Hindustan Smyl

Hilarious how the Caitlyn Jenner’s over at HF we’re implying that Petey was off to a slow start this year and looked a step behind.

Why did you put quotations around “his?” Are you implying that Elias Pettersson is transgendered?

Gonna be honest. I got hard reading that. :cool: Hope he gets here soon.

Canucks are having a good season thus far, but they’ve got to find a way to play against the trap. They struggled against New Jersey, and now they are struggling (to score) against Anaheim. They’ve also struggled the last few years with Arizona. If the Canucks continue to rise up within the NHL and start to get more attention, the book on the Canucks will be to trap against them. Canucks need to find an antitode to the trap.

It looks like this may be the case. Don’t you just love our depth up front though? Ferland, Motte, and Roussel are all out, and this team won’t even blink an eye. This is the type of depth that Benning and management had in mind when they took over back in 2014.

I was a 13 year old pubeless East Indian kid living on Vancouver Island at the time and so I was quite removed from the riots. My only memory from that time was thinking how cool of a movie Naked Gun 33.3 and how OJ Simpson did his $&!# like a day or so later.

I for one think that Tryamkin would be better than both Stecher and Benn if he came back here, but I wanted to be as conservative as possible (and so I listed Tree and being an upgrade over Fantenberg as our 7th dman).

A fair enough point, but the fact of the matter is that the Canucks have faced “multiple significant injuries,” for 4+ years......and always seemed to unravel after the all-star break when these key injuries hit. Tanev, Edler, Sutter, and Baertschi usually being the key culprits. The only thing I will say in defense of that is as follows: A strong correlation exists between team injuries and overall team possession numbers. . The lower the team possession numbers, the more likely it is that injuries hit. In the four years prior to this one, the Canucks had one of the worst team possession numbers in the entire league.......even during those large stretches where they were playing .500-.600 hockey (before those annual injuries hit). This year however, after the first 12 games, they rank 8th overall in Team possession numbers. If this keeps up, the data suggests that the Canucks shouldn’t be faced with nearly as many crippling injury problems. Still - I’d be more comfortable if the Canucks had a little bit more insurance on the back-end. In 2011 for instance..... Edler-Tanev Erhoff-Salo Hamhuis-Bieksa Ballard (my memory of the 2011 defensive pairings is getting fuzzy and so my apologies here if the pairings aren’t correct), but those Canucks basically had 6 guys that could play on the Top 4 if need be. Even a guy like Ballard wouldn’t have looked out of place in a guarded Top 4 role. By contrast, our current defense has four top 4 Guys, and maybe five if you include Stecher. An addition of Tryamkin would help us a bit more. I love our current Canucks team but if they’re serious about making some noise this year.......real noise......then they’re going to need another high quality dman.

It’s a fair ranking in my opinion. The Canucks have looked impressive thus far, but a solid 12 game stretch is not going to outweigh 4 years of poo as far as changing the opinions of hockey pundits go. If the Canucks continue to win, our level of respect amongst hockey pundits will increase.

To the people saying that “we are a dark hose playoff team right now even without Tryamkin,” I say the following: Given that injuries are inevitable, I think the Canucks will be a wildcard playoff team. With Tryamkin however, it’s just my opinion that the Canucks will not only be a playoff team, but will have some potential to cause some upsets......upsets as in plural. I say this not because I think Tryamkin is a Top pairing guy, but rather, Tryamkin’s presence ensuring that the Canucks wouldn’t have a major drop off in terms of icing quality defensemen when injuries hit.

You might be right about Fantenberg and Stecher, but I’m not sure if I agree with you regarding Tryamkin. When Tryamkin was here, he looked very physically dominant and positionally sound. He also looked surprisingly agile for a guy his size. Tryamkin wasn’t Zdeno Chara by any means, but he looked pretty solid.

I love your enthusiasm, but I still have questions about this team if we get 1-2 injuries to our D.......especially if those injuries are to Edler and Tanev, and we’ve seen how vulnerable those two guys are these past 4 years. Having Tryamkin as our 7th dman is a MUCH better option than Fantenberg and any of our AHL guys.

Agreed with this. The Canucks will need to have some freed up money in order to re-up Pettersson, Hughes, and possibly Markstrom, while also having enough money to either re-sign Edler or find a dman (via UFA) that is just as good as Edler. Seabrook coming to Vancouver would cause us difficult long term cap problems.

Tree would still be a significant upgrade over Fantenberg and any of our other guys that we have in the AHL..........THAT is the point of my post. A far greater insurance against injuries, which would make us far less susceptible to a drop off in play when the inevitable injuries to the D hit.

Tryamkin might not make our top 6, but he’s still a worthy 3rd pairing guy that wouldn’t look horribly out of place in a 2nd pairing role for a brief period of time if injuries hit.......and that was the purpose of my post. The addition of Tryamkin = organizational depth. Tryamkin, at this point in time, would be a massive upgrade over Fantenberg or any other guy that we have on the farm. So - if and when we got inevitable injuries to 1-2 guys on defense, the addition of Tryamkin would make us less susceptible to a sharp drop off (just as we saw the previous 4 seasons when we had injuries to our D).

All of that production has come with a 100% healthy line-up, but it’s unrealistic to assume that our defense will be 100% healthy all kd the time. 1). Over the last 4-5 years, we’ve seen atleast 1-2 long stretches of injury to BOTH Edler and Tanev. 2) We’ve got some good dmen brewing on the farm, but all of those guys would be marginal 3rd pairing NHL calibre defensemen as of this writing (if they were inserted into our line-up). By contrast - guys like Eriksson, Leivo, Baertschi, and Goldobin could be placed into our top 6 if injuries hit and not look completely out of place. In a hypothetical situation where both Edler and Tanev got injured, this is what our defense would look like. Hughes-Myers Benn-Stecher Juolevi-Fantenberg (if Edler our) Hughes-Tanev Benn-Myers Fantenberg-Stecher (if Tanev out) Edler-Stecher Hughes-Myers Fantenberg-Benn Maybe it’s just me, but those defenses look a little vulnerable all of a sudden with just *one* injury. With two injuries - we could be in tough.......just as we were the previous 4 years. Hence, my suggestion. If a guy like Tryamkin were to return, I think our defensive depth would gain more parity with our depth up front.

Pettersson won’t win the Hart this year, but he’ll continue to be a rock solid PPG player. I can definitely see Hughes winning the Calder though. If Tryamkin returns to Vancouver this season, I don’t see any reason why we can’t be a dark horse playoff team. People talk about getting back to the glory days of 2011, but I could see the return of Tryamkin getting us to the glory days of 94’. We would be extremely well insures against injuries, and we’d be deep all throughout our line-up. We wouldnt be the most talented team in the league, but we’d be tough as nails.

Would the Canucks be a legit playoff darkhorse if Nikita Tryamkin returned this season? I want to be careful with how I word this post because I don’t want to come across as a guy that is being too homeristic......or a guy that is overreacting to what has essentially been a good STRETCH (stretch being the operative word here........atleast as of this writing) of play. Here is what I think: We are extremely deep up front and in net: The Canucks are really deep up front even with injuries. Assuming a fully healthy roster (I’ll pretend that Roussel replaces Leivo and Ferland moves to the right side), you’d have Leivo, Eriksson, Gaudette, Baertschi, and Goldobin as your substitutes. That is REALLY good depth on the wings and down the middle (Miller can also play Center). In net, you obviously have both Marky and Demko. Having said that, here is the one true weakness that I see on the Canucks. Our depth on defense has come a long way, but we would still be in tough with TWO injuries to the top 4: My *only* small point of contention for this team, is that we are still a little thin on defense (although we’ve come a long way). As of right now, this Canucks team will be in a bit tough IF TWO of Edler, Hughes, Myers, and Tanev get injured for an extended period of time. Like I said - our organizational depth on defense has come a long way, but we’re still not quite where we need to be. Up front - many of our substitutes such as Baertschi, Eriksson, Leivo, etc., could fill in on the top 6 and not look horribly out of place, whereas guys like Fantenberg, Juolevi, Chatfield, Brisebois, Teves, etc., would pretty much need to be 3rd pairing defensive guys in case of injuries......and as of this writing, they’d be very marginal 3rd pairing calibre guys. Their presence on the 3rd pairing would force guys like Benn and Stecher to move up to the 2nd pair (a spot where both dmen would be considered ‘marginal’ as far as 2nd pairing calibre dmen went). Bottom line: The Canucks are surprisingly deep up front, but are still a little thin on defense. What’s the solution? My hopeful solution is as follows: Tryamkin returns to the Canucks at some point this season. IF Tryamkin returns to the Canucks and is used as our designated 7th defenseman (or if not Tree, then one of Stecher or Benn), THEN I would consider our D to be “deep,”.......and would consider our team to be ready to truly ready to battle when you factor in inevitable injuries. I think the addition of Tryamkin would make us one of the deepest organizations in the NHL and would ensure that our defense would remain relatively solid even with 2 key injuries to the top 4.

The Canucks are really deep up front even with injuries. Assuming a fully healthy roster (I’ll pretend that Roussel replaces Leivo and Ferland moves to the right side), you’d have Motte, Eriksson, Gaudette, Baertschi, and Goldobin as your substitutes. That is REALLY good depth on the wings and down the middle (Miller can also play Center). In net, you obviously have both Marky and Demko. My *only* small point of contention for this team, is that we are still a little thin of defense (although we’ve come a long way). As of right now, this Canucks team will be in a bit tough IF TWO of Edler, Hughes, Myers, and Tanev get injured for an extended period of time. Like I said - our organizational depth on defense has come a long way, but we’re still not quite where we need to be. Up front - many of our substitutes such as Baertschi, Eriksson, Leivo, etc., could fill in on the top 6 and not look horribly out of place, whereas guys like Fantenberg, Juolevi, Chatfield, Brisebois, Teves, etc., would pretty much need to be 3rd pairing defensive guys in case of injuries......and as of this writing, they’d be very marginal 3rd pairing calibre guys. Their presence on the 3rd pairing would force guys like Benn and Stecher to move up to the 2nd pair (a spot where both dmen would be considered ‘marginal’ as far as 2nd pairing calibre dmen went). Bottom line: The Canucks are surprisingly deep up front, but are still a little thin on defense. What’s the solution? My hopeful solution is as follows: Tryamkin returns to the Canucks at some point this season. IF Tryamkin returns to the Canucks and is used as our designated 7th defenseman (or if not Tree, then one of Stecher or Benn), THEN I would consider our D to be “deep,”.......and would consider our team to be ready to truly ready to battle when you factor in inevitable injuries.

The city of Toronto and the entire 647, 905, and 416 area code can rot in hell as far as I go. After having lived there for four years, I can honestly say that these guys don’t have our backs as far as sports go. 1) MLB: If the “situation” was reversed (ie Vancouver and Buffalo had MLB baseball teams instead of Toronto and Seattle), I guarantee you that most of those guys would be supporting Buffalo and not Vancouver. 2) If Vancouver had Canada’s only NBA team, those guys wouldn’t be supporting us in the next of Canada. From a sporting perspective, those guys don’t have our backs. A lot of Torontonians are “Canadians,” when it suits them. Perhaps I’m being biased and perhaps this description fits all/most other major Canadian cities, but I really noticed this in Toronto.

The team had a clear cut direction right from the start. Unfortunately, most fans and media were simply too unintelligent to realize what was going on. In their minds, they equated, signing and/or trading for a vet = “going for it,” as opposed to, signing and/or trading for a vet = “insulating the kids. The idiot masses and media got so hung up on whether this was a “retool,” “rebuild,” or a refart, that they completely and utterly missed what was really going on.......which was simply, ensuring that the right kids and prospects were insulated in every way possible, whether that was filling in the age gap (which was most conducive to team chemistry), bringing in vets that were either formerly superstars, has played on winning teams, or are/were reknowned lockerroom leaders. This management group knew that the Canucks would be in tough for a few years, but were willing to pay a premium for veteran leadership because these vets were the ones that would get the kids to develop the correct on ice and off ice habits while competing hard almost each and every night. Say what you will about the Canucks’ record these last four years, but these guys almost always showed up to play as hard as they could even if they were clearly outmanned talent wise.

IF the Canucks make the playoffs, I wonder how many of those guys will have the balls to admit fault and apologize for doubting Benning? I think a few people might, but I’m not holding my breath.

I haven’t been this excited about hockey since 2011.

In what way has our goaltending been trash? Outside of the Washington game (who scored 5 against us), I don’t seem to recall too many games where other teams have blown up the score board against us. We have the largest +/- goal differential in the league. Sorry bobo, but I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Your post has poo with corn in it and belongs on HF!

Since comparisons to 2011 have been made, I’ll add one more tidbit. This current Horvat lead core plays an honest game. No whining, diving, cheap shot antics, and selling calls. IF this Horvat lead core gets back to the cup finals during this new era, I can definitely see us being backed by Canada this time a la 94’ style as opposed to what happened in 2011.