DownUndaCanuck

AA at 4.25M is a joke and I think the whole league knows it. From a lot of the reports that have come it out it sounds like we'd have to add to get rid of Garland. I know he's got a lot of value and still some potential, but if he was an easy piece to move for an asset I think it would have happened by now.

Imagine if we had started a rebuild once Trevor was in. In 2014-2015 we were still decent, around the top of the division, the Sedins were just under a PPG. The next season was the big drop off, down to 2nd last in the division, and the year after that, dead last. That was the year Bo lead us in scoring with 52 points and the Sedins were finally done. We should have started a full-blown rebuild in 2015 to be honest. Eriksson was the worst move we could have made back then, made absolutely no sense. We did sell a lot of our good players to be fair but really could have sold a lot more. There were a lot of odd moves (like for guys like Vanek, Vbrata etc.) to try and keep us relevant but we really should have just been selling everyone. We could have traded the Sedins but I respect keeping them and letting them retire, but everyone not named Sedin or a former 1st round pick should have been sold for picks or prospects. Instead we had a lot of journeymen on the team in a weird, desperate attempt to stay relevant but we were still at the bottom of the division. A perfect time for a solid healthy tank and we didn't even really do well at that.

All this chat about Juolevi, it's a real shame he just picked the wrong defenceman. OJ was ranked top 15 or even top 10 by a lot of pro-scouts. Personally I wanted Sergachev but was relatively happy with the Juolevi pick at the time but of course he never panned out and that's the risk of looking into a WJC too much. Crazy to think that McAvoy goes so late and is probably the best defenceman of the bunch. Makes you wonder about the upcoming draft and all the hype around ASP and Reinbacher. They're just poised to let someone down whereas just watch a later pick defenceman like Lindstein, Willander or really IMO Strbak end up being the best of the bunch years down the line. Defencemen are just so hard to draft. That's why I think you've got to reserve top-10 picks for forwards unless there's a real Makar-like game-breaker, and why you've got to save those late first/2nd round picks and just load up on defencemen there. Problem is we've pissed away a lot of those picks over the last few years, including this year too, so no wonder we don't have a healthy crop of young defencemen. We've usually drafted D-men late and no surprise not many of them pan out. Apart from Hughes, he highest we seem to allow ourselves to draft a defenceman is the 3rd round - Pettersson and Brisebois are the most recent guys and there's certainly no guarantees that either becomes a consistent 500+ NHL game defenceman. That sweet spot of 20-50 overall pick seems to be where the juicy defencemen sit and we just never have that pick these days.

Realistically we'd have to look elsewhere for that. I'd honestly be happy tying our 3rd to Garland to get rid of him and get nothing back. 5M in cap space we could sign a 3C like Kampf or Acciari for 2M and the last 3M goes to everyone's raises. So essentially, this off-season: IN: Pettersson, Kampf OUT: Boeser, Garland, 3rd, Rathbone

Let the games begin. Two players we should stay well away from. The only guys on that roster I'd like are Feheravy or Alexeyev or Iorio but neither are coming cheap. Boeser + Rathbone for Mantha and Alexeyev That'd be interesting...

What if we ate up 1-1.25M of it? I think they'd bite. They have a surprising amount of cap space, 20M, with about half a crop of forwards to sign, a goalie and maybe a depth defenceman. They could easily make it work, especially with a couple of depth UFA signings.

Will be interesting to look back and see how wrong or right these guys are. Button's previous mock drafts are always pretty close to the final draft and he often has a few players picked higher than they're drafted who really should have been, so he deserves some credit.

It's interesting to see more bad teams act as buyers now. CBJ were almost dead last and they're making a play for the playoffs. Maybe after teams like STL and Florida have shown that anyone who gets in can have playoff success, it gives a lot of teams false hope to try and gun for a playoff spot, even if it's just for a couple of years, rather than sustained success. Inpatient teams rarely win cups but just watch a team like NJD, Buffalo and soon Detroit gear up for consistent success. They had a bit of success this year but none of them are selling the farm or picks to gun for it in the short term, if anything they're biding their time and slowly growing and getting better. NJD are about to lose two of their top 4 defencemen in one off-season, they just "sold" Severson for a 3rd and just watch that team be even better next year with Hughes and Nemec. That's how you have sustained success. Same goes for Detroit - they just sold their top RD for two top picks so instantly double their team value and they've got Edvinsson and Wallinder to replace him, and they'll just continue that cycle until they're really ready. I wish we had constructed the team that way - patient build up from within, instead of all of these rash moves trading firsts and seconds away.

I know drafting and scouting and UFA signings all had their strengths and weaknesses, but look at some of his trades on Cap Friendly as a bit of an idea. He came in and his first trades were back in 2014. Garrison for a 2nd - pretty decent trade but we didn't keep the pick in the end, ended up being Vey. Kesler for Sbisa, a 1st (McCann) and Bonino and a 3rd - great trade but was sort of forced into it, got a pretty decent haul back. A bit similar to the Bo trade but Kesler was past his prime. Dorsett for a 3rd - was a huge player for us while here. Linden Vey for the 2nd round pick we got for Garrison, bad deal. Clendening for Forsling. Yikes. At the time I remember thinking we were basically trading a young skinny puck mover for a fairly solid physical defenceman but boy did that not pan out well at all. Maybe you could argue the league trended towards favouring Forsling but still, bad trade. Baertschi for a 2nd round pick. Seemed good at the time but Calgary drafted Rasmus Andersson with that pick so obviously a big loss on our behalf. Eddie Lack for a 3rd (Brisebois) and later pick, minor victory because Lack rarely played after that. Bieksa for a 2nd round pick - seemed good, getting rid of an older player well past his prime, but we ended up moving that pick anyway. Prust for Kassian - pretty lateral trade at the time. Bonino + Clendening + 2nd for Sutter. Again a pretty lateral trade, this did make us a lot better at the time, Sutter was very serviceable for us. McCann + 2nd + 4th for Gudbranson. Yikes. I would argue that back then Gudbranson was just the player we needed (and arguably we could really use a prime Guddy now) Burrows for Dahlen. Forced again but we get some value back for a player who deserved out. Hansen for Goldobin + 4th. Bad player coming back again, maybe this is due to scouting? Vanek for Motte and Jokinen. Pretty lateral move for older guys but you can't say acquiring Motte was a bad deal, Vanek's stats really got padded here. Del Zotto for Luke Schenn. Steal. Gudbranson for Pearson. Great trade again at the time, sure we shouldn't have acquired him but Pearson was very solid for us for a while. Dahlen for Karlsson. Karlsson looks very good right now so maybe this trade wasn't the worst in the world? JT Miller acquired for a 1st (Mukhamadullin) + 3rd + Mazanec. One of the best trades of the franchise. Obviously we don't know how good Mukh is going to be (big young Russian defender) but this trade has kept us out of the conference basement (for better or for worse) and kept us relatively relevant. You have to commend the scouting on this one, Miller came in as what, a 2nd or 3rd liner and ends up being our 99pt top line center. 2nd + 4th + change for Toffoli. Those picks ended up being pretty average guys anyway but still that was a big haul for a guy who played like 20 games as a rental with us and then we don't re-sign him. That's a different story, but the value for the trade was pretty average. Schmidt for a 3rd. Absolute steal yet again, I know Schmidt didn't like it here but he was a solid defenceman for Vegas, it just didn't pan out. Ironically we get the 3rd back and draft Elias Pettersson. Dickinson for a 3rd round pick. At the time, looks like a good deal but boy does this trade haunt us. The big one. OEL + Garland for 1st (Guenther) + 2nd (Haight) + Roussel, Beagle, Eriksson. Desperation trade when a GM can see the light at the end of his tunnel. At the time I sort of understood it, OEL and Garland were two top players, but they just haven't been the same. Can't forget that while it seemed like a cap dump, we were taking on 12M in cap space as well. Bad deal all around, we were something like just a year or two off having all those plugs off our roster for good. Juolevi for Lammikko. This was a great deal at the time, obviously Juolevi was trash for us and never panned out but we somehow get one of the best 4Cs we've had in ages. Mistake IMO to not re-sign him but Aman and Joshua made him expendable. So on the whole looking back, some absolute steals by JB (the Miller deal in particular), a lot of quite lateral trades which were sort of win-wins for both teams but honestly didn't have much of an impact, and then the big nasty OEL trade. I'd rate him pretty average on the whole. One thing though is that all those trades addressed the team needs in an instant. When we needed a defenceman, we got Gudbranson. When we needed a checking center we got Sutter.

I really agree with these tiers, it's hard to compare the 3 top defencemen and see where they sit - sounds like Button is putting ASP in the Smith/Benson tier but I agree with you there, and as we've said Willander is massively hyped right now for some reason (Button has him going 8OA lol). I'd just argue Dvorsky is a bit more impactful than the two American kids Moore and Leonard but they're all very similar players in the same group for sure. Think there's certainly lots of duo/trio groups which we'll look back at 5 years from now and see who picked the right one from the right tier.

Button has ASP at 5, Willander at 8OA, Reinbacher not in the top 10, Sale 7th as well. All over the shop, he really sees something in these Swedish defencemen. Willander is a risky pick that high.

Surprised to see some pundits think Willander will be the best defenceman and highest of the draft but he did look like one of the best defencemen in the WJC, really did look on par with ASP. I doubt all 3 go in the top 11 to be honest but crazier things have happened and you know their stock will have risen a lot after the WJC. I've got a sneaking suspicion Reinbacher will fall now and some team will take ASP in the top-6 (maybe Arizona?), leaving us with an interesting decision which really just comes down to how good all our European scouting really is.

I wonder if the he plays in the SHL next year, if we can slowly get him to the AHL the following year and then maybe the NHL during that year or after, so a good 2ish years away from bottom-pairing NHL minutes? That'd time really nicely with our 11th overall pick this year if we somehow secure ASP or Reinbacher - what a great pairing that'd be. Obviously the two kids wouldn't play with each other in the NHL right away but maybe down the line as mid-20 year olds what a pairing: Petey - ASP or Reinbacher as a shutdown type. We've had a lot of defensive prospects taken in later rounds in the past who haven't panned out but Pettersson looks pretty legit and he's doing well in the SHL so far, let's just hope it translates but he brings a physical edge to his game that not many young Canucks have had.

I wonder if he can crack Abby's top-4, not sure he will to start the season but hopefully he'll get better as the year goes on. He's got all the tools - good size, skating, passing, shooting, he can put up points and hit as well.

I've been big on Marcus Pettersson lately but he is a top pairing shutdown 27 year old defenceman on a 4M cap hit - Garland is a cap dump. If we want him he's going to cost Boeser + Rathbone IMO at the very least. Pittsburgh do have POJ coming through but they're desperate and want to win now, and get a lot worse on defence by losing Pettersson. Maybe if they make a deal with us involving Boeser and Petey 3.0, they go out and sign Graves to fill the hole and it's not as big a problem for them? He plays big minutes, is a great skater and 2-way guy but really excels defensively - the perfect top-4 LD for this team to play with Hronek to unlock him offensively. We'd have to bury OEL and Myers on our bottom pairing but I don't mind having a silly 13M bottom pairing if you have an 8M top pairing of Pettersson-Hronek and suddenly Hughes has a lot less defensive responsibilities. We could play any chum with Hughes on the 2nd pairing and basically treat Quinn as a 4th forward.

I think you're right - we need to target these two desperate teams Pittsburgh and Washington. They don't have many good prospects after their runs but they have some good young players. Ruuta is 32 now but had a pretty good year on Pittsburgh's bottom pairing, a surprising amount of points. He's got a 2.7ish M cap hit the next couple of years. I agree with the above posters, I think we'd have to add to get rid of Garland. I know they want Boeser bad and with Dubas behind the helm, you know he'll make some interesting trades and demand cap retention. I've liked Boeser for a long time, don't want to give up on him and think he's primed for a 30-40 goal season, but if there's a deal to be made with one of these desperate teams involving a defenceman, we make it. Washington have Feheravy and Alexeyev as well who are dynamite young defencemen. Marcus Petterson's name floated around a bit, he's a solid top defensive defenceman, good age (27), good size, and can play top pairing LD minutes on a 4M cap hit. I wonder if Boeser + Rathbone to Pittsburgh/Washington gets it done for one of these solid young defencemen. Feheravy is probably untouchable, Ioro is a bit young and unproven for Boeser but Alexeyev is a big, young tough LD too who we could maybe snag with Beauvillier (only played a handful of games so far). I think Boeser + Rathbone + maybe 4th gets it done for Marcus Pettersson. Then I wonder if Beauvillier + 3rd for Alexeyev is enough? Give them Woo too? Even if we retain 1-2M on both deals, we save around 3-4M all up. Use that money to sign a 3C (Kampf, Acciari for 2M should do) and the rest for extensions and suddenly we're a much more balanced team. A lot less winger/top heavy up front but much more solid defensively. Mikheyev - Pettersson - Kuzmenko PDG - Miller - Podkolzin Garland - Kampf - Hoglander Joshua - Aman - Studnicka Pettersson - Hronek Hughes - Alexeyev OEL - Myers Hirose

These teams just keep rotating through coaches thinking that a new style will fit the players better rather than changing the players. NYR aren't far off but their pathetic excuse for acquiring offence last year cost them. Throwing all their hopes at old washed up Tarasenko and Kane was a bit naïve. They need quality up front. They have a great top line but they need some proper 2nd line scorers. Kane and Tarasenko could have broken the league but they really are quite far removed from their primes now. Their D is solid, their goalie is one of the best in the world and they have a star-studded top line but boy could they have used a Bo Horvat or Miller on their 2nd line.

Juulsen goes from maybe Abby's 3rd best defenceman to our top pairing defenceman in the NHL? He's not ready. I know everyone on CDC drools over him because he plays physical and hits, but you have to do a lot more to be able to play against top team's top lines in the NHL and his skating or passing or defensive awareness is nowhere near good enough for top pairing minutes, even if Quinn is protecting him. Acciari is great but will probably get re-signed by Toronto, he was huge for them, but I wonder if Kampf is available - surely one of the 3 Toronto centers will be available and they were all pretty solid in the playoffs, defensively and on the PK so we should certainly target them, and I think any one of them could be had cheaply. I really like Hagg but again, we have a lot of good bottom pairing defencemen. None are really that strong and physical which makes him attractive, but we have to think about Hirose and Rathbone and what their plans are. Hirose signed to play on the Canucks, not necessarily in Abby, and Rathbone must be waiver eligible which makes things tricky. Either could be Myers' partner next year, I'd lean towards Hirose because of how smooth he looked last year but let's see who's better in training camp. I'd much prefer a physical guy like Hagg in our lineup but then Hirose and Rathbone just sit in the press-box. Hagg hasn't played a full season for a while too which makes me a bit suspect about how good defensively or skating-wise he really is. I know these are all nice cheap budget moves and I think you're spot on with the 3C kind of player we need. I'd argue we just need a bit more quality on defence to make this a playoff team but of course to get there we need cap space, and to get cap space, we most likely have to move a winger or Myers, and to do that we probably have to add a sweetener (3rd or 4th round pick or Rathbone).

Boeser + Rathbone for Marcus Pettersson Garland to CBJ for Kuraly Oh look, done 1, 2 and 3 in a couple of simple moves. Surely it can be done.

This is quite a sad way to look at it but I think it's true. The Hronek deal really seals it for us - I know why PA did it and it makes our team maybe better now, but getting rid of two very high picks (arguably a top-10 and late 1st in any other draft) is the reason we're in this mess - a quick-fire way to fix the team in the short-term but hurts us in the long-term. The reason Yzerman did the trade is that it makes them better in the future and you can see that's what a clever savvy GM is building towards. He's looking at the slow-burner way to build a chronically successful team, we're trying to patch up our current core to go for it now but it's not a consistent way to build a winner. Sometimes doing less is more and I wonder, if we'd never made the OEL or Hronek deal how this team would have looked, let alone the Dickinson swaps where we lost picks too. A lot less cap hits, a lot more draft picks. I know we had positional needs but most teams just sit on their team, maybe fill them with free agents here and there, and use those picks wisely to build a team from within with quality and quantity.

Crazy to think that NJD could lose Severson, Graves, Bahl and Wood in an offseason and maybe be better next year. We should really be in on any defenceman right now, Wood would be nice but we're already proving how hard it is to move overpaid wingers, we don't have room for anymore, especially with Hoglander and Podkolzin waiting in the wings.

To be fair, he did walk into a team which had a few of the pieces already in place, he just did some tinkering - a bit like how JR did with Pittsburgh. His drafting was terrible, but he made some really nice moves to make that team a power-house. The Ehrhoff deal was top notch and I remember those Higgins and Lapierre moves were classic TDL acquisitions to help us go on a deep run with good depth. After that it started getting a bit desperate, I liked Palhsson but the Booth acquisition turned out pretty ugly. Got to give him credit on the Schneider for Horvat deal - that is one of the biggest fleeces in the history of this league - trading a prime goalie for a pick and then turns out the goalie flops under a different system whereas we get a star center. Even Luongo for Markstrom turned out to be a great trade for us - flipping a goalie past his prime for a young unproven guy who had some good seasons with us. Despite his bad drafting, he never threw away picks the way JB or even Allvin have done. I guess the cap structure was a bit different and less desperate back then though.

I like the fact that PA went out and acquired a young top-4 defenceman, a righty at that, but look around the league at similar deals getting done for young top defencemen. Seems to be the price is a first and two seconds right now. That's what Chychrun and Provorov cost. All 3 players are pretty similar to be honest, Hronek maybe flew under the radar a bit more. Hronek brings a bit more offence than Provorov but not as much as Chychrun, Provorov is probably the most physical, and both Chychrun and Provorov are very much regarded as the big minute top defencemen whereas Hronek was sort of a supporting top-4 defenceman. Points-wise they're all fairly similar, defensively I'd say it's pretty close too, physically I give it to Provorov. Cychrun just had a massive offensive outburst but of course Chychrun and Hronek were injured which should play into things. Personally I don't think Provorov is worth what he was traded for, he was once upon a time but hasn't been great lately (or is playing on a bad team...), but I've always liked Chychrun - thought it was a slap in the face he fell so low in the draft and we should have picked him - I like that we took a defenceman, we just took obviously the wrong one. There was chat about Chychrun going first overall in the first half of the year which is nuts but in a re-draft he's surely top-10 (obviously McAvoy and maybe even Sergachev are better now). There's a little bit of risk with Chychrun and Hronek's injuries so only time will tell how good this trade will be. If this was the asking price of these guys, I wonder what it would be for guys like Peeke and Schneider who are obviously a level below (if they're available, that is)?

Watching the 3 of them at the WJC, I thought Allvin and our European scouts would be all over them. I could completely understand trading down if we can somehow get two late firsts. Not just these guys but there's also Strbak who was a two-way beast, and then there's guys like Simashev who is flying under the radar, and lesser guys like Gulyayev, Dragicevic, Bonk, Allen etc. There's a lot of semi-decent defenceman who will go in the late first/early 2nd. Makes you wonder - would Detroit have just take the 11OA straight up for Hronek and left us with the NYI pick and our 2nd - we could have walked away with one of Willander/Strbak and Lindstein? Or do we make a trade with one of these teams at the draft: - 11OA to CHI for 19 OA + 35 OA - 11OA to STL for 25 OA + 29 OA - 11OA TO MTL for 31 OA + 37 OA + surely another later pick It's a big ballsy move if PA trades down but I'd understand it if we have no one juicy to take at 11OA. We really need a future world-class talent at 11OA, otherwise we might as well roll the dice on two very solid defencemen.

Benson 5th overall, Simashev as the best defenceman at 8OA, Musty and Perron 11 and 12 OA ahead of Dvorsky and Reinbacher. I get that Benson could go really high or really low but there's a lot of questionable takes in the 8-15OA spot but we'll see how it pans out...