-AJ-

Benning would never do that trade. It's clear that character is important to the Canucks org.

Wow, that is insanely smooth.

Sounds crazy cheap to me.

Always been a very hard question for me, but I'll go with Boeser, followed by Petey. Horvat takes third.

Vancouver is Awesome (PITB) has always been one of the better media outlets. Not always really stuff I like, but they have a better track record than most for me.

Among all Canucks who took at least 50 faceoffs last year, he would've been 6th place out of nine players, all centres (including Miller). He was above Gaudette (43.5%), Pettersson (45.0%), and Graovac (45.7%), while being 6th behind Boyd, who was at 51.1%, a huge jump over those bottom three (four if you were to include DIckinson). Worthy of note--after looking at this, I realized that Sutter had a huge return to form in the dot with a 55.5% rate last year, which was second behind only Beagle. Hope he keeps that up again.

It'll make your jersey a more unique part of history!

I'm gonna go with Rypien, just taking size into consideration. His technique was unmatched.

I love Dickinson's frankness. No doubt he'll trigger people at some point, heck, maybe even me, but I appreciate his willingness to speak his mind.

Kind of crazy that he's so cheap.

Gainey won four Selkes and Carbonneau won three, quite a bit more than Kesler. Lehtinen (even with three Selkes), Peca, and Tonelli aren't in the Hall and Federov and Datsyuk had excellent offense to complement their defense--Yzerman was one of the best offensive forwards for almost his entire career and added defense to the end half of his career. I think it takes either a solid combination of offense and defense or multiple Selkes to get into the Hall for a defensive forward and even then, it doesn't always get you in, as in Lehtinen's case.

I don't think it changes even with a Cup, but maybe with a Cup and a long career where he gets double the points he did end up with and there's a conversation to be had. That said, I don't personally think winning a Cup should weigh heavily in the discussion, especially in a 30+ team league.

Lu is my choice. I think other biggest contender is Bertuzzi, but McLean was also pretty great in his prime, nearly winning the Vezina.

Obviously yes. On an entirely unrelated note, I'm moving this thread to White Noise.

Maybe it's semantics, but I would say words like legendary or generational are a step above "incredible" and could be used to describe guys like Bergeron or Datsyuk's defensive play. Anyone who can win the Selke is "incredible" defensively in my mind.

I think too many fans forget how good Schneider was in his prime, both here and in New Jersey. I considered him a top 5 goalie for two or three years, both in Vancouver and especially during a couple years in New Jersey.

Not even close. His defense was incredible, but his offense wasn't good enough to get him in. 573 points in 1001 games isn't even remotely close to HHOF-worthy IMO, even with incredible defense.

True, but he wasn't a Canuck then.

Agreed, though I think he'll need to work on faceoffs if he wants to become our key defensive zone faceoff guy.

Lots of good options, but I think Kesler wins this one. Schneider was very good in his prime and Demko I think has been as high as a top 10 goalie. Boeser and Miller (both Millers) have both had strong seasons and Hughes was IMO a top 10 D in the NHL in his rookie year. Kesler winning the Selke trumps all that though, I'd say.

I was one of those who felt Montreal should've kept Halak over Price at the time. Price has probably been the better goaltender since then, but both have had great careers.

Great signing. Definitely worth that IMO. Could be a fringe top 6 guy if things go well or maybe if he gets Vegas magic, a solid 2nd line guy.

Presently, Juolevi reminds me a bit of Brendan Gaunce. His defense is very strong (for a 5/6 guy), but he gives very little outside of that. I'm hoping his game evolves to become either even more strong defensively (a la Tanev/Hamonic/Slavin) or he adds some more offense to his game. Some physicality would be nice too.

He wouldn't need it at all, but OEL is a classy guy and would ask for it anyways. A bit like asking a father for permission to marry his daughter, even though it isn't strictly required by law or anything.

Very true. Now that you mention it, there's no doubt in my mind that OEL asked Edler first.