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Kevin Biestra

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Everything posted by Kevin Biestra

  1. The first time team turned into something with the spaghetti logo was 1982 when they went to the Cup final with it on their arms. They made it to the final twice with that logo.
  2. I liked them. They were certainly unique with the actual logo on the arms and the front just the striping, making a V for Vancouver. Even better with Gary Bromley in them.
  3. Nah man there is only one Chuck Norris shape.
  4. Is buying him out even a possibility mid season in a one year contract? That aside, there would be no savings because he is over 35.
  5. Is there really anybody who would trade for Halak? Is there really a less appealing backup option in the league at the moment? I could see maybe if a playoff team gets a sudden goalie injury right before the deadline but otherwise...
  6. Alex Auld was absolutely awesome when he was in the same position as Spencer Martin and DiPietro, playing a couple games a year. 2001-02 - 1 GP, 2.00 GAA, .909 SPCT 2002-03 - 7 GP, 1.57 GAA, .939 SPCT 2003-04 - 6 GP. 2.06 GAA, .929 SPCT I was like...why the hell don't they just get rid of Cloutier and play this guy full time. I was right about Cloutier and...not wrong about Auld exactly, but once he had a regular shift he came back down to earth. And didn't Boucher have 5 shutouts in a row?
  7. Well, Ivan Boldirev and Darcy Rota got traded as a pair twice in a row, including to us. Was definitely more of a synergy than the package of junk we sent to Arizona for Garland and OEL.
  8. No. Maybe banned from leaving Russia by Russia but the NHL won't GAF.
  9. Not many. Maybe Ulf and Kjell Samuelsson back in the day. The 1982 team had the right idea. Five Swedes - Gradin, Molin, Eldebrink, Lindgren, Brasar - none of them fighters really, but the Canadians cleared the ice up for them.
  10. Those guys plus Rota, Jim Nill and Colin Campbell. That's eight just on the 1982 team at once, and not counting Marc Crawford who had the best hockey card that year with blood streaming down his face. People forget how feisty Rota was. They freed up Boldirev, Gradin and Hlinka to go after the Lady Byng. Whereas nowadays the whole team seems to go after the Lady Byng and hope that maybe someone like OEL will protect them from time to time.
  11. Smyl was teammates with Benning as a Canuck. Maybe that's what made it ultra unforgivable. And Benning was Canuck teammates with Smyl at the same time as all of Rich Sutter, Garth Butcher, Craig Coxe, Dave Richter, Daryl Stanley, Michel Petit, Ron Stern, Marc Crawford, Glen Cochrane, Harold Snepsts and Mel Bridgman. He must have been like...what the heck Jim.
  12. Yeah I think losing those guys for nothing might have been the last straw for Smyl. He was the heart and soul of those bad teams in the 80s who still made sure the other team woke up the next day and felt the game from the day before.
  13. I think they are something like 15-7-4 under Bruce. That's something like a 107 point team. It's not impossible that they are the real deal right now.
  14. Winning the Cup that way is a once in 50 years thing. Getting to the final that way or something like it is also exceedingly rare but maybe more like once in 15 or 20. The Canucks basically ran the table during the last stretch of the year in 1982 - with their coach and top two scoring defensemen both out of the lineup - and then went 11-3 in the playoffs (I think) to get to the final. The Minnesota North Stars in 1991 came out of nowhere. They just added Brian Propp that year and that always meant you were going to the final no matter who you were.
  15. I'm not sure I agree. We've had teams in similar straits in the past (eg. 1982) where the team took the uncertainty and adversity and pulled it together down the stretch. Blues did the same thing to win the Cup a few years ago. On top of which, I'm not sure anybody is 100% safe other than Hughes and Demko and I'm not sure anybody else should be. I'm happy enough to let them find their way as a team or show their true colors as a non playoff squad...
  16. Perhaps worth noting that Benning lost all three for nothing as free agents.
  17. Yeah I remember the summer before his last season the Canucks weren't even that interested but then Calgary tried to sign Linden (foreshadowing the Calgary Canucks of the last few seasons) and then the Canucks were like "oh fine" and gave him a one year deal. I think he still had at least one year of bottom six hockey left in him at the end but the team was done. Now Stan Smyl was a guy who played until he had absolutely nothing left in the tank. I told this story in another thread so you've probably read it, but nobody else seems to actually remember this event... In Trevor Linden's final season, where he got healthy scratched twentysomething times, he was in the lineup during the season and on the penalty kill. The other team had a 5-on-3 for either a full two minutes or close to it. Linden went out and killed the first minute or so as the only forward and then there was a stoppage in play. Linden skated back to the bench, exhausted, and then Vigneault looked up and down the bench for a better option and sent Linden back to take the faceoff. It's the only time I've ever seen a standing ovation for player deployment on a penalty kill.
  18. Larry Robinson played effectively to 40 and had 40 points in 53 games at 36. As we all know Ray Bourque was a 1st team All Star at 40 when he retired. I wonder what he could have achieved if he had played out the string until they sent him home like Coffey. I think he had at least another 150 points in him if he had wanted. And I still think they pulled the plug too early on Coffey, just like AV did to Linden in his final year with all the healthy scratches.
  19. The competition back then - late 70s to mid 90s - was stellar. It says something that nobody ever really talks about Doug Wilson, Randy Carlyle, or Gary Suter...or just barely mention Borje Salming, Mark Howe and Rod Langway, and that's just Hall of Famers, Norris Trophy winners and 800 point defensemen from that time. Never mind the ones that would be high paid stars today and aren't mentioned at all...Reed Larson, Dave Babych, Jeff Brown, Steve Chiasson, Doug Crossman, Charlie Huddy, Brad McCrimmon, Barry Beck, Paul Reinhart, Ian Turnbull, Mike Ramsey, Ron Greschner, Steve Duchesne, Tom Kurvers, Steve Smith, Uwe Krupp, Teppo Numminen, Fredrik Olausson, Stefan Persson, Dave Ellett, Al Iafrate... At the very least they'd have been locking down those Christian Ehrhoff retirement contracts. I think Barry Beck / Ron Greschner / Reijo Ruotsalainen were all on the Rangers at the same time. That's a pretty dangerous 1-2-3. Actually they had James Patrick as well for a 1-2-3-4.
  20. The whole Virtanen fiasco - everything from trading McCann instead right through to re-signing him and losing Tanev and Toffoli - was fear based. The organization has lived in perpetual terror of losing the next Cam Neely for 35 years. In the end we lost McCann, Toffoli and Tanev and then Virtanen shriveled on the vine before cutting the vine himself with his own weiner. People keep downplaying McCann. The guy already has 20 goals this season. That would make him the Canucks team leader with room to spare.
  21. I might be in the minority but I really like the Millionaires jersey as a 3rd / 4th. They lost every game in them I think so they were done away with but I thought the design and colors were pretty classy and I've always felt the city and team should do more to recognize the Millionaires. I have always been in favor of a banner...I would have recognized it on the 100th anniversary. Also, the red / yellow / orange does also have more history in Vancouver. People forget Vancouver had a WHA team as well, the Blazers.
  22. I'm with you that Lidstrom gets ranked too high on the all-time defenseman lists, though I still rank him very high. People having him ahead of everybody but Orr though is a good handful of spots above where I would have him. I think I go Orr, Coffey and then some combination of Bourque, Potvin, Shore and Harvey. And I can't really give that intelligent an opinion of Shore and Harvey...I mean, maybe I would think they were better than Orr, or maybe I would think they weren't as good as Lidstrom if I had been at the games. Then it's kind of hard to start ordering Robinson, Leetch, MacInnis, Lidstrom, etc. I never really know where to put Langway, he was such an anomaly as the one guy singled out to win Norris trophies without scoring points. In a different timeline, could a guy like Brad McCrimmon or Brad Marsh somehow have attracted that kind of spotlight and press and run away with it as well... And yeah the drop from Orr and Coffey to whoever was the third best offensive defenseman of all time is bigger than the drop from Gretzky and Lemieux to whoever would be third (Yzerman, Esposito, Jagr, etc.). Coffey also got more points in a season than any forward ever did playing with Gretzky in Edmonton. Kurri and Messier never matched his high water mark. Doug Wilson and Bob Murray in Chicago was another decent pair of d-men that could rack up some points. Borje Salming and Ian Turnbull. Barry Beck and Ron Greschner.
  23. Yeah Zubov was great. People forget that he led the 1994 Rangers in scoring that season. He was one of extremely few defensemen to ever lead the Stanley Cup champion team in scoring for the year. I forget how few...he was maybe the only one ever and especially if combining it with the Presidents Trophy...but if I looked it up I wouldn't be surprised if Orr or someone from the pre-Howe days did it. I'm just going by memory. Zubov and Leetch on the same team that year. Not sure if there has been a pair of scoring defensemen quite like that on the same team at the same time. I'm trying to remember if Orr and Park overlapped in Boston for long enough, or if Coffey and Murphy were on the Penguins at the same time. Ray Bourque and Reed Larson, but Larson was slowing down when he got to Boston. Larry Robinson and Guy Lapointe. I guess MacInnis and Suter and/or Reinhart is up there and probably the best 1-2-3 punch ever.
  24. Yep, just like Linden retired in the top 100 of all time in scoring. Ronning was great for all of those years after the Canucks. He left the Predators as their all time scoring leader. He beat the Canucks as part of the Wild after the Bertuzzi taunt in game seven. He still might have had a bit of hockey in him too after the lockout. The league just did a purge of older players. Guys like Brett Hull were clearly done but a few guys like Ronning may have had the plug pulled on them prematurely. I hated Bill Berg for the rest of his career because he threw Ronning down on his shoulder and injured him. Might be a suspension now but back then it wasn't even a minor penalty.
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