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DownUndaCanuck

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Everything posted by DownUndaCanuck

  1. Yeah look I was all for giving management the benefit of the doubt and time. I was never a Gillis, Nonis or JB fan but like to assess their moves over the course of time and at the time. There's good moves they've all done and obviously catastrophic moves for the team, and you have to take the ownership blanket of wanting to stay competitive with each move. This new management regime of JR and Allvin came in with zero/poor track record - an older JR who has good experience but is stepping back from day to day duties, alongside a rookie GM. Both have made bad trades/drafts, but also some good ones in the past. When they came here they were immediately dealt with a couple of dilemmas. The big ones being - fix the cap hell, get us help on defence, sort out the Miller-Bo-Boeser contracts and obviously make a push for the playoffs. Restocking picks or prospects was never pushed on them. So far they haven't fixed the D at all, signed Brock, Miller and Mikheyev to big cap deals and haven't sorted out Bo. I wasn't a fan of resigning Miller and so far that deals looked bad. I liked the smaller deals for Bear and Dermott but the Dickinson/Stillman one was dreadful. So far, I'd day more bad than good but they have time to redeem themselves if they can get us some help on defence by trading some forwards. This public-face stuff doesn't go down well but I don't care much for it, I do care that they have neglected our defence time after time, focus on forwards, we score 5 goals a night, get shelled for 7GAA, and they make Bruce and our poor players stand up nightly in front of reporters who have to try and explain why they blew another 3 goal lead when they have no help from management.
  2. I think your captain should be who you look to on the bench when you're down by a goal late in the game (or up by 1 if you wanna talk about a defenceman). Last year that was JT Miller, he drove the bus and ran the show. This year that power has shifted very quickly to Petey. No one would expect Miller to change a game (for the best lol) late in a game whereas if the puck is on Petey's stick in the slot, everyone knows the game might change. He's our star now. Even Bo, despite all his goals, doesn't really have that impact but Bo obviously does a lot of other stuff for the team. I think if/when Bo goes, Petey is ready for the C. If we're a mess next year I'm all for a year of 3 or 4 alternate captains but the subsequent year, if or when we're realistically trying to make a run for the playoffs, you want it to be Petey.
  3. Problem is we've got loads of these guys up front, but no game breaker defensive-wise who can prevent a game from being broken open the other way. 5 goals for should be enough to win a game. All our stars and game breakers are up front, none on defence or in net this season and that's the difference.
  4. Schenn and Hughes a combined +6, 1 goal and 3 assists. OEL and Myers a combined -4 and 1 assist. This isn't a team-wide problem.
  5. Another sloppy mess of bad PK, bad OEL-Myers and average AHL goaltending. Such a shame, I think if we had one legit top 4 defenceman and even an average Demko, we'd be a lot better than most of the Pacific teams. OEL aint going anywhere so Bruce has to try and get the best out of him and pairing him with another slow sluggish D man is not the answer. Got to get these guys with a younger, faster, slicker guy. OEL with Bear, Myers with Dermott. Share the hate/love. Schenn goes back with Hughes. Not ideal, but it averages out our bad D men. Or here's an idea, put Burroughs in for Myers.
  6. Even now you see Edler lay out to blocm shots. Think we're going down with the OEL ship sadly, hopefully he retires before his contract expires but if he's out there avoiding shots he could go on forever
  7. I think Bo gets us just a young C and D, but adding Schenn might get us a 1st too, probably not a prospect too. Bo + Schenn for Carlo + Zacha + 1st Bo + Schenn for Peeke + Roslovic + 1st Bo + Schenn for Girard + Newhood + 1st Bo + Schenn for Schneider + Chytil + 1st Would be happy with any of them
  8. Kane injured for the season, hopefully Miller's stock just jumped up loads.
  9. That's the equivalent of 3 firsts, a second and a cap dump, think it might be a bit tooo much value coming back. I'd be happy with Khudobin + 1st + Bichsel, that'd be enough for a maybe rental, maybe they chuck in a conditional 2nd (if he resigns)?
  10. Crosby gona blow us up for 5 points. We'll probably score a tonne but this Penguins team is fast - predicting the OEL-Myers duo get blased as a combined -6 again. 5-3 Pens in a low scoring game lol
  11. Yep, a big overlooked problem this year is our pathetic bottom 6. They're basically AHLers. Management spent a lot of time revamping our 3/4th line and they're much worse. Petey, Bo or Miller were realistically never going to be a 3C, they should be ashamed in thinking so in the off-season. They went the route of having 3 scoring lines and it really didn't work. I say in the offseason our priority should be fixing the D AND getting a third line center who can defend. There were SO many available, and most went very cheaply (Jarnkrok, Janmark, Tierney etc.) and we didn't even bother going after anyone. We had our hat in the Rodrigues hat at the end but he got paid well, and he's more of a scoring center. Again, management prioritise scoring up front and forget about the defensive responsibilities of the game. We get Lazar but he's just a replacement for Lammikko we didn't need. Joshua replaces Highmore. No one replaces Motte. So if anything, our 4th line is worse than last year, and we have no 3C. Right now our 3C has rotated around Aman and Dries who, to be fair, are AHLers. Lazar is great but brings next to zero offence. Not many teams out there have a better 4C than their 3C. On wing Garland looks good at times for a third line center, Pearson has been very sub-par (and injured) and now we have AHLer Lockwood on the wing. It's a hole of our team often over-looked. We just needed a solid center to stabilise that 3rd line. Instead of getting a 3C and top-4 defenceman, we resign Miller, Mik and Kuz - that's 3 wingers.... No surprise what we're seeing on the ice, bad defence, bad PK, average faceoffs but we score a tonne but lose more than we win. Hate to say it but if we didn't sign Mikheyev or Miller (or traded him) and snagged a cheap 3C and traded or signed a UFA defenceman this would be a more well balanced team and dare I say a playoff team. Winger heavy, brutal bottom 6 and thin defence is what has caused this mess on ice. 100% management's fault.
  12. Yeah this is fair, I wouldn't touch that team right now but if they falter a bit down the line, they may look at a trade. You see this a lot - top teams like the President's trophy winners have a smashing regular season then something doesn't click in the playoffs. A lot of Cup winners often add tertiary depth guys at the deadline who would be on other team's top-6/top-4 units. Schenn is a great example but I'm not sure if he's as good as their bottom pairing guys. Kuzmenko would be the ideal target for them, a PPG scorer basically on their 3rd line.
  13. Absolutely, would have looked like a great move if we made the playoffs, 3 scoring lines sounds great, but problem is we only have 2 defensive pairs able to defend. Instead of spending 8M on Miller and 5M on Mikheyev, IMO we should have waited until the next season to decide on what to do with Miller and Bo. As for the 5M in cap space we had...I know there weren't many decent UFA defencemen this off-season but we could have signed one of these guys: 1) Schultz - I know he's 32 but he's having a heck of a year with Seattle, 21 points in 37 games, RD, local boy, playing 18-20 minutes. Was signed to a 3M deal. 2) Ruuta - I know, older too at 33, but he's playing 20 minutes-ish a night in Pittsburgh, 7 points in 39 games, +7, a big strong RD and making just 2.7M 3) Zadorov - younger, big strong guy, decent points and +/-, re-signed in Calgary but was looking around free agency, he can certainly play on the right and can play 20+ minutes, got a 3.7M deal I know none of these guys are great but they're so much cheaper than a 5M winger and would have filled a massive hole this team has. If we want to win now you can't just go looking for young guys, an older veteran RD who can still play 20 minutes would have been so perfect for this team. Instead we load up on wingers, score plenty of goals but get thrashed defensively - no surprises there.
  14. Makes sense to us but sounds like Schneider is really untouchable over there, and rightly so - young physical RDs are becoming more hard to draft and develop than centers or goalies. You could argue he fits their transition plan perfectly - Fox stays top pairing RD for a decade, Trouba declines slowly over 3 years as Schneider takes those minutes from him slowly over 3 years. The other argument is that Schneider is a top-4, 20 minute guy now/next year and he may want a trade to a place to play more, but I think he'll stay loyal and stay with the Rangers. Only way we're getting Schneider is with a top player like Bo. Miller has fallen off, everyone can see that. Best defenceman we're getting with Miller is a guy like Severson or Dumba sadly, but I'd take a Severson swap in a heart-beat. I wonder how available Carlo is, we've got to target these solid 2nd RDs playing on teams who have an elite top RD (eg. McAvoy). I think there's a Bo for Carlo + Zacha deal out there which would fix both team's problems, but wonder if we can just do a Miller-for-Carlo swap?
  15. Like the Spacek move, his value must have sky-rocketted after that tournament and Rathbone's is probably an all-time low right now. I really hope there's a deal to be made 1-for-1 with Boeser and a top-4 defenceman. I think Dumba or Severson are absolutely available. We'd shed a bit of cap so could retain some if need-be, and then with their contracts expiring, can decide what to do in the off-season. Most likely we'd need to resign them to a cheaper deal. Ideally we flip Myers to someone but we'd have to take a fair bit of cap back obviously. There are teams interested. I wonder if Ottawa is the best landing spot - they're not happy with Zaitsev and could use some help on D, I could really see Myers going there. They've got cap space but have about 10M in extensions hitting next year but a lot coming off the books. I know they just re-signed Zub but he'd be a great fit in our top-4, we'd have to upgrade Myers a lot though. Myers + 2nd for Zub, that enough?
  16. If you were NYR you wouldn't trade Schneider. Top young RDs have become impossible to come by. They have one of the best in Fox who is going to be their top pairing RD for probably another decade. Then there's Trouba who's got a long contract, but by the time that expires, Schneider will take his minutes. Problem is, Schneider is just playing 3rd pairing minutes right now and he's playing far too well - he will deserve 20 minutes next year, but isn't going to get 20 minutes for a while. You can only hope he gets selfish and demands a trade because I doubt Trouba will slow down for another 2-3 years. Poor Schneider can't just eat bottom pairing minutes until he's 24-25, he looks ready now. Of course it'd be better for NYR if he stayed, signs a bridge contract and then likely a long-term deal when he's their 2nd best RD. Only way they trade Schneider is we give them Bo. Schneider + Chytil + 1st (they might have two this year so...) for Bo, is it that different from the Miller proposals last year? Maybe because Bo may just be a rental and Schneider is so good, that 1st becomes a 3rd or 4th or nothing? If Bo definitely has to go, I'd do that deal in a split second.
  17. Absolutely, I thought after the Dermott deal and a few minor moves here and there Allvin and co. would be hell-bent on saving cap and then they splash 8M on a center-turned-winger, and the biggest surprise was the Mikheyev deal. He is one of our best players and top-line winger, no doubt about it, but we just spent 5M we didn't have. I was a bit disappointed, especially considering we already have 6.5M in Brock, 5M in Garland, a freebie granted to us that off-season in Kuzmenko and then (I suppose to everyone's surprise though) Miller becomes a winger. Before signing Mikheyev I thought we should have at least moved one of Boeser or Garland. You just can't have so much cap space tied up on wingers. Then we just have Petey and Bo down the middle, with a bunch of fringe-AHLers filling the 3C and 4C role. Lazar has been a great signing, sure, but they could have just re-signed Lammikko so really there's no benefit or drop off there (if anything Lazar is producing next to zero offence so you could argue, our 4th line's a lot worse than the prime trio of Lammy-Motte-Highmore last year). Biggest disappointment is lack of upgrading this defence obviously but they had the cap space last off-season, they just splashed a good 13M on 3 wingers. That is not a team who is trying to rebuild or retool, that is a team who is trying to win now and of course it hasn't worked out - we have ignored our D completely.
  18. Surprised he's been so patient, he was a wrecking ball in Pittsburgh making bad trades left, right and center. Have to give him credit for a solid team in Carolina, but with the Pens they all got lucky - Crosby and Malkin basically made any coach or manager look good for the last decade and then some. Now at the end of his career he's finally being challenged and so far, no good. Sounds like they want to sort the cap hell out before they can move forward which I appreciate, but don't see it happening. Not going to be easy to wipe the slate clean when you've got so many mega cap hits on the team under performing, that could take many years. Probably would be wise to just rebuild during the OEL years and then start fresh with a bunch of good picks and prospects. Even if ownership won't allow a full rebuild, he should try and do a stealth one - acquire picks/prospects or young players in "hockey trades" while those big cap hits are ticking down, then once they're almost up it's time to build a team. Not sure if JR will even be around though once OEL's deal ends...
  19. Some writers saying we can get Kapanen and POJ from Pittsburgh for Brock. I'd do that, POJ is still young, big, and I know he's an LD but can take some minutes off OEL who might be already slowing down. I'd retain 1M if we have to. I'd prefer Boeser for Monahan (if we're losing Bo, especially), Severson or Dumba 1-for-1, but that could work
  20. Team lets in 7 even strength goals and the lineup doesn't change? Need to break up that OEL - Myers or it's another 7 spot against us next game
  21. You've got to think there's a trade out there for Garland. At the very least, a 1 for 1 swap of underachieving players. Buy him out and I think that's a failure on our old and new management - you can't tell me that Garland has negative trade value. They couldn't get a Miller trade done when his value was as high as it gets, haven't made a Boeser or Bo trade and if they can't flip Garland I worry they're just not very good at doing business with other GMs.
  22. We lack a big strong nasty guy like him. Would be nice if Bo or JT played like that, a real bastard (and not to his own team mates)
  23. GG. 7 even strength goals against, our +/- got shredded. -6 combined for OEL and Myers actually flatters them
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