Hindustan Smyl

Oh yes. They are the exact same in that regard. The Chinese Education system is EXTREMELY demanding on kids and so many Chinese parents seriously consider inmigrating overseas if they have the money, so that their kids won’t have to go through the extreme stress that they had to. Life is quite tough in China. From what I’ve seen, people here have to work extremely hard and work extremely long hours. Lots of financial pressure on young married couples since they have to take care of both their parents (often live in the home so that they can look after the grandkids) and children.

I’d be down for a Risto Trade, but i highly doubt that “Virtanen plus” gets you Risto. Also, if we get Risto, then who comes out or gets moved? Stecher?

Young....ish I would say. (38). As far as comparisons go, I would say that there are as many similarities as differences, but I wouldn’t be able to really sum up my thoughts in a small paragraph. I’d say the biggest difference between Chinese people (and Westerners) is that you will almost always know if a Westerner is angry with you as they will usually express their thoughts in one form or another. In China, they have the “face” concept and so you will often times have no idea if someone is angry with you or has a personal issue with you.

Yes and yes. :-)

Actually, according to Gillis, the pressure to fire AV was coming from ownership. Gillis loved AV and wanted to keep him. Ownership apparently wanted AV gone and wanted a “tough” old school coach that could get the team to implement a more hard-nosed style. Gillis was not a fan of bringing in Torts at all.

“Kyle Wellwood looked like a man possessed tonight.” ::::Vern Fiddler/Kevin Bieksa impression:::::

I’d go 5 million for ‘x’ number of years with Markstrom. A lot of it will also depend on how Demko does this year but I could definitely see Demko being used as future trade bait.

I didn’t get run out of HF. I simply decided to stop posting there (despite being a member of the community for five years), because I came to the realization that most Canuck fans over there aren’t going to change. 1) They have an illogical hatred of Benning and most can’t praise Benning for even one good thing (although it is cute to watch them deflect to Brackett whenever something positive does happen with Vancouver). 2) If most “Canucks fans” on there are being completely honest with themselves, they aren’t really Canucks fans. They are advanced analytics fans and live and die by them. That’s not to say that I don’t have close connections and friendships with many posters there. I do. It’s just that from a hockey standpoint, I don’t see “eye to eye” with many posters on there and I don’t see that changing. For the life of me, I will never understand how a “fanbase” can cheer against ones own team so that a (good) GM can lose his livelihood while we *possibly* increase our draft odds and prospect pool. As far as your post goes, the problem with your post is that you’re assuming that I automatically believe everything I say, or think that what I say is likely to happen. I don’t. More times than not, I often create threads to facilitate discussion and/or play devil’s advocate. I feel like I have also explained this before. The point remains though. If you don’t like what someone is posting, ignore it. Or, put that poster on ignore. Seems like the logical thing to do.

The entire Pearson-Horvat-Leivo line really impresses me. It’s an extremely good two way line that is good defensively and seems to be difficult to contain down low. The chemistry between Pearson and Horvat has been a godsend. I’m still quite shocked that we were able to get Pearson for Gudbranson.

Tanner Pearson has very quietly been an extremely effective player for Vancouver during his short tenure here. The common consensus is that we’ll move on from Pearson when his contract expires, but I think we might need to reconsider this if he keeps this up.

If it’s Brian Burke making the comment, then It’s something to consider. if it’s that parasite JD Burke making the comment, then it’s just “wishful thinking” on his part and should be taken with a grain of salt.

And those 26 games or whatever (with loads of ice-time) served him well down in Utica.

Fair enough about Smyl. I’ll admit that I only started following the Canucks in 1987 and so I caught Smyl towards the end of his career. Still - at the end of the day however, it’s about tangible awards and results, not hypotheticals. As far as Linden goes, like I said........post December 1996, there was a LOT of mediocrity (in both Van and outside of Van). Keenan May have gone overboard in his tirade of Linden, but many people fail to acknowledge the fact that Linden was playing like a sieve that year........and for the better part of the 10 years that followed after that. Linden is a great guy and a great person, but his status in Vancouver is a little overblown in my opinion.

Gaudette was called up deep into the latter stages of the 2nd half of the season (if I recall correctly). After last year’s preseason, Gaudette *clearly* needed some more time in the minors. The time down there seems to have served him well. As far as my Linden comment goes, I’m only going off of what Canuckscorner’s Hockey Widow said (she has legit inside sources). Media have speculated on what has happened, nothing definitive has been reported.

I love Linden and everything he did pre 1996 knee injury, but let’s be honest: There’s been a lot of mediocrity under his watch. Post (December?) of 1996 when he had his knee injury, Linden was a shell of himself. When Keenan called out his piss poor play a year later, Linden turtled in the room and eventually got traded. When he came back to Vancouver in 2001 (or whenever it was), he was a shell of a shell.......which is surprising when you consider that he wasn’t THAT old. And then of course, you have the farting around situation with Beagle and Roussel (ie Linden not wanting either guy here). As much as I respect guys like Linden and Smyl, I think it’s a joke that their jerseys are hanging from the rafters. It’s a constant reminder of just how mediocre our franchise really is, and guys like Linden and Smyl are a part of that problem. The only guys’ jerseys that should be in our rafters are the Sedin twins and Bure.....and *maybe* Naslund (although I’d lean towards ‘no’ for Nazzy). I love Linden and Smyl and what they did for this organization, but the Canucks and our fans are putting them in contention for being the most overrated “legends” in NHL history.

Linden was a great captain and leader for this team, but let’s be honest: This current management group started to smell the poo emanating for Linden’s diaper and realized that a change was needed. Ironically, Linden wanted to “rush the rebuild” by promoting the kids from Utica into the line-up *way* too fast (which would have had an adverse effect). Linden did not recognize the value of bringing in guys like Beagle and Roussel while letting some of our prospects “season” a bit more down in the A. The results are speaking for itself now. How? Adam Gaudette. If Linden was still here, Gaudette would have been rushed to the NHL last year and would have been eating some serious man porridge.

In my opinion, the rebuild started with the Luongo deal. It was at that moment where the Canucks went from “sacrificing the long term for immediate short term gains,” to, “placing an emphasis on getting younger while surrounding said talent with the right vets.......vets that wouldn’t block the spots on deserving rookies.” Unfortunately, most hockey fans don’t equate the latter explanation with a traditional rebuild, and so Benning was crucified by ignoramuses.

No it doesn’t.

I’ll also have to admit to having copious amounts of man porridge on my face these days. I was quite startled and disappointed by what I perceived to be a lack of return for Schneider. All of a sudden, our so-called “meager returns,” for both Schneider and Luongo (Horvat and Markstrom) aren’t really all that meager.

Great ready by a classy captain. My favorite part of the article was when Naslund praised Messier. ;-)

The estrogen levels pretty much blew the roof of the place over at HF when Nichuskin was outperforming Horvat at the start of their careers.

Lol ah I see. Ps - Michael Jordan in his mid 50’s would still be capable of playing in the NBA in my opinion.

I think I might be in the minority with regards to Baertschi. I’m actually glad that neither him nor Goldobin are up here right now. Both guys are too soft, and their softness could only be justified if they had elite level talent a la Elias Pettersson/Quinn Hughes. I like Baertschi and Goldobin as people, but both guys served as poster boys as to why the Canucks were able to be pushed around for these last few years. I like Baertschi as a call-up to play on the 2nd line in case of injuries, but nothing more. Ditto for Goldobin.

Is that OJ Simpson in your avatar?

Solid overall game from the Canucks. This is how the line combos should have been right from Day One of the preseason: 1) Miller on the Petey/Brock line with the Hughes pairing backing them up. 2) Ferland and Sutter on the 3rd line helping insulate Gaudette and playing a straightforward North/South go hard to the net game (Virtanen should also fit nicely on this wing). 3) Using Leivo’s size and smarts to complement Horvat and Pearson. All in all, the King’s got spanked although in their defense, they were understandably gassed. Jonathan Quick and Corey Schneider have had stellar careers, but I’m not sure how much more their bodies can withstand. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Kings smoked the Canucks back in the 2012 playoffs (and made a very disrespectful jab at the city after their game one victory on their Social Media, “to the rest of Canada you’re welcome,” I’d almost kinda sorta feel bad for Quick.