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DownUndaCanuck

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Everything posted by DownUndaCanuck

  1. Got to say, have to give Zegras the benefit of the doubt, pointing upwards could mean anything here. Sadly the fans will never find out until maybe way down the line. I'd think if there's no fight next game it's more doubtful too.
  2. Our next handful of games are against solid opposition so those % are going to change a lot. Finally once we trade Bo our PP will go to crap and we'll lose even more games. Could see us go 4-10 in our next few games until the Anaheim game and that's being nice. Gets us down to a 0.400%, good to slip past SJS.
  3. Just wait until there's two Elias Petterssons and we accidentally waive the wrong one...
  4. Oh boy this wouldn't go down well with the fans if management give up on our franchise goalie after he has a handful of bad games in between injuries. Every team's gonna call in on them, they sense the rookie GM and mess of management and want to come pick at our good bits.
  5. I think Bedard starts on any NHL team, even if he's playing 12-15 minutes on the 3rd line. McDavid bust in and dropped PPG in his first year, I think Bedard would do the same and probably be most team's 2nd or 3rd line center, then he'll probably put up consistent 100pt seasons. I think Fantilli could use a year marinating but Carlsson I'd say would learn more on an NHL team - he's got an NHL body and speed. For less mature kids it's better to grow slowly but I think the top 3 are so good they're NHL ready. As for the 4-9 spot, they'd all need a year in junior at least. I think some players are just more NHL ready than others due to skill and size. Bedard has elite skill but Fantilli and Carlsson have the size to go along with a fair bit of skill that playing in junior and just dominating might not be more useful than playing middle-6 minutes on an NHL team.
  6. With Mikheyev injured, I think Tocchet will put a grinder on Petey's wing with Kuzmenko. Maybe we'll see Garland there but he seems to like his NHL 04 chemistry lines with a grinder, playmaker and scorer. Worked well in a couple of the 3 games he's coached. Joshua - Petey - Kuzmenko Dries - Horvat - Boeser Garland - Miller - Studnicka Hoglander - Lazar - Aman We're going to have to bring up a couple of forwards to replace Mikheyev and Pederson anyway.
  7. Think he's a bit past his prime and bitten off more than he can chew with the Canucks. He must have thought it'd be an easy job a bit like in Pittsburgh with the star core players already there, and he just thought he'd have to shuffle some pieces around Miller, Bo and Petey. Now he's found it's a complete and utter mess and he'll have to break it down to the ground and build up again. That, plus he's not really doing the day-to-day operations, he's left that for a rookie GM. So basically, we have a senior president who has only really ever had to make trades around a superstar core (so when they're bad, they haven't looked too bad), and a rookie GM who got taken to school by Miller's agent and so far hasn't made an impactful trades on the team in over a year. I have lost all faith in this management group but of course they deserve some more time, but it would have been nice to see a few good moves here or there.
  8. Funnily enough they're right up against the cap, only have Bonino's cap coming off the books but have a bit of dead cap kick in too. For such a bad team, they have such bad cap management as well. Giving Timo a 4M raise will be tricky with their cap right now. When you look up and down their organization they're a real mess of a team - bunch of veterans, lots of bad contracts, right up against the cap and really not as many picks/prospects as they should have. Trading Meier now would go a long way to starting a rebuild but they're well behind. I doubt anyone takes Karlsson off their hands either with that monster deal, even with cap retained. Even at 50%, that's 6M for a superstar defenceman but he's still got ages on that deal. If I were SJS I would just bomb hard the next 2-3 years. Retain as much as they want and can, send anyone in their prime elsewhere. They're situation is worse than the Canucks (but not by much mind you).
  9. Seems like there's a very clear 1st overall, then 2-3OA (Fantilli and Carlsson) and then honestly the rest of the 1st round is a bit of a crap-shoot - anyone could go anywhere. 4th to 9th is a big mixed bag (Dvorsky, Yager, Smith, Sale, Benson, Michkov). I could see any of those guys going anywhere in the 4-9th slot. After that the rest of the 1st is pretty much up for grabs. Sandin-Pellika was ranked like 30th overall, even in the 2nd round before the WJC and now he might go as high as 15OA (I bet some team will take a flyer on him earlier). 10th to 30th overall will be all over the place IMO. I know we've got to draft BPA but there's a lot of unknowns in this draft in brackets so I'd like to hope we somehow snag a 1st from a team for Bo/someone else (ideally 15-20 OA) and then walk away with a future top-6 center and a defenceman of some sort (SP, Gulyayev, Reinbacher). That's a pretty neat core to build around. If we dare draft another right winger I think that's curtains for this young core. Draft the BPA, sure, but you end up with a team of right wingers and a rookie GM who doesn't know how and when to trade to fill organizational holes and you're in trouble. With Benning, he could draft the BPA and you wouldn't worry because he had the balls (for better or for worse) to trade someone to fill a hole in the team (eg. the Ballard trade, Myers signing etc.). With Allvin we've gone >12 months now without fixing the defence and just keep signing and acquiring wingers. If we draft someone like Sale over a center we're done...
  10. If we move up and get the 2nd overall pick, who we picking, Fantilli or Carlsson? Personally I prefer Carlsson's game, he uses his body more, less top-end skill but could fill a 2C role for us under Petey very well and looks more NHL-ready so could fit with Petey/Hughes' timeline a bit better. Both are very similar. You'd have to think Allvin would cop some heat for just drafting Swedish players though, but there's no wrong move in drafting Carlsson at 2OA. For once I don't think there's any way possible to move up for 2OA to 1OA.
  11. Surely this will affect his trade value, makes things pretty complicated. SJS have no need to re-sign him, he doesn't fit with their mould at all anymore, so you'd think they're allowing other teams to discuss contract terms with him rather than what we've done with Miller and Bo. They could surely get a fortune of picks and prospects for him for a proper rebuild. SJS will have to take some bad cap back but they could easily wind up with a 1st, A-grade prospect and young player for Timo. Not sure who's rich enough to acquire him though if he'll just ask for the 10M QO.
  12. Wouldn't trade Demko away after just a few bad games in between injuries, if management do that they're fried. We can see how bad this team is without Demko as we speak. There's certainly an NYI trade to be done, I bet there was one in place last year but Allvin wouldn't let Lou talk contract terms with Miller so it fell apart. Otherwise we could have had a Miller + Schenn for Pulock + Pageau type deal. Now Miller is too washed for that. Maybe Miller + Schenn for Cizikas and Pulock? We'd get a bottom-6 center which would be nice and they get the cap flexibility for Miller. I think there's absolutely a Boeser-for-RD trade out there, whether it's Boeser for Fabbro, Severson or Dumba, we have to take it. None of them are star defencemen but they can all handle 20 minutes and if they're playing under Pulock their mistakes will be covered up a bit. I'd think it'd go Fabbro > Severson > Dumba but all of those teams seemingly would take Boeser. If they want we throw them a pick or prospect like Jet Woo/Wolanin their way too as they're wasted in our franchise (as Rathbone almost is too). No way NYR trades us Schneider full stop let alone for just Garland. Sadly despite all these deals we still don't have cap for Bo unless we get Severson or Dumba in which case we can let them walk in the off-season or try and find a partner for Myers. The ideal situation would be to off-load Myers somewhere, we'd have to retain or take cap back, but if we could even save 3-4M that would be enough to give Bo a raise. Mikheyev - Pettersson - Kuzmenko Garland - Horvat - Hoglander Pearson(?) - Cizikas - Podkolzon Joshua - Lazar - Studnicka Hughes - Pulock OEL - Fabbro Rathbone - Bear
  13. They've got a lot of good young centers there and you have to think Fabbro is coming back. Horvat + Schenn for one of Parssinen or Glass + Fabbro + pick (2nd?) Glass has been passed around a lot but still has potential, Parssinen is playing out of his boots lately but may just be a flash in a pan. Nashville do it if they're desperate and want to make a push, sacrifice future for getting serious now. A 1st is probably too rich coming back because it may be a mid-1st and quite high, unless we give a 2nd or 3rd the other way (to upgrade it almost). I'd do Horvat + Schenn + 2nd for Parssinen/Glass + Fabbro + 1st We end up picking a top young center like Will Smith/Dvorsky/Yager (doubt we get a top-3 but would reshape this franchise if we did) and then snag Sandin-Pellika with Nashville's first rounder. Suddenly we have a new core to build around of Petey, Hughes, Glass, Fabbro, SP and Will Smith/Yager
  14. Love how they tried to pin it on Elliot. It's medias job to dig this stuff up. 31 of the other teams find a way to do this respectfully, have never witnessed anything like it. Old man JR comes in, shoots his mouth off and gets us in hot water. He got away with a lot of murder in Pittsburgh (namely bad trades) but it won't fly in a Canadian market. Say what you want about JB and his bad cap management but he'd never disrespect a hockey great coach like this. That being said if they miraculously create a playoff team next year and a solid winner built around tough "structure" around Rick, everyone will forget this. Ironically, I could very easily see Calgary miss the playoffs and fire Suter because he's not gelling well with the new additions. Kadri and Huberdeau are dreadful this year and stifled. Throw Bruce Boudreau into that mix and suddenly you've got a couple of 90-100pt scorers again, and their defence and goaltending is so solid that they can cover up BB's loose structure well. Would be a perfect fit and this whole JR mess would be the perfect villain origin story for BB.
  15. Sounds like NJD want Meier, he's scoring at a PPG pace, 45 goal pace and is still only 26 and coming off a 6M contract, but an RFA next year. He is going to get PAID. You have to think Miller's deal is a bit of a comparable, wouldn't be surprised if he gets a solid 7-8M deal. If that's the case, I hope Allvin is getting Miller and Boeser's names in there. There is clearly a market for scoring wingers, surely Meier leads the pack as he's big, strong and young, but Miller and/or Brock would be nice consolation prizes. If NJD want Meier, surely they'd be open to the idea of Miller. Obviously any team would rather have Meier at 8M (maybe even more) than Miller at 8M, but I've got a feeling there's going to be a lot of desperate teams gunning for a playoff push this year. Not sure if Allvin is the guy I want making the phone calls but he has to get something done here.
  16. I guess the season is far from done and they have a lot of cap flexibility in the off-season. Dare I say they could sign Larkin for somewhere between what he and the team wants (between 8 and 9M) and almost the same for Bo. Would be outrageous but they could really change their centers for next year. Yzerman knows center strength is the key to success. They could give Larkin and Bo a combined 17M. Then they have some work to do: 1) Bertuzzi has barely played, surely they get him on a bridge deal but he could take a pay cut after this year for sure, if not around the 4-4.5M mark. That's pretty much what his cap hit was this year. But he has struggled. 2) They can afford to let Puis Sutter and Sundqvist walk if they're getting Bo. They're bottom-6 centers making a combined 6M. 3) Veleno gets a tiny raise but they could let Erne go, so cap there is a wash. 4) A lot of their D need re-signing and were quite cheap, but none of them really deserve much of a raise apart from Maata. 5) They have 4M dead cap coming off the books. According to Cap Friendly then I believe they already have 6.5M cap space, plus letting Sutter and Sundqvist plus the dead cap and a Bertuzzi pay cut gives them just about 17M to play with. They run their centers next year as Horvat, Larkin, Copp (if he's not playing wing), Veleno and Fabbri. Their top-3 D are pretty much set in stone already. They'd really just need to re-sign a couple of bottom-pairing defencemen on the cheap and a backup goalie. Yzerman has some pieces there to make a great team. He could play it conservatively and just build what they have already, let the kids grow through the ranks etc., but if he really likes the look of Horvat and Larkin as a 1-2 punch he could easily make it happen and gun for it now.
  17. Detroit sounding more and more like a good partner if they're willing to part with Rasmussen. He's massive, 23 and dropping 40pt pace but is a former 9OA pick himself so surely has a high ceiling, which is why I'd be surprised they'd give up on him already for an older Bo. We need a D too so would love to snag Wallinder out of them, Edvinsson is surely too much. If we get Rasmussen and Wallinder I think that's it, no chance we get a 1st or 2nd as well (maybe a late pick?). I'd be happy with that, a very old rebuild which looks like a retool.
  18. Wouldn't mind Frederic, Mast and Raty coming back but we need much better D men coming back than Mast who is fairly average, especially if we're trading our top 2 pieces. If we're going for a player you'd like to see Carlo/Pulock in those deals (and Schenn going back to compensate), otherwise a young defensive prospect from another team (say Edvinsson/Wallinder from Detroit for example).
  19. I agree signing Bo to a monster 8x8 deal is risky, but I'd rather go with that risk than the Miller deal. At least Bo brings other things to the team like faceoffs and decent center play, and his play will likely regress but he'd still contribute and be a solid 3C as he gets older later in his career. As for Miller, a lot of his scoring was skill/speed and off the rush, and sloppy play defensively, and none of that ages well. This is the problem with ELCs and then early contracts, they always expire in a player's late 20s when they hit a peak, then demand a stupidly monstrous contract and end up weighing the team down in the final 3-4 years.
  20. Real poor, management had NO reason to resign Miller last year. He wasn't in his contract year so could have easily waited 6 months. I wonder if it was pressure from the fans or media or his agent which caved Allvin's rookie brain in and forced him into splashing cash out. Any sensible person could see that Miller's year was out of the norm. He put up 99 points playing under two very loose, offensive coaches and on a bad defensive team with a fire Demko making their +/- all look better than they seemed. Any smart person would say that there's no way Miller would reproduce a season like this. At the end of last year we had these options: 1 - trade Miller. He pumped his value up so much that this was arguably out of the question but they could have taken the risk of a cheaper/lower value deal. Hard to trade a 99pt guy though to be fair. 2 - resign him after a career year when we didn't have to, it's not like his contract was up? Pay high? 3 - wait another 6-12 months and then decide. A ballsy or savvy GM would have done this. There would be pressure of course, but Allvin simply doesn't look like the type who can deal with pressure. Either Miller would have slipped to 60pt production, 80pt or 100pts. If he dropped to 60pts, we could trade him for a cheaper deal easily or let him walk or resign him to a 5M deal. If he scored at 80pts or PPG again we could sign him for a prospect + pick or get him resigned at say 7M or let him walk. If he miraculously scored 100pts again (what are the odds, honestly, considering his past?) the he'd probably have priced himself out of a trade (or is there really such a thing? Bo's doing it now and he's likely gone...), or had to resign him to a stupid amount like 9-10M or let him walk. Clearly Allvin was worried about the latter. That is just bad foresight. What are the chances a career sloppy defensively one way center/winger 60pt scorer drops 99pts and then repeats it? I'd take those odds. Allvin was worried he'd score 99+ again in which case he'd be in a tough situation, but as anyone can see, the chances of that were low. This is a classic case of a scared rookie GM. Don't care if JR is behind the scenes or not, no smart savvy GM would have busted 8M on a guy after a career year who isn't even in their contract year when he has his captain to resign the next year. That sums it up, dreadful management of the two centers.
  21. I understand this thinking, he's blowing up the SHL as a kid, but still very unproven at the NHL level and you have to pay for consistent production at the NHL level. I think Detroit would have to pay extra but not much. Former 9OA for 8OA is pretty close though.
  22. We won't get a 1st for him (but if someone's giving up one we should jump at it). A 2nd is tricky, I don't love our drafting record so would almost rather trust another team's prospect. Sandin and Liljegren are key D-men for Toronto but boy Liljegren would be nice to pry away from them, young Swedish RD playing 20+ minutes. We'd have to give loads though. Schenn + Rathbone for Liljegren? That's about the only deal that works cap wise and Toronto need defencemen in numbers. They give on decent top-4 young RD for a tough veteran playoff warrior and future potential puck mover who fits their mould.
  23. Detroit willing to pay Larkin 8M, he wants 9M. Larkins produced a tiny bit more than Bo in some seasons but certainly not this one. To those who sat Bo is worth 7M, this is just what star centers get now. Larkin at 9M is a bit outrageous, I think Bo and Larkin are both with 8M.
  24. They certainly could use wingers and we have plenty of them, but don't see them giving us one of their D. KK is the only one there who might not be in their plans with so many centers on that team surpassing him. Just under 5M for a longgg time and he's hardly producing any offence. He'd be a real project for us. Boeser or Miller for KK would fit me fine. One bad contract for another but we get a lot younger. I doubt they'd trade their captain but if they gave us Staal thats 6M in cap space they can free up. Imagine if we did Boeser AND Miller for Staal + KK. They upgrade their offence by about 100pts, we shed some serious cap and can resign Bo. Win-win
  25. Have said this would be great for a while because Dobson is stealing all the RD minutes there but they'd need some sort of D going back so we'd likely have to give Schenn too. Maybe they give us a lowly 4C back or a pick to even things up. Cap-wise it works for now but they have about 5M in extensions kick in next year and not much cap off the books so we might have to take Cizikas 2.5M long contract. Miller + Schenn for Pulock + Cizikas Yes please. I know we're no better cap wise and may still lose Bo but there's a 3C and top RD right there.
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