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Everything posted by DownUndaCanuck
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Wow pretty good mock draft, us taking Willander over ASP is interesting. Button thinks ASP is one of the top-3 skaters in the draft, he's obviously massively over-hyped ASP but seeing where those 3 go will be interesting. Maybe Allvin likes Willander more as a shutdown guy if we already have a solid puck mover? Reinbacher is going a bit too high there for my liking but I think they're all pretty spot on.
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Florida looked finished against Boston but somehow came back, but this is a different team - not as fresh, battered and Vegas is just swarming them the way Boston didn't. It'll surely take a miracle now or Bob to stand on his head and steal a couple of games. Vegas let Dallas back in a tiny bit, I wonder, if they let Florida win the next game it'll be huge, they'll have some belief. The games in Florida have been close so game 6 could go either way, but Florida were destroyed in Vegas. Next game is obviously crucial/the series. Vegas win - it's obviously all over, but if Florida somehow eek out a victory and take it back to Florida I see this going 7. Time for Bobrovsky now, he's really Florida's only hope.
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I really like Bjugstad but think Edmonton will try and keep him, great 3C. Honestly anyone like that, Sundqvist is another big body but he's not as strong defensively, Girgensons is another big body but same problem. I'd prefer a defensive guy like Kampf who can run our PK and just focus on defence. On wing, we need to get rid of some guys, not add any. I know we need size, but we have Podkolzin and Hoglander waiting in the wings who deserve and are ready for a transition. They're much cheaper options than Beauvillier and Garland and can easily do their job. No point just getting some more wingers when we have two decent options who are cheap and need to be developed, and should be ready for NHL minutes. Hoglander can play anywhere in the lineup, but he and Kampf would form a great forechecking 3rd duo, and Podkolzin could play anywhere too - he could start with Miller and Boeser on a scoring line or drop down as well depending on how good PDG is next year. I'd rather roll with those guys scattered across our lineup than acquiring more wingers and pushing them back to Abby for another year. Most importantly, losing Garland and Beauvillier gives us 9M in cap space (so around 7M with Podz and Hogs in the lineup) which of course...we should spend on a top-4 defenceman.
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I think you can get away with smaller forwards if you have big guys on the blueline. Vegas have both. Most of the playoff teams have both. We have neither right now. I think the first thing would be to start on defence and start getting some young big guys. They don't have to score much, they just have to be physical and complement Hughes and Hronek. The problem is, we have more small skinny guys in our pipeline (Hirose and Rathbone) and really no one of any size, so need to target a young big guy. That's why Reinbacher works so well, but we need more than just a draft pick. Up front, you could argue we're half-way there. We do have Mikheyev, Miller, PDG and Podkolzin. None of them are exactly big bodies but they're gritty and I think if we were in the playoffs, they'd use their body. Joshua and Aman are good but play limited minutes and Hoglander can maybe play gritty but is relatively tiny. So really, 4 of our top-6 can play a slightly heavy game but obviously we lack a 6'4 beast. Fixing the small D is the more important issue. If we went out and got a guy like Hathaway the way everyone on CDC wants, he plays what...10-12 minutes a night of very meaningless minutes and throws his body around. If we go out and acquire a big tough RD, I don't know, like Mayfield for example or Peeke, he plays 20-22 minutes against top lines and on the top unit PK, crushing the opponent's top players and shutting them down. Far more important to the team. We're in a good transitional phase now where Myers is almost gone so need his replacement and he better be a big young rock, not Ethan Bear. I think sadly OEL and his contract go down with this ship and with Hughes and Hronek not losing top-4 minutes any time soon, we really need at least one physical defenceman in this top-4. I've seen Hronek throw some nice hits but he's pretty average in stature and I worry a shoulder injury will slow his physicality down a fair bit too.
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[proposal] UFA signing Jujhar Khaira
DownUndaCanuck replied to Ted Lasso's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
To be blatant he's not good enough to be a 3C and play those important minutes, he's a good 4C on a non-playoff team, sadly that's about it. I'd be going for a safe bet like Kerfoot or Kampf, or an outside bet like Sundqvist or Suter. Barbashev and Compher are basically top-6 wingers and will be too expensive and anyone else is too old. -
Will be interesting to see if a deal gets done this off-season or they wait until next year, there's risk either way. Petey just put up 100pts, what are the chances he repeats that or goes even better? Personally I think he'll hit around 100-110 pts next year if he's healthy all season (or that sort of pace), I doubt he'll go much better, he may drop off to around 90pts but he'll still be over a PPG easily. If we try and re-sign him now there's a chance we can get the AVV lower but if he drops another 100pt season we really have to pay the man because he's proving he can do it consistently. If heaven forbid he gets injured and misses a big chunk of next year I don't think it'll matter too much - we'll probably just go on his PPG. Allvin would be wise to cut a deal now rather than wait. We'll be a stronger team next year, Mikheyev will be healthy, Petey could really put up some big numbers and then up goes that AVV for the rest of Petey's contract.
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Can't ignore those bad deals, at the end of the day he has to take the blame for the bad signings and moves and desperation, but I think it's a lot more complex than just JB. Firstly, a lot of blame should go onto our scouts who decided LE and OEL were worth it. Blame our drafting/scouts for ranking Juolevi and Virtanen higher than Tkachuk and Nylander respectively. JB takes the fall on them. Conversely, he deserves credit for picking two super-stars in Hughes and Petey where a few other teams passed on them. 50% bust rate in top-10 picks is certainly not good, but Petey and Hughes should be top-3 picks so I think the drafting is a bit of a write-off. Don't forget he plucked Demko out of nowhere in the 2nd round who is now arguably a top-5 goalie. One thing I respected about JB is that he would make moves when the team needed them, and instantly. Sure they were rash, but he worked quickly. If we needed a defenceman, he'd go out and sign or trade for one. It was desperate and fast but it addressed out teams needs instantly. I remember GM MG or Nonis were a bit slower in this regard, maybe a bit more patient. So far Allvin was a bit slow in doing it but he's slowly addressing our main needs. JB's valuation of players was terrible, whether it be OEL or LE or anyone, and his use of picks was pretty bad. These were desperate moves, who knows if they were forced upon him by ownership or not. The big thing which gets forgotten about is coaching, and I think this should be why JB got fired - not his wreckless trading. He had Desjardins and Green at the helm and they were terrible coaches. I think the main reason he lost is job is that he didn't fire Green fast enough. Go figure, Green goes and the same team (which JB had constructed) goes on to be a top-10 team in the league in 60 games of the season. If Green was canned in the off-season and we had a decent NHL coach, who knows, we could have been (and probably should have been) a playoff team and JB is still GM. We have good pieces on paper but on-ice we were shambles everywhere. I wouldn't say JB is the worst GM ever, I'd say he was average, but average just isn't good enough. I was quite happy with the intention of a lot of his trades, questioned his valuation and scouting though. So far Allvin has done an average job too, I don't give him credit for the Bo or Hronek trade because any buffoon can trade away a top center who is in his prime scoring at a 50 goal pace, and any idiot can trade a 1st and 2nd round pick and get some sort of value back. He's attempted a lot of shrewd low-value deals as well, like the acquisitions of Studnicka and Bear who were useless to their former teams, as sort of projects, and again - no credit there because they're basically waiver pick ups. I like the way he's addressing our needs though - the Hronek deal was JB-esque and we have to see if our scouting paid off as to whether he fits our team structure or not. Again, a big plus for Allvin is coaching - he's gotten Toccket, Foote and Gonchar in because he could see we're a mess defensively. I'll be cautious - it looks good on paper but these guys don't have great coaching track records. It would make sense that they work well but their coaching records are pretty brief compared to their playing records so we'll see. I know PA's been GM for a while but we still have to wait to see how all this stuff pans out - Raty, Hronek and our defensive coaches. That being said next year is massive for Allvin. I think it's simple - make the playoffs and he's a great GM. Fail to make the playoffs and we're in big, big trouble.
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How long until we are competing with Vegas & Colorado?
DownUndaCanuck replied to Nucks89's topic in Canucks Talk
Watching these playoffs, we are so far off. The good teams of the playoffs have been Florida, Dallas surprisingly, Vegas obviously and maybe Carolina or Boston (although obviously they got bounced by a superior team). The thing they all have in common is that they play hard hitting hockey, especially defensively, and have clutch scorers up front and deep lines up front. Their top-4 defences are all monsters. I don't see us even scoring in a 7 game series against any of these teams unless it's on the powerplay. Their big strong defencemen would just own Petey to be honest. Maybe Miller would crack through here or there, and we'd probably hurt them on the PP, and obviously Demko will stand on his head, but at the end of the day our defence won't be able to stop any of these guy's stars whereas their D will shut us down. We maybe win 1 game max against any of the final 4 teams in a 7 game series. We are so far off. We've got a good top 2 centers, we have loads of small wingers who probably wouldn't do much in the playoffs, we have little to no size or grit in our forward unit and most importantly, we really only have 2 good defencemen in Hughes and Hronek, and no grit or toughness on the blueline, but we do have a star goalie. If we magically could just acquire a solid 3C, swap our flimsy wingers for grittier guys, and get two bonified rugged top-4 defencemen we'd be a playoff team for sure and maybe a contender depending on how they all play together as a 5 man unit. For example, throw Ryan O'Reilly, Marchment, Gudas and Marcus Pettersson into this lineup and take Garland, Beauvillier and Myers out and you've got a playoff contender. -
(Signing) CBJ signs Severson
DownUndaCanuck replied to billabong's topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
Yeah much more fair, these contracts are handcuffing teams so badly. CBJ probably knew that anyway but when their kids up front are in their primes, Severson is going to be a 6M anchor in his mid 30s. -
(Proposal) Vancouver & Columbus
DownUndaCanuck replied to Seannnp's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
There probably is a deal to be made with them, on paper that team looks rock solid. They now have arguably some of the best defencemen in the league on the same roster (although each one could be very sloppy defensively). Up front they have some very exciting young kids along with some scoring wingers who should be in their prime. They're really lacking a top line center for sure, hoping Roslovic and Jenner will share that role a bit like how Boston has done without a true >PPG scorer. If they wanted they could try and upgrade one of them by attaching a defenceman. For example, Roslovic + Peeke + pick for Miller No chance we get their 1st but 2nd round pick is basically a late first, I'd certainly consider this deal. Roslovic is a 40-50pt center, really a 3C but maybe a 2C on a lot of bad teams. We take a real hit up front but get a good partner for Hughes and with the pick, probably take a defenceman like Willander, Lindstein, Strbak (if he's still around), Gulyayev/Dragicevic/Bonk etc. who might be a couple of years away. We get a bit younger and save some cap too (around 2M) but you could argue we balance our team. It's risky in that Peeke may be trash, but also risky for CBJ because Miller may slow down any minute now, but the potential benefit for both teams is massive - we might get a 20+ minute top physical RD and another top-4 defenceman, and CBJ may get their stud two-way 80+pt center to re-ignite Gaudreau and Laine's careers. It's a risky, interesting trade both ways but heck I'd do it for fun. With the extra 2M cap space, we sign a 3C like Kampf. Offence/points-wise, we lose a what, 70-80 point guy in Miller, but gain a 40-50 point guy in Roslovic, get 10-20 points out of Peeke and 25-30 points out of Kampf so it's pretty similar all-up, just spread out a bit more. Lose top quality for depth. Mikheyev - Pettersson - Kuzmenko Garland - Roslovic - Boeser PDG - Kampf - Beauvillier Joshua - Aman - Hoglander Hughes - Peeke OEL - Hronek Hirose - Myers Rathbone I've harped on about trading our wingers for defencemen but if it takes Miller, so be it, then we probably can't afford to lose much more skill/scoring up front. -
I'd like the idea of acquiring a strong physical veteran defenceman like Soucy or someone on the cheap, but we have plenty of bottom pairing guys in the pipeline who really should play. Hirose and Rathbone are the key guys who deserve a shot, they're both good skaters who can cover for Myers' gaffs and have played with him at times. I think it'll be a rotation of those two on the bottom pairing with Myers with OEL sits with Hronek. That just leaves Hughes all alone with someone - if we're lazy it'll just end up being Bear at 2.2M but I hope we pull someone else out of the hat for him...
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[proposal] Peeke for Garland
DownUndaCanuck replied to Ted Lasso's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
It's really hard to get a read on what they think of Peeke, and also, how good or bad he is. Statistically he was one of the worst defencemen in the league last year, but they had a terrible team with injuries everywhere. Peeke was partly to blame for a lot of the bad defence too, but he is a solid young physical, strong shutdown RD. With better support and a better defensive structure (eg. with Hughes under Tocchet, or with someone like even Provorov under Babcock) he could be a great defenceman again and he's on a bargain contract. I think he'd be a perfect buy-low kind of guy, he may not be the Schneider-type young shutdown RD everyone thinks he'll be but he could be like a younger version of Schenn - play him with Hughes, log 18 minutes, mainly 5-on-5 and some 2nd tier PK minutes and try to groom him, if he develops well he can become a 20-22 minute top PK guy, if not, he'll be a very serviceable partner for Hughes technically playing on our top pairing but playing bottom pairing minutes, so bit of a specific role. The problem is, what do CBJ think of him? They might want to move on, after acquiring Provorov and Severson. Their defence as it currently stands looks like this: Werenski - Severson Provorov - Peeke Bean - Boqvist Gudbranson Blankenburg You could argue the top-3 are pretty set, the bottom 3 guys could be any one of those 5 players. They kind of have to play 4M Gudbranson or they look silly but Blankenburg was arguably the best of the bunch at the end of last year. Bean was huge for them 2 years ago and injured so expect a big come-back year from him and it looked like Boqvist was stealing minutes from Peeke. He certainly seems like the odd man out after taking the brunt of the losing last year but he is locked in for a long time so they may want to build around him. Regardless, they have to move a defenceman, they simply have too many, even if it's Boqvist, Blankenburg or Bean. I wouldn't mind a swing at any of those guys to be honest. Based on minutes, I think Blankenburg and Boqvist probably are their favourites over Peeke and Bean. I'd be happy to part with Beauvillier or Garland to be honest and we'd probably have to add something too. Boeser is just a bit too rich for my blood but you know they'll ask for him. No point adding Rathbone if they're stacked on D and Hoglander/Podolzin again is a bit too much value going back. Maybe Beau/Garland + 3rd (that they lost in the Severson deal) would suffice? There's definitely a deal to be done with CBJ and we should be swarming them - they have plenty of good young RDs, need a winger, it's a great match. -
[Report] Flames name Ryan Huska as head coach
DownUndaCanuck replied to -Vintage Canuck-'s topic in General Hockey Discussion
They have too many good players on that team to be a bad team with even an average coach so let's see what he can do. He's been an assistant for a while, it'll be interesting to see if he has a similar or different, more offensive style to Sutter. Any change over there is good though. -
(Signing) CBJ signs Severson
DownUndaCanuck replied to billabong's topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
Severson 8y 6.25M sets a precedent for Graves, that's a lot of term too. Graves surely comes in a bit lower, maybe around 5-5.5M? -
(Signing) CBJ signs Severson
DownUndaCanuck replied to billabong's topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
Agreed, from bottom feeder to playoff bound, maybe even contender if their coaching takes them there. They have the pieces in place on paper, it's all about coaching and execution now. Top offensive stars. A great top 4 defence. A goalie who can get hot. They're just missing some good defensive forwards really but Roslovic certainly isn't bad defensively. Good on them, that's how you retool on the fly or crash rebuild -
(Signing) CBJ signs Severson
DownUndaCanuck replied to billabong's topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
CBJ are going for it and good for them, they'll be better than us next year. Provorov, Severson, Werenski, Bean, Peeke - one of the best D in the business. They just need a good defensive coach though because they all have some cracks. -
I wanted Severson a few years ago but now he is primed to be the next Myers. Lots of mistakes in his own zone, inflated metrics and stats playing on a solid team, he's certainly not bad and logged some of the biggest minutes on their team (even more than Hamilton most nights) but we've got to be careful. He'll surely ask for 6M. It'd be a desperation move, likely trading Myers and signing Severson to a similar 5y x 6M deal, but we could easily just end up with the same problem down the line. That being said, in the immediate future, we're a much better team with Severson instead of Myers. Obviously there's no way we can fit both. Also I guess if Severson is due to play with Hughes under a tighter defensive structure, he may well play his best hockey here? For me, we need at least one more top 4 defenceman before going into next season. Severson's at the bottom of the list but if it's between him or no one, I'd go for it. Hughes - Severson OEL - Hronek Hirose - Burroughs Rathbone That's a pretty decent top 4 to be fair, pretty close to a lot of the playoff D's we're seeing.
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(Proposal) Vancouver & Columbus
DownUndaCanuck replied to Seannnp's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
Think we get way too much value there, either one of Johnson or Roslovic but I doubt both. KJ is a former 5OA pick, 40pts last year and is primed to breakout, he could be a star in a season or two. I'd say Miller + Beauvillier/Garland for Peeke + Roslovic + 2nd OR Miller + Boeser for Johnson + Peeke + 2nd Honestly either trade addresses a bunch of our needs - get a young center (albeit 2C), get a young RD, get a pick, get a bucket of cap space we could use elsewhere. -
[discussion] big summer tocchett
DownUndaCanuck replied to Angry Goose's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
I think Tocchet can really make this team a lot better, sure, but we still have too many expensive wingers, don't have a 3C and our defence is still fairly thin. We have two of the best top-6 centers in the league. We have one of the best winger depth in the league. We have one of the best puck moving defencemen in the league. We have one of the best goalies in the league. Lots to like from this team but the middle part of our depth is lacking a bit. I would point out - which one of our defencemen would crack a playoff team? Hughes and Hronek - that's it. We have work to do there for sure. -
I'm a big fan of the Detroit guys Puis Suter or Sundqvist - Suter is probably better defensively and on the PK but Sundqvist is a big strong unit (not great at times on metrics though). Kampf is an idea target - he was Toronto's 4C for the most part last year but is a great PKer and real checking center and solid at faceoffs. I know we had a similar incident with Dickinson - a former 4C we thought we could promote and he sucked obviously, but if we keep our offensive expectations low for Kampf I think we'll be fine. Surround him by our many offensive grinding-type wingers (eg. Hoglander and Garland would be a great line) and we should be golden. We don't need offence - we've got two of the best offensive centers in Petey and Miller, but we desperately need a checking guy to take minutes off the top guys and defensive responsibilities away from them in the D zone and on the PK. The dichotomy of Petey-Miller and Kampf-Aman/Joshua should work quite well.
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[Signing] Kings re-sign Vladislav Gavrikov
DownUndaCanuck replied to -Vintage Canuck-'s topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
Risky because it could back-fire, especially for a defensive-defenceman who doesn't put up many points, surely there's a ceiling on cap for a guy like that. The big risk is injury, Gavrikov plays a physical shot-blocking style, if he misses a big chunk of games over the next 2 years surely his value drops. Obviously it could pay off because he hasn't had many consistent games to play yet and if he does, and puts up monster stats, he'll get paid big-time, but you wonder how much a physical shutdown guy can/will ever get paid. -
[Signing] Kings re-sign Vladislav Gavrikov
DownUndaCanuck replied to -Vintage Canuck-'s topic in Trades, Rumours, Signings
Good to see a defensive defenceman finally get paid well, probably should have been closer to 5.2M on a longer deal but that's fair for a 2 year bridge deal almost at his age. Graves and Severson are going to command big bucks, I worry about these sorts of guys (and especially Dumba) - this is the UFA class for the next Myers-like contract and player. Graves is probably the least risky of the bunch and as much as I've liked Severson for a while, a lot of the NJD fans call him out on dumb defensive plays all the time.