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Millerdraft

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Everything posted by Millerdraft

  1. It’s the Okanagan connection. I’m kinda disappointed a fellow Vernonite is not getting caught up in the excitement
  2. It’s almost as if Benning knows we have a lot of offence on the left side that needs stay at home RHD to support that area of strength… Imagine?!
  3. Sifting through these posts it appears half our fan base will be unhappy unless we had a D-core that looked like this: Hughes - Hamilton Reilly - Barrie Rathbone - Ellis ”How in the sweet $?#% is 1pt worth $2.5m?!” Yeah, who gives a $#!T about killing penalties…
  4. It’s almost as if JB actually knows what percentage of your cap you’re supposed to allocate to your top-six forwards, top-four D and your bottom-six, bottom-pairing D when your contending window is just about to open. Who knew he could actually GM.
  5. There’s supposedly a $1.5m bonus for games played…. Just FYI
  6. That’s a good fall back option if there’s really not good dollar to value defensive defensemen in our price range. I’m not liking the Savard asking price…
  7. Let’s forget Benning for a second, please. I just want to bring up a fairly obvious point (at least it should be). When rebuilding a team to compete for a Cup, you draft a core, yes? It doesn’t happen in one, two or three years because you just can’t hit on all your picks - otherwise GMs wouldn’t be given those industry standard five year contracts. Now, because the team sucks you’re drafting high and you have access to the best highly skilled draft eligible players. So, it stands to reason that this is what you should be focusing on with your lottery picks and early 2nd rounders (unless you come across a Vasilevsky or a Demko, etc). The first few years of the rebuild you scoop up plug veterans. However, by the time your superstar lottery players (in this case Petey & Hughes) are producing at an elite NHL offensive level you need to have veterans that can handle the heavy lifting in the defensive aspects of the game. Not only that, but it helps to have playoff tested defensive veterans so that the goals against numbers enable pushes for the playoffs so that you can build the winning culture in your drafted core. The problem is that you cannot attract playoff winning veterans to a rebuilding team unless you entice them by overpaying and giving those veterans control over where they are traded to. Sure, a GM could choose to just pay average, replacement level, defensive forwards and middling defensemen that allows them to keep stacking draft picks but then you get blown out every night by 2/3s of the league and a losing culture inevitably begins to take hold. This is the risk that Buffalo took and absolutely failed, cratering to the point whereby O’Reilly, Ristolainen, Reinhart and Eichel all demanded out (the latter three for several seasons now). Now, imagine Benning doing the same and NOT signing, and trading for (in Pearson and Toffoli’s case), those Cup winning vets. Do you think Horvat re-signs when he was up for extension? Or does he get sick of waiting around for even “competitive hockey in April” let alone an actual taste of the playoffs? How long do you think Edmonton has before MacDavid says, “That’s it - I’ve given you my ELC years, and half of my second contract, and if you can’t get the right Cup winning veterans to come here and help me win the Cup then trade me somewhere that can”? We’re in the process of shifting the bulk of our cap commitments away from the over 30 defensive forward veterans to the prime aged top six forwards (drafted core and acquired top six) and top-4 defense. Top-six playoff ready forwards generally reach their prime in that 24-30 range. Two-way defensemen generally reach their prime later in that 26-32 year old range after all that defensive experience of six years of development. Elite level players expand these age ranges in both directions. We have the drafted core of Horvat, Pettersson, Hughes, Demko & Boeser that are now on their second contracts. We have surrounded that with the playoff hardened JT Miller, Pearsson, Myers and OEL and the prime aged Garland. OEL (Rathbone as well) gives us powerplay protection in case Hughes goes down to injury on top of the two-way responsibilities. We have the requisite cheap ELC’s of Hoglander, Podkolzin & Rathbone (Juolevi is also in this cheap contract grouping) that are necessary to keep us under the cap on a Cup contending team. The window is nearing a fully open posture and depending on the $$ for Hughes and Pettersson we need to go hard starting now. There’s not a lot of time before the cap problems are going to start coming and half our top-six will be entering that age 30 threshold (two more years for Horvat, Miller, Hoglander & Rathbone - three for Podkolzin). With proper planning we can open a 5 - 6 year window. It’s go time right friggin’ now…
  8. Locker room chemistry. It’s pretty obvious. Holtby glaring at Miller in Toronto after a weakass back check (just one of multiple visible incidents). JT was really moping around out there at the beginning of the year likely indicates the smoke from the trade request rumours had an actual fire behind it. It’s pretty clear he didn’t approve of losing Tanev and Toffoli and then there’s the fact that Holtby, Beagle and Schmidt are all good friends from their Cup days. Friedman’s reporting at the end of the year regarding Miller rescinding any notion of trade request by stating that he wanted to stay also likely indicated there was a clear discussion between his agents and Canucks brass (perhaps even ownership level) and a decision was made to move on from the Capitals Cup leadership trio. When that stuff leaks out onto the ice in such a blatantly visible way it’s a big problem. Sure, that’s a lot of reading in between the lines but look at what has actually transpired since: they’re all gone before free agency even hits and the loss of Toffoli’s offence was replaced by the acquisition of Garland - who’s playing style likely resonates really well with both Miller & Horvat - which rectifies at least one of those offseason mistakes. Now contrast that with all the public talk/reporting about how tight the team was chemistry-wise during the bubble with Tanev & Toffoli when they took Schmidt’s Golden Knights to a game seven. If Arizona hadn’t been so stubborn in their trade demands last year then the Schmidt acquisition never happens but then again we wouldn’t have Garland in that instance so this has actually worked out a little better, IMO, but ymmv.
  9. So you’re good with potentially blowing another year because team chemistry was toxic just to get proper return or perhaps a fleecing (Benning doesn’t fleece and it’s actually pretty counterproductive to fleece in the big picture anyway)? You do realize that was a significant portion of last season’s failure, yes? As for D, let’s see what goes down with NYI tomorrow. Boston had already left trade talks by re-signing Reilly. Realistic destinations, without salary retention, we’re dwindling rapidly. I think the disconnect here is whether you think Horvat & Miller would put up with a repeat of last year.
  10. Or, find yourself without a trading partner because of musical chairs being filled up with other UFA Dmen and no one left with cap room to fit him in. Now you’re in a position whereby you have to retain salary AND work around Schmidt’s NTC veto rights…
  11. Technically you could argue that because we were an absolute flop last season that the 3rd we gave up was worth more than the 3rd we received but the flip side is that this past year’s scouting was a lot more challenging than this upcoming year’s scouting (fingers crossed)…
  12. You’d keep a sourpuss in the dressing room at this stage of Horvat & Miller’s prime? We gotta start making noise in the playoffs now or Horvat is gonna bolt after Miller’s trade demand comes forth and I’m not sure having that big of a media circus all year is very conducive on that front. Just look at JT Miller’s body language to start last season. He was pissed that we didn’t re-sign TT and Tanev. He saw another wasted year of his prime. Teammates talk and I’m sure Horvat was thinking the same things. That sentiment was festering and Schmidt didn’t offset those two losses. Not moving on from a bad fit would only fuel those sentiments. Benning has to fix this quickly or this $&!# is gonna go off the rails and it’s gonna have a snowball effect.
  13. It’s also crunch time to fill the hole though. The direction of the team was set when the OEL trade went down. We gotta fill two RHD tomorrow
  14. Why would you aim so low with a wishful dream of a contract? Why wouldn’t you aim a little higher, like Kevin Labanc’s 1-year/$1m deal coming off of a 17g 56pt season? I mean, it is something you were only hoping for…
  15. I’d certainly welcome Luke back in a bottom pairing role with Juolevi/Rathbone. It’s a good fit. Both those young LD’s would benefit from Schenn’s tougher skill set.
  16. It’s that ridiculous not subtle at all mental manipulation of marketing strategies. “It’s $99.99! It was less than a $100!” Let’s just hope this has a better impact on our fan base than it does in the consumer economy. Somehow I won’t be holding my breath.
  17. So, in hindsight the missed out contract for Toffoli went to CG instead. Better skater and I guess that, as well as age, is why it’s a bit higher than TT’s $4.25m
  18. This is the point. We have already drafted an entire core. Horvat, Pettersson, Hughes, Demko, Boeser, Podkolzin, Hoglander, Rathbone. That’s eight integral parts of the team. Even Tampa, the pinnacle of drafting, acquired the rest of their roster through free agency and trades. There’s still a lot of work to do, including drafting assets that can be later exchanged for holes, but the core is there and we have augmented the core with this trade and the JT Miller trade two years ago
  19. It’s a quality thought but it does leave us without a right side defensive zone face off specialist…. But I do like Khaira’s game especially n a 4th line role.
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