Fred65

I believe you're right and that is why many players turn down the World Chamionships, it doesn't really matter

The figures I've seen suggest that 60% of first rounder make to the NHL (100 games) however what interest me is if you remove the first 5 picks what would be the average for the remaing first rounders, I suspect way less than 60% ?

Shush Shawn there's still an underground club that hang on Bennings every word, they did it for 8 years and will go down with the ship much like they did with Juolevi/Vertanin brigade

OK, The phantom high stick not only give Finland a 5 on 3 powerplay ( which was the equalizer) but the Cdn goalie was injured on that play and had to leaave the game to be replaced by Canadas third string goalie. Frankly if I'm a Cdn player I wouldn't wish to travel to EU after a regular 82 game league play. The problem IMHO is many/most players do turn down the Championships. I'd much rather go to Hawaii with the family

The tying goal was a phantom high stick, which put Canada down 2 men

Simple they paid off the Ref

First of all negoiations are between 2, I repeat 2 parties. You might want some thing but you don't always get what you want, as my mother used to say " I want never gets" The loop hole in the new CBA was a contract negoiated between the NHLPA and the NHL. The part that effected Luongo was a retroactive clause, ie existing clauses were cancelled, that! was the problem. Nothing to do with Luongo or Gillis.. Vcr suffered for sure but the cherry on the Sundae was when Luongo rather than go LTI route he decided to retire which kicked the costs back to Vcr. It was ironic that Luongo made that statement my contract sucks .... well sunshine you negoiated it together with your agent. Luongo never did Vcr any favours, he scr**ed them at every opportunity.

Well I tend too think he's likely fired his bolt and is now to slow for todays game. But my God he put the fear of God on wingers trying to down the left side, he crushed them. I recall Jamie Benn taking exception to him flattending two of his team mates and dropped the gloves, I admire your courage Jamie but it was a bad mistake.

That will be a contest between bringing back Chiasson or Richards who has great character a much need quanitity for the youth

Gillis was not a bad GM, mostly people diidn't like him because in some minds he spoke down to people, and I don't doubt he did not suffer fool. What he left JB with was a top end C, a Vezina Trophy candidate in goal and a D'man with ooddles of Character. Both he and Torts clearly understood the team was stale and needed a rebuild. Frankly I believe Gillis was simply too smart for Aquam to tolerate ( ditto Gilman ) Of course this is some what confirmed when Gillis went on to teach Law at U.Vic. he was no one's fool. Personally I thought firing him was a mistake. One other aspect was while Gillis pushed for a rebuild in 2014 ( think where we would likely be now ) it was contrary to Aquamans wishes. This was due in Part to his ailing and aged father wanted a SC, you can't blame him for that. But in the longer term we would have benefitted greatly with Gillis ( and Torts + Lindens ) approach. We wasted valuable time.

Frankly that's BS. the Luong contract was agreed with by both parties and approved by the league. Bettemman undermined the Canucks by retroactively chnaging the Luongo contract. Luongo for domestic reasons needed to return to Miami to pacify Mrs Luongo. In some ways it was similar to the Bure hold out, almost impossible to get a fair return. That wasn't on Gillis it was on Luongo/Betteman

That's for sure, one of the worse people to be let go was Lawrence Gilman. Exceptionally bright and I suspect could make Aquman appear to be a fool in any debate

The likes of Yakupov or Puljujarvi or Broberg. all top tens picks. It's a gamble

Too many fans always find hope in draft picks, to me it's a sort of cop out, the grass is always greener etc etc If you draft in the top 5/10 that's a reasonable premise, lessor spot is a hope. Neeley was a shocker and Tom Watt was the conductor

Forsling was strange to me. He certainly was a later developer. But he need a coach/team to bring out his skill. I recall when he was in the WJC. he was the go to man for Sweden, late in the game, PP, PK. I thought Glandenning must be some thing special to lure him out of town, he wasn't ! I'm glad he's doing well in Florida. Frankly although we didn't understand then it was a harbinger of things to come

At some point the Woo brigade will need to acknowledge he isn't the player management has hoped for. You can't get so attached, clubs get over so must the fans

I agree, OEL is a quality D'man even though he's clearly on the down side of his career but know one can not believe that his salary is a huge burden on the Cap. That my friend is the prime reason for the difficulties ahead for a team that wishes to progress. The Canucks Cap IS the problem. The moment we made the trade I christened him Ericksson Mk2 Take a look at his stats for the last 5 years. Without him I suspect we would have been forced to resign Edler ( who seems to be doing OK in LA) and save ourselves $4mill. We wouln't have Garland sure enough

Sadly that ain't going to happen. He' yet another case of fans falling in love with a prospect. I can say this I scouted for a US Uni, low level it was as much about getting BC kids a scholarship. But this much i know you're at a tournement all day and you're sitting with scouting package having a coffee just browsing. For my part I was often intrigued by a name, as in wow look at that name and sure enough you look for the kid naturally in the game, really it's a distraction more than any thing. As to the Flak keep it coming I got lots about Virtanen and Juolevi, but get I got the last laugh

Cool, I guess I'm from a different era

The name Jett IMO attracted attention. I don't know any one called Jett. It stood out to be but would a kid named Jeff stand out, nope

The goalie coaching has been good

Alf it's a trueism that a happy wife means a happy life. You see the same in the English Premiership, the wifes want to close to London. Trying to convince players move to the North East of England you need a lot of horse power

Yeah thats another reason but think about Florida, there is NO state tax, Thats kind of nice. I know my wife lovess to shop down in the USA, little things but they all add up IMO.

The role he plays is determined by the coach. If they were to make him available for a trade he'd be gone in a flash IMO. There are not many 6'8"/230 RHD defencemen around. He's here because he lives in Kelowna, ditto Schenn and wants to play here. I think many would be surprised to learn that many US NHL players don't wish to play in Canada, taxes, climate and far from home. Faulk is prime evidence NHL: Blues' Faulk not looking forward to going to Canada (yahoo.com)

Well just to add some related facts. Clendenning, Kassian, were trades and Kenins not sure how we aquired him Corrado was a 150th pick, Jansen was a 29th. Petersson was a 5th O/A Hughes a 7th O/A, Podkolzin a 10th O/A Hoglander 40th O/A and Lockwood a 64th. We drafted very high in the order for a number of years, why you might ask, well the big team was lousy and badly managed it's that simple. To add to these same fact we traded away our 1st round two consequtive years, which doeesn't help when you think about it, our last 1st round pick was in 2019