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smithers joe's Achievements
Canucks Franchise Player (12/14)
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JB says 2 more years. in 2 years we will be out from under louie, beagle, roussel, sutter. edler, hamonic, holtby, spooner, luongo,baertchi and likely virtanen.
our 4th line might be motte, boyd and highmore.
new players may be lind, podkolzin, focht. woo, rathbone + any new draftees or from trades. i think by then, petey and hughes will have mastered their crafts and become dominant players.
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I agree that D is the weakest area for the Canucks future right now.
It isn't completely devoid of hope however. Juolevi and Rathbone should help with the D within the next year or two (with Juolevi actually transitioning now). Woo could still be an effective NHLer even though I would not necessarily expect him to be a top 4 D.
There are also prospects like Utunen, Jurmo and Persson who could potentially make the jump, especially with other D prospects like Brisebois and Chatfield eventually aging out. Utunen may one day have a Fantenberg type role and I suspect he has the highest likelihood of transitioning to the NHL simply because he has a simpler game. Both Jurmo and Persson are high risk, high reward prospects, and both could be huge adds if they pan out. The odds of all of them panning out are obviously super low, but there's still some hope.
If Tryamkin does return, then he's at the right age to help bridge the gap between the older vets like Schmidt and Myers and the young players.
Is this a contending team's D roster? Probably not, but it's hard to completely write them off if Hughes can find another level not only in offensive production but also in his D play. Myers and Schmidt (who was looking more comfortable with the team in the few weeks before the COVID outbreak) can still eat important minutes even if neither necessarily spark immense confidence.
The team really needs at least Juolevi and Rathbone to make the jump and then find a way to add cost effective, physical depth. Personally that's why I'm not opposed to the Canucks bringing back Tryamkin if there's any chance of that at all. Not saying Tryamkin is nearly as good a player as Zadorov, but there are some similarities and Zadorov has been an important add to the Blackhawks D core.
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