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TOMapleLaughs

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Everything posted by TOMapleLaughs

  1. Yeah but he's SUPPOSED to just give kids spots with awesome linemates and watch them boom or bust before fizzling out and vanishing.
  2. It's all part of the plan, folks.

    1. Master 112

      Master 112

      Phew. Well that's a load off my shoulders!

    2. Bruce Boudreau

      Bruce Boudreau

      Yeah part of the plan is to get embarrassed 2 games straight.

    3. ttown

      ttown

      gillis came to the dressing room and said hey guys we need to lose this game today. We need to go back to Chi-town and sh*t kick those *ssholes who were talking trash and show Chicago that Vancouver doesn't take no crap.... lol I'm with you.

  3. There will be no goalie rotation unless Luongo craps the bed.

    1. Mr.DirtyDangles

      Mr.DirtyDangles

      LOU is on a mission to shut up all the haters. I cant wait to see his sweet smile of satisfaction :)

  4. Detroit 1st round loss. No matter who they face.

  5. The penalty by Burrows was stupid and the Canucks could've won the game if they had simply finished their earlier chances. It was Labarbera, forchristsakes.

    1. Dazzle

      Dazzle

      Canucks could've won if they scored.

      Labarbera or not, he won the game.

      Don't be a sore loser.

  6. Edmonton is too busy losing on purpose, but if you look at the highlights, Detroit should've lost.

  7. They'll be releasing 'slightly' radioactive gasses from that reactor anytime now. But at least it won't explode.
  8. He scored a couple beauties! Re-pin da thread!
  9. Most deadline deals are busts.

    1. Show previous comments  1 more
    2. Brad Marchand

      Brad Marchand

      Most trade deadline acquisitions aren't Keith Carney or Eric Weinrich.

    3. Shift-4

      Shift-4

      Pamela Anderson got traded?

    4. LeanBeef

      LeanBeef

      Higgins and Lapierre would be two players I would target today

  10. The demand for reasoner is high. Expect a team to pay probably too much for him. Is it us?

    1. vancanfan

      vancanfan

      why not, going all the way this year is the plan, he would help

  11. Kaberle saga over. Next? Kessel saga!

  12. Knocking on Bieksa?!? What is this? August 2010? Don't look now, but juice has been our best defenseman this season. He'll be re-signed before you can say 'contract year!'
  13. 1. Lupul hasn't been successful since the post-lockout season. There's a reason he did not crack Anaheim's top-6 this season and honestly, TO just acquired a more injury-prone version of Stempniak. All that and his upside is worse than Versteeg's. 2. Gardiner's a question mark, of course. All prospects who aren't a "can't miss" are. Negatively, i've heard he's got no vision in the offensive zone, but he's got a nice pass out of the zone. So TO should keep their expectations tempered. There's a reason why Fowler skipped well over him in the depth chart. He's likely not a future star, by any stretch. 3. Positively, Beauchemin gets out of TO, where the expectations were far too high for him. Hard to believe that he was utilized on the power play for large stretches, but there he was. He played his best hockey in Anaheim alright... When he was beside Scott Niedermayer. But beside Dion Phaneuf? Not quite as great. In Anaheim he remains overpaid, but Anaheim can still use him for a significant playoff push. 4. I said this trade would backfire for the Hawks and so far Frolik still remains a non-factor while Chicago is still losing. Frolik just isn't that good a player and i have doubts that Chicago will even retain him this summer. Skille isn't panning out quickly either, but Dale Tallon has a knack for drafting high quality talent. Whether he pans out in sadsack Florida, however, is unreliant on talent, honestly. NOBODY can pan out there. 5. Fisher's motives for moving to Nashville are plain. I expect him to ride off into the sunset. Nashville's a dud again this post-season, no matter who they face. They look to lose Weber in the off-season and there is no future offensive superstar on the radar. Meanwhile, Ottawa is starting from scratch. But what of Jason Spezza? If he's moved, i'd expect it to happen in the summer. His contract is just too massive. But wow... If he went to the Kings before the deadline? Yeesh... 6. Anderson is a UFA. Elliott is an RFA. So Ottawa essentially dumps cap space for the summer while Colorado gets a backup locked up for next season without even trying. Done. I expect both teams to perhaps push hard for Vokoun, Bryzgalov and possibly even Howard, who Detroit has yet to lock up. (Because Howard will be the goat if they lose early in the playoffs.) 7. Wheeler for Peverley was 100% cap-related. Wheeler is not great for the B's, but Peverley has been just horrid for the Thrashers. But the move was needed to make room for Kaberle. 8. Colborne started out hot for Providence this season, but has since cooled off and his consistency and work ethic have been called into question. At best, he's a 2nd-line talent version of Joe Thornton, another big man who doesn't play big. TO could do worse. (Bozak, Stajan) 9. Kaberle won't fit in great in the B's ultra-tight defensive game plan, but he will at least look decent on their power play. Or at least he should. The B's might find out the hard way that Kaberle doesn't exactly bring a wealth of NHL winning experience with him, so while they are at least attempting to match Philly's moves, they are still well behind. The Savard injury doesn't help their cause at all. (If Savard was healthy, would Chia have brought in Kabs? Probably not. So does this move qualify as a bit of a panic? You bet.) 10. The Canucks looking 'terrible' against Nashville has everything to do with how our defense looks at the moment. And rather than blaming the Sedins and Kesler for how sluggish they looked that night, i'm blaming the poor ice conditions in Nashville instead. No passes were being completed because the puck was dancing around like a mexican jumping bean and players were flopping all over the ice even moreso than Mason Raymond does regularly. It made for one boring, sloppy game and i'm certain the Canucks are glad that they don't have to do it again soon. Meanwhile, it looks like Ballard and Hamhuis are ahead of schedule. So relax and rejoice. For this is the year. Oh, and don't worry about facing the Wild in the first round. Not gonna happen. Koivu just went down with a broken hand. 4-6 weeks. -TOMapleLaughs
  14. So... Um.... 20 defensemen next season?

    1. Jarvis

      Jarvis

      30, to be safe. Trade all the forwards!

  15. Unfortunately for him, we have a ton of prospects just like him already. Probably too soft to be an effective bottom-6 guy. Probably not skilled enough to be an effective top-6 guy. The Canucks have a knack for seeking these guys out.
  16. Burrows is a God except in the broadcast booth Can't understand him
  17. The Vancouver Media. While they're serving the public and the information is in demand, they sometimes cross the line and/or dwell in the negative. Either by making up stories, misreporting them to serve their agenda or by merely exposing what the Canucks would like to keep under wraps. While a story is a story, they sometimes forget about the effect the story might have on the team that is in fact their main source of income in this town. If they say it all has little to no effect on the team, they're lying. Depending on the story, the team/franchise could be hurt significantly to varying degrees. Most recently, Rick Rypien, who was supposed to have the flu at the time, was reported to be in a bar with Kevin Bieksa. So... Why do we need to know that? Is this important? Are Canuck players not allowed to do that? Are we supposed to think that Rypien is somehow not a good teammate because of that? Because that's what the media is portraying when they go on-air to say that out of the blue. The only reason for reporting that Rypien was hanging out with a teammate in a bar (time, place and reason unknown) is to shed him in a even more negative light than the one shone on him last Tuesday. There is absolutely no other reason to report it. Only absolute negativity. Totally needless reporting. If you can call it reporting instead of rumour-mongering, that is. And then let's go back to how Mats Sundin was (How dare he!) hanging around in Whistler instead of working his tail off in Vancouver during the 2009 all-star break. Afterall, the 'saviour' wasn't doing much to save this team at the time. He needed to shape up, dammit! What was it, a week of ripping Sundin's apparent laziness and lollygagging about in Whistler? Nevermind that he was in fact working out every day. The talk got so bad that Mike Gillis had to come on-air to defend Sundin's actions and after some forehead-knocking, Pratt and Taylor's reaction was, "Oh. Well i guess that makes sense." And this is a daily thing with the local media in Vancouver. Afterall, a story is a story, right? Who cares about taking responsibility for how the information (or lack of it) might be portrayed? However, it's not all local media to be certain. A lot of negativity comes at us from good ol' TO. TSN and the CBC are generally not Canuck fans and any negative story regarding the team will come to the forefront in most instances. Augergate and Maclean's ripping of Burrows' character comes to mind. Certainly the same comments wouldn't be made of the immortal Tie Domi, even after he delivered a sucker elbow to Scott Niedermayer in the playoffs. And don't forget about Cherry going on record to call Bure a 'Russian weasel' in the playoffs and start talks about how he wouldn't play in the finals unless he got a new contract. Meanwhile, Doug Gilmour gets dryhumped be the same man on-air. It never ends. Even a story from the TO Maple Laffs' website directly and most certainly negatively affected this team. The leaked trade rumour involving Burrows, Bieksa and Tampa Bay's 1st rounder in 2009, which ended up being Vic Hedman. That leaked rumour sparked Burrows and Bieksa to question Gillis' actual intentions and the Canucks to promptly complain about the video to the league. I mean, why in the hell does Brian Burke open his yap about this on the Laffs' website when it has absolutely nothing to do with the Laffs? This is just an example. And they wonder why we hate TO so much. Anyway, i could go on forever with examples about how negatively the Canucks have been portrayed over the years. No, we can't control what the outside media says about the Canucks, but we sure could change things locally. Since we're talking about all the things tried in the past that just haven't worked, like how playing Luongo a ton of games during the season hasn't worked, how about we get the media in this town to, oh, i dunno, be just a little bit more positive? And i don't mean the sarcastic "This just in: The Vancouver Canucks will be Stanley Cup champions" version of 'positivity' that the media might portray now and then, but honest-to-goodness positivity. Heck, if they think it's just too mushy to report about, then forget all the outright homerism. Just try to eliminate some of the outright negativity. It'll be a start. Because all that negative crap reported in the past? Yeah, it's been 40 years. And it hasn't helped. Time for a change. -TOMapleLaughs
  18. House should've ended four seasons ago.

    1. Grouching Out
    2. Brad Marchand

      Brad Marchand

      House is as much of a mental patient as his mental patients.

    3. Truculence

      Truculence

      Dude, watch Mad Men. The 2nd half of the first season is awesome.

  19. When Mitchell went down, it was Ehrhoff who saw his duties increase the most and he still did reasonably well. You can't avoid other teams' top players when you see the ice that much.
  20. The more I look at Gillis' approach to team-building, the more 'post-lockout Detroit' it looks. Detroit doesn't have a $3.5 mil 'shutdown' defenseman and they do quite alright. However, they have a hall-of-fame captain defenseman named Nick Lidstrom. Now... Believe it or not, Christian Ehrhoff just had a comparable season to Lidstrom on 09/10. His +/- was better. He had more goals. He had almost as many points. And his actual defensive ability was actually closer to Lidstrom's than most people would give him credit for last season. Of course Lidstrom had an off year, but whatever. Now Ehrhoff just needs to carry that regular season success into the playoffs. When Detroit wants to score, it's Rafalski that is usually on the ice with Lidstrom. Our equivalent would be Edler. Problem: Edler is not Rafalski. He's just 24 and is still learning the game, but most experts are willing to predict that he's ready to reach the next level now. When that happens, then we have another excellent two-way defender. Detroit also had another excellent two-way guy in Kronwall. He currently has injury problems, so his effectiveness could be limited for 10/11, but our equivalent would be Ballard, another hard-hitting guy who's capable of two-way play. Problem: Ballard isn't Kronwall. At least not yet. So how the Canucks as a team positively affect Ballard's performance level remains a question mark. Three down, no exclusive 'shutdown' guy yet. The closest thing Detroit has to a defense-only 'shutdown' guy right now is Brad Stuart. But if you look at Brad Stuart's career in San Jose, he's not 'defense-only' at all. He scored 39 and 40pts just a few years ago. Willie Mitchell's career high was 29pts, and that was in 08/09, when Gillis took over. Basically, Gillis has been trying to get Mitchell to be a more dynamic defenseman than he's capable of being. It was plainly obvious that he wasn't in Gillis' long-term plans, however, as Edler was re-signed, Ehrhoff and Ballard were traded for and then Hamhuis was signed. (I'm not quite sure why some people thought Mitchell would stay after all that.) Hamhuis is our Brad Stuart as the moment. Actually, he's better at the moment. Stuart was a -12 last season. Hamhuis has also scored high 30's in points before and has been a consistent two-way force in Nashville for his entire career. Overall, Gillis has setup a framework of younger, healthier two-way defenders to build the team on now and all that needs to happen is for the systems in place to help them grow as players, hopefully leading towards a dominant force in the NHL for years to come. Better: Our prospects will be able to come into this system later on and will be better, faster, so our team can maintain a high level of competitiveness indefinitely. Sounds a lot like the Detroit model to me. Now i know a lot of you will say that Willie Mitchell is better than so-and-so defensively, and he is, but what good has it done so far? His defense-only skills haven't conjured up a second round victory for us so far. And let's not forget the clutch giveaway that led to Chicago's key goal in our 08/09 meeting with them. There's no way Hamhuis would let that play happen. Why? Because Hamhuis is capable of plays with the puck other than dumping it up the boards. Hamhuis in his young age has already had a year better than Mitchell's best. imo this opportunity he has in Vancouver for this season will make him have an even better career year. It's all part of the plan that'll lead this team to glory And then we'll forget all about Willie Mitchell and his great, one-dimensional 'shutdown' plays that just lead to turnovers in our own zone anyway. Nothing against Willie here. He gave it his all. But in the end, it was never going to be enough. The Wild fans spouting negative comments on the Willie signing here were inevitably right: Not quite worth the money. Gives away the puck too much in his own zone. And has likely seen his best days as a player pass him by.
  21. Is he using 'Chicago Brand' HGH?
  22. Surprised that Hank won Hart after OV won Lindsay

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