SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME

I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens. Could see an extension done fairly quickly, if Montreal doesn’t match. I’m sure KK and his reps well understand that this offer sheet is just about the Hurricanes’ owner getting his revenge, and not the team actually setting a realistic value on the player.

If I’m the NHL staffer in charge of seating charts, I’m definitely putting Carolina and Montreal beside each other at the next Board of Governors meeting.

Kotkaniemi’s 2022 QO would be the same as the 2021-22 salary so $6.1M. Pretty sure 2021-22 would be his fourth season, so should also give him 2022 arbitration rights.

Knew this re-signing was coming from the Sportchek skate sharpening guy on Twitter: Now we’ll just have to wait for that Dube-Eichel trade.

I tend to agree, but I’m hoping Petey’s last season suppresses his value, and puts him in the range of comparables that many others of these boards seem to be placing him with. Personally, I think rookie and sophomore year Pettersson is closer to his real expected value, over the long term. And that is a player I’d place easily above all three of Svechnikov, Barzal, and Aho. Thank goodness his third season didn’t follow the same trajectory as the first two. Hopefully this makes enough of a difference, in a “what have you done for me lately” way, to keep the numbers down.

Nice to see a realistic deal with some foresight done for a high end player on a max term UFA deal. Right now, I’d probably rate Couturier as something somewhere around a 12% cap/$10M player (probably even more, based on underlying value). But that comes with the understanding that he’s probably already reached first stage decline age (usually a slight drop off starts after reaching the mid-20s), and his curve should put him into second stage decline (more precipitous) when he gets into his thirties. For the first half of this contract, I’d expect Couturier to be able to hold at something close to $10M value, maybe dropping to $8Mish (or somewhere roughly around his AAV) by the mid-point of the deal. But over the back half of this contract, he’s very likely to decline to a value that’s well below $7.75M AAV. So this contract trades maximum term for some initial surplus value, which then mitigates against potential negative value in the back half of the eight year deal. Very reasonable contract. And GMs are getting smarter, it would seem. If you’re going to go max term on a player in the UFA age group, you need to secure an AAV that offers some surplus value in the first half of the deal, to offset the negative value you’ll almost always see post-decline. Otherwise, it’s generally better to just go for shorter term. Even if you have to pay a higher AAV, going shorter on UFAs is a safer bet, versus maxing out term while paying full “prime years” sticker price on players who are probably already in the late stages of their prime and nearly guaranteed to decline over 8 seasons. I expect the narrative around this Couturier’s extension will be one of “hometown discount,” which it is, based on what you’d expect from the market (and Couturier reportedly “worked with the team” to keep the AAV as low as possible). However, the deal itself is IMO more reflective of “fair value,” instead of being a “bargain,” as on average, most UFAs get overpaid (relative to what I’d consider their actual on-ice value) and most longterm UFA deals end up becoming “negative value” over their full term. So while this is undoubtedly a bargain (possibly even a “steal”), based purely on market value, it’s probably going to prove to be something closer to fair/neutral value over the full eight seasons. That said, securing any lengthy deal with a UFA aged player that doesn’t project to leave you underwater over the full term, should probably be considered a steal, at least based on the history of this market.

Me several times a day: “I think I’ll go check CDC and see if anything’s happened yet with Petey’s extension.” *opens “Trades, Rumours, Signings” forum* “Nope. Nothing yet. But at least there are 20 new posts about Loui Player Name. Yay.” EDIT: Loui Player Name (E r i k s s o n). OMG, that autocorrect made it all worthwhile.

My favourite story about Charlie Watts: Mick Jagger once phoned Watts’ hotel room in the midst of an all-night party, asking, “Where’s my drummer?” Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying, “Don’t ever call me your drummer again. You’re my f***ing singer!” RIP

Agreed about Lockwood being a dark horse for a lineup spot. As we know, the Canucks always run a competitive camp, and there are opportunities to win jobs each year. Will brings a playstyle that gets noticed, especially in a scrimmage or preseason game where he’s maybe given a little more opportunity to showcase himself. If he comes in hot, maybe pots a goal or two, throws a few big hits, and shows good speed and pace, he could put himself on the radar and into the discussion when they’re making decisions on those final lineup spots to start the season. I’m rooting for him. Loved watching him in college and I’ve been a big believer in his game being able to translate to the NHL. And yeah, definitely a possible replacement for Motte, if extending him is too costly, or the team just wants to try to pickup an asset (or both).

Input error seems pretty likely. For Höglander, it’s easy enough to look up his penalty stats, and I’m seeing 6 minors and 12 PIM at 5v5, with 8 penalties drawn, so a positive differential. All situations, he’s even better, with 8 minors taken and 13 penalties drawn. Hard to imagine how a model using the correct data spits out a 3rd percentile result, for a player with a positive penalty differential, both at 5v5 and all situations. Even if you go by per minute rates, Höglander still ranks in around the top third of Canucks, both in limiting PIM/60, and in the rate he’s able to draw penalties. So there really looks to be something wrong with that 3% result. I wouldn’t say this is a reason to “throw the baby out with the bath water,” but it’s definitely something they should look to clean up. A model is only as good as the data you put into it, and seems like Patrick Bacon (JFresh’s source) might have some errors slipping through. And if not, then they really need to explain some of these numbers, and the methodology, because those results, taken at face value, certainly don’t seem to agree with the data you can easily pull off other sources.

Huge missed opportunity by JFresh and company not to take some time to dig deeper into those Kesler numbers. The best analysts would welcome a detailed discussion around Kesler’s PK WAR/GAR. After all, when you have a Jack Adams winning coach deploying a Selke winning forward, with the highest PKTOI on the team, and among the highest PKTOI in the league, during that 2008-09 through 2010-11 period, and the model is only returning 2nd percentile results, that’s something worth looking at. Hockey analysts interested in perfecting their models and increasing reliability would relish such an opportunity. Whether it’s proving that the numbers are accurate and meaningful, and thereby demonstrating the value of analytics in teasing out useful data that’s missed by the “eye test,” or finding an error or weakness in the analytics, and using that information to continue to adjust and perfect the model, it’s really a win-win, if the goal is to better understand the game through numbers. Disappointing not to see someone in the analytics community digging into this further, because I think there’s a really fruitful discussion to be had here.

Yeah, the AHL deal would be voided if they signed an NHL contract. The PTO also allows the team to pay the player a modest per diem and cover the basic daily living costs (hotel, travel, food, etc) for the term of the tryout (I think the PTO can also get renewed once). Just going off memory here, so anyone who knows (or looks it up) can feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Yeah, it’s quite common. In fact, most of the currently reported/listed NHL PTOs are with players who are also on AHL deals (like Evan Fitzpatrick—signed with Charlotte, PTO with Florida; Alex Gallant—signed with Stockton, PTO with Calgary; etc). I’d expect to see the Canucks do the same with Abbotsford signed players they may want to bring to NHL camp.

Every time there’s a story about the Coyotes, it gives me hope that OEL will be better for us than expected, just due to the change of scenery and getting free of that disaster.

There’s a pretty good children’s book about Chiune Sugihara that I read with both of my twins when they were about seven or eight years old. Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story. You can read it in free PDF here: https://www.ecasd.us/getattachment/Northstar-Middle-School/Staff/DeAnna-Slaggie/English-(1)/Passage-to-Freedom-Story.pdf It includes an afterword from Hiroki Sugihara, Chiune’s eldest son, and the story is told from his perspective.

Thank you! I was going to write this about Burr in the original post but decided it was more fun to wait and see if somebody else chimed in. You win the prize!

I agree to a point, but I also think you’re somewhat underappreciating the work done by Green and his staff. Not that they’ve been perfect, mind you, and there’s plenty I could criticize. But I think especially with several of our higher quality young players (Horvat, Boeser, etc), the NHL coaches have done a pretty decent job “finishing” their development, and helping them build more complete and “pro” quality games. Of course, many of those young star players deserve credit for the individual work they’ve put in, to make off-season adjustments to improve weak areas of their games, but I suspect most of them would freely admit that the NHL staff has helped them become much better players than they were when they first arrived here.

Jett Woo hitting as an NHLer is pretty important, given our current chart. Like you say, Rathbone is pretty much a sure thing, and that creates almost too much NHL grade LHD. But we really need a physical, two-way RHD to push into the lineup, ideally opening the potential to move Myers, replace his minutes rather cheaply, and free up that 6M salary to help address some of the extensions in the next two years (Boeser, Horvat, Miller, etc). There are plenty of “hopes and prayers” types of late round picks on the reserve list who offer small odds of success. Guys like Persson (RHD) and Jurmo (LHD) have top-4 D upside, and if they hit development targets, and show progress, they would quickly become top-10 ranked prospects in the system, with NHL potential. But we really need some of these darts to hit the bullseye. Otherwise, we definitely have a weaker looking prospects system that’s rather thin on players expected to graduate to significant roles in the NHL. Definitely can’t have JB trading away any more high picks. Ideally we find a way to recover a couple picks (maybe trading Pearson, Myers, even Motte, if his extension demands are too high), and hold onto the picks we have. Otherwise, once Podkolzin, Rathbone, Juolevi, and DiPietro graduate, our remaining prospects pool will be very thin. It’s kinda funny to think, but as things stand right now, if JB’s current gamble fails, the team struggles and misses the playoffs, and we don’t see some “surprise” development from our mid-to-late round picks, we could see a new GM come in and justifiably argue that the Benning regime “left the cupboards empty.”

Only worry about sending Danila to the Q is him picking up a Québécois accent, or showing up to Vancouver speaking full on Québécois French. On the bright side, it might give us an excuse to hire Burrows to the coaching staff, if just for translation purposes.

Meh, I’m not mad at these rankings, which probably says something about them being fairly close to accurate.

The Canucks may not have even been able to hire someone to take down that banner. I suspect whatever contractors do that kind of specialized work are probably backed up for months due to Covid, like you see in many other trades. And if they could find someone to do a rush job, which isn’t necessarily a guarantee, they would probably need to pay several times the going rate to have any hope in jumping the queue.

Haha, how so? If anything, I’d think the subtext of that post might be read as something of a criticism of Benning, when it comes to roster construction, player analysis, and how Horvat has, at times, suffered suboptimal usage due to the way the team (and his line) was built around him over the past several seasons. As well as how coaching was often forced, due to lack of options, to (mis)use Horvat, during significant stretches of his time in Vancouver. (Not that I’m looking to criticize JB right now, or take a CDC conversation down that well-worn but dead end road. Been there, done that. Just surprised by the “is that you, JB?” reply. I think this is the first time I’ve ever gotten one of those, so it’s kind of a special moment for me. )

Not really “evil talk” to say Horvat’s defensive game is (or was) overrated by some. But probably no more than his offensive game has been underrated. There were some who pegged him as an ideal 3C for hard matchups and primary shutdown duties, with a main focus in the defensive zone. We can easily see now that he’d be miscast in such a role. Horvat is a very capable two-way player, and he can handle some defensive deployment and shutdown minutes, but ideally, he’s a secondary option for those roles, and given more balanced icetime in all situations, including a healthy helping of prime offensive opportunities. Horvat is a top quality offensive player, with a fine enough two-way game, but his greatest strengths are on the offensive side. He’s shown himself to be capable of producing offence at a first line rate. But when he’s forced to take the lion’s share of defensive zone faceoffs, and face the toughest competition on the team, and sometimes shoulder the bulk of that load on his own, and with inferior quality wingers, it’s just not an efficient use of his talents. He’s had to do this out of necessity at times, due to the weakness of the lineup, but he’s really not a defensive specialist, and he can be exposed at times in such roles. Despite his best efforts, he’s not really a “plus” level NHL defensive forward. He can hold his own, and certainly doesn’t need sheltering, but he can get overwhelmed if he’s completely thrown to the wolves (his analytics show this), and his offensive performance can suffer when he’s asked to devote too much of his energy and focus to shutting down the opposition’s best players. In a lineup where Horvat is truly supported by another line capable of taking on shutdown duties, and where he’s playing alongside legitimate top-6 wingers, Horvat can probably matchup against any top line in the league, and often will get the better of them, both offensively and defensively. But that’s what his matchup duties should look like. Being just as much (or even more of) a threat to score as the guys he’s facing on the other side of the ice. And then hopefully also being better than them defensively (since many of the league’s top scoring lines and offensive minded players tend to be quite porous defensively, at least when they’re forced to actually play defence). Horvat shouldn’t be asked to suppress opposition scoring, with a focus mainly on his own zone, and playing “low event” hockey. This is a poor use of his abilities, and not really a role he’s ever been all that successful at in the NHL. His job (at 5v5) should be to outscore his opponents, mainly through his line producing high rates of offence, while hopefully also playing well enough defensively to limit the number and quality of chances they’re giving up in their own end.

The player’s prime, or his prime while a Canuck? If it’s as a Canuck, I’m probably taking Boudrias or Ronning. If simply the prime of their career, regardless of the uniform, it’s gotta be Barry Pederson, before his shoulder issues and surgery. His first three years in the league, while with Boston, he averaged 43 goals and 105 points per season (with highs of 46 goals and 116 points). None of the others ever really came close to those numbers. Voting Pederson, since when he was at his best, he was the best player listed on this poll. It was a short period of time, and it wasn’t in Vancouver, but prime Barry Pederson was one of the best young players (and best players period) in the league. Runner up for the Calder (lost to Hall of Famer Dave Hawerchuk) and then finished 6th place in NHL scoring in both his 2nd and 3rd years in the league.