were on NHL's 2018-2019 opening night roster: https://www.echl.com/en/news/2018/10/echl-has-66-former-players-42-coaches-on-nhl-opening-day-rosters But if you go through the list at the bottom, 30 of them are goalies. Assuming teams generally start with 21 skaters, that's 630 skaters on opening night, but only 36 ever played in the ECHL, or less than 6%. If you take a closer look at the list, many of the bigger names were NHLers playing in ECHL during the 2012 lockout (like Dubinsky, who played five full NHL seasons prior to being in the ECHL). Then there are guys who only played a handful of games in the ECHL, like Ferland, who played three games after his WHL season ended. Then there are guys who have been on an NHL roster but has a career total of two NHL games. If you whittle it down to guys who played at least 20 ECHL games, then went on to play at least 100 NHL games: Carter Rowney: 44 career ECHL games Martin Frk: 44 games Luke Glendening: 27 games Micheal Haley: 35 games MacKenzie Weegar: 21 games Matt Hendricks: 54 games Jordie Benn: 55 games Anthony Bitetto: 23 games Andrew MacDonald: 37 games Yanni Gourde: 38 games Deryk Engelland: 148 games Ben Chiarot: 24 games Only 12 guys played more than 20 ECHL (regular season) games, and eventually played at least 100 games in the NHL. Most of the names on this list are thoroughly unimpressive; we could've gotten a guy like Frk for free on waivers. And many of them were such long shots that by the time they made it, they weren't with the organizations that gave them their first chance. For example, Gourde, the best player on the list, began his pro career with San Jose's farm team and its ECHL affiliate, and bounced between the ECHL and AHL. Eventually Tampa saw enough to sign him -- he never played on their ECHL affiliate. This is akin to the Comets scouting the ECHL and signing players that they find promising, instead of developing someone there because they couldn't crack the AHL. The reality is, if a prospect spends any significant amount of time in the ECHL, the chances of them becoming good NHL players for you down the road are so remote it might as well not exist. There's nothing to be gained from developing someone like Darren Archibald. He's been on waivers three times and no one claimed him. Most NHL draft picks don't work out, that's just how the math is. Trying to turn a complete bust into an Archibald so you at least get something is a waste of time. There are tons of guys like this, fully developed, available for free every year. The top European leagues have a much better record of developing impact NHL players; if someone like Palmu isn't ready, it's better for him to play in the Liiga than the ECHL. Goalies are a bit different since there's only one #1 spot on each AHL team, so any organization with two good goalie prospects will have to send one to the ECHL. But the regular coaching staff has very little to do with a goalie's development, so to manage an ECHL team just to send a spare goalie once every few years doesn't really make sense. Bottom line, though a good ECHL team could be helpful to an AHL team, it provides no tangible benefits to an NHL team. You're better off spending the money and effort on improving your scouting so you have better prospects to begin with. -
I think one of the things that Pettersson will learn, and adjust, is that he needs to find ways to take more shots. Look at someone like Kucherov, who's also a prolific playmaker (and has twice as many assists as goals this year). He's averaging close to 3.3 shots/ game in his past three seasons, which coincided with his rise from a good, 60-70pt player, to a PPG+ player. If Petey plays the full season and averages 3 shots per game, and shoots at 15% (which put hims on par with Kucherov/ Matthews), he would have 37 goals. He could easily be a 50-60 assists guy in the league, maybe more. Long term, that's an attainable goal: 35 goals, 85-95pts a year, 40+ goals or 100+ pts in a great year. Kucherov only averaged 2.2 shots per game in his first two seasons, so it's something that young players learn as they go along.
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All this talk about Pettersson's drop in production, possible injuries, teams adjusting to him, etc., a huge part is just his shooting percentage coming down to earth. He basically started to taper out after the All Star break -- in the 31 games after the break, he only scored 5 goals. In the 40 games before that, he scored 23 goals. But as of early February, Petey's shooting percentage was around 27-28%. Here are the career averages of some of the league's best goal scorers: Ovechkin: 12.6% Tavares: 13.3% Stamkos: 16.9% Kucherov: 14.8% Matthews: 15.5% Laine: 15.9% DeBrincat: 17.2% MacKinnon: 9.8% Mike Bossy, in his career (1977 - 1987), shot 21.2%, and this is during the high scoring, dynasty era when goalies were about half the size of their modern day counterparts. Petey is good, but he's not that good. Petey took 62 shots in his last 31 games, which is about par for the course as he took 144 shots in 71 games overall. If his shooting percentage held up, he would've scored 17 goals on 62 shots, which would give him 40 goals on the year. No one would be talking if he ended the season with 40 goals. Sure, some of it could be fatigue, some of it might be luck, but just basic law of math dictates that his shooting percentage must drop. Petey's shooting percentage is now at 19.4%, and I wouldn't be surprised if it drops to the 15-17% range next year. He could easily end up with more goals by upping his shots per game, plus he's a great playmaker so he could wound up with more assists too. However, the reason he was once on pace for 40-50 goals is because he was on an incredible hot streak; in the 14 seasons since the lockout, not a single player scored at 27+% for an entire season.
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Finishes the season with 82GP - 27G - 61pts - 20:50 TOI. Won 53.7% of his faceoffs despite taking a league leading 2,018 draws. Barkov, who took the second most faceoffs in the NHL, had 1,939 draws, or 79 fewer than Horvat. Can't wait to see Bo wear the flying skate jersey with a C on it, just like Linden.
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Some perspective for how well he performed in his short stint:
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