Captain Canuck #12

He's definitely got the raw skills to become a 2nd pair D, or better, but whether he can actually solidify and further develop those skills in the NHL, that's what we don't know yet. It's something that I'm really looking forward to finding out though!

I would agree. And if they can stock up on a few more C prospects in the later rounds, they way the did with wingers this year, that would be awesome!

Basically everyone one of our D in Utica could be brought up (and almost have been) as an injury fill-in if needed. And there are even better young D on the way to take their place. Right now what we're seeing is that we had Gaudette and Graovac as our C depth in Utica, and that was it! Madden's coming, and hopefully one (maybe two) of Karlsson or Focht, but that's it in terms of future C depth as well. There's no question that centre is a position where we need to add some young prospects. Unlike some of our fellow posters here, the depth charts don't lie!

Sorry, I said our greatest prospect weakness is at centre and we need to prioritize adding at that position (particularly through the draft), not at D. I see your facepalm and raise you one!!

It think it was worthwhile to trade Burrows for a young prospect, but seeing how he looked last night, I'd be all for signing him as a free agent now and adding him for our playoff run! Wouldn't it be great to see him playing on a line with Roussel?

I got roasted a few days ago over on the Tyler Madden thread for suggesting that the Canucks need more prospect depth at centre. Some seem to feel that because we have a few good young centres on the NHL roster now, we don't need to add anymore in the forseeable future. As far as I'm concerned centre is a very important position, you can never have enough good young ones, and we're seeing right now why you always have to have a few more waiting in the wings.

Yeah. He's the kind of hard working, but skilled player I'd really like to see get a chance.

Then I'm with you!

Who are Who exactly are we talking about at this point, Lockwood or Madden?

"And it was written, a small Swedish child shall lead the way....."

I suppose I could go for Big Ferocious Giant too, but just not Big Friendly, anybody who views him that way doesn't remember him very well. They would just have to re-view the video of him manhandling all of the Ducks' 'tough guys' singlehandedly in order to refresh their memories.

How and why did anyone ever nickname Tryamkin Big Friendly Giant?! I'm pretty sure that if they asked any of the players who tried to physically engage him when he was here they'd tell you his nickname should be Big F***ing Giant That's how I read that nickname anyway.

Considering that we're now down to only three natural centres in the organization with pro experience, I think that's probably a safe bet!

And Benning's been doing more winning than losing in the last few drafts. I'd surely rather have him miss out on drafting Tkachuk than to have him miss out on drafting either Pettersson or Hughes. All the GMs who did that must really be kicking themselves in their rear ends!

Looked like he did the same to Neal tonight near the end of the game, although the camera was panning away as it happened. It made Neal so upset that he went out and ran Tanev's head into the end boards shortly after.

Edler knocked him out of the lineup!

And it's a compliment to our prospect depth that few are talking about Jasek's future with the Canucks. It will be very interesting to see what the future holds for him. Because of the lack of centre depth in Utica, that's where he's been playing, but not sure if he would be capable of playing centre in the NHL.

Haha that's a coincidence, because I've been comparing MacEwen to Archibald in that both are physically dominant players in the AHL, who show too little of their physicality in the NHL. That's what has kept Archibald from becoming an NHLer and I'm just hoping it doesn't become the same storyfor MacEwen.

I feel the same way as you about Arseneau, but unfortunately he's been injured lately and didn't play today. They've had Stevenson playing in his place, who's a really tough character and good fighter too, but doesn't seem to have any NHL upside at this point.

You won't try that again!

Because I was never talking about the players already on the roster. I think they're great too! I was talking about our depth of centres not already on the roster. Simple as that.

According to Dhaliwal, sounds like you got your wish!

I don't have to sell anything. It's there in the depth chart for all to see. What you don't realize is that just saying the same thing over and over, without any evidence to back it up, doesn't make it true.

Vancouver Canucks LEFT WING Player Fantasy Upside NHL Certainty Nils Höglander 8.5 8.0 Ethan Keppen 6.5 6.5 Aidan McDonough 6.0 6.0 Francis Perron 6.0 4.5 Jonah Gadjovich 5.0 6.5 Petrus Palmu 5.0 5.0 CENTERS Player Fantasy Upside NHL Certainty Adam Gaudette 7.5 9.5 Tyler Madden 7.0 8.5 Linus Karlsson 6.5 6.0 Jack Malone 5.5 5.0 Carson Focht 5.0 5.0 Dmitri Zhukenov 2.0 1.0 RIGHT WING Player Fantasy Upside NHL Certainty Vasili Podkolzin 9.0 9.0 Kole Lind 8.0 8.0 Artyom Manukyan 6.5 2.0 Karel Plasek 6.0 3.0 Lukas Jasek 6.0 6.5 Zack MacEwen 6.0 9.0 William Lockwood 5.0 7.5 Justin Bailey 4.5 4.5 DEFENSEMEN Player Fantasy Upside NHL Certainty Quinn Hughes 10.0 10.0 Jack Rathbone 7.0 7.0 Olli Juolevi 7.0 8.5 Nikita Tryamkin 6.5 6.0 Guillaume Brisebois 5.0 8.5 Josh Teves 5.0 7.5 Toni Utunen 5.0 7.0 Ashton Sautner 3.0 6.0 DEFENSEMEN Player Fantasy Upside NHL Certainty Jett Woo 8.0 8.5 Brogan Rafferty 5.5 7.0 Jalen Chatfield 5.0 7.0 Mitch Eliot 4.0 6.0 GOALTENDER Player Fantasy Upside NHL Certainty Michael DiPietro 8.5 8.5 Thatcher Demko 8.5 10.0 Arturs Silovs 6.0 5.0 Matthew Thiessen 6.0 5.0 Jake Kielly 5.0 6.0 Zane McIntyre 4.5 3.5 Too many people confuse the depth on the current roster with depth of players at that position in the prospect pool. If you look at DobberProspect's ratings, it makes it pretty obvious that the quality of our prospects at D, both in numbers and in terms of NHL certainty, is far superior to our centre depth. LW doesn't look so good either, but the wingers as a whole are still much deeper than our centre prospects. And that's banking on all of our centre prospects actually being able to play centre in the NHL. It's not so uncommon for a centre to get converted to a winger once they reach the big league (case in point, MacEwen), but pretty rare for a winger to get converted to a centre once they turn pro.

And you seriously can't understand how much our C prospect depth needs to be strengthened That's right....face palms x2 back at you mister!!