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-AJ-

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Everything posted by -AJ-

  1. Given Vancouver's recent trend and overall hype around the league, he may be willing to make less money to play for a more exciting team.
  2. I think Vatanen is the better all-arounder, but if we're looking specifically for defense, Hamonic is probably better. Hamonic is also possible cheaper.
  3. Frankly, he's not a good player, but he does ooze charisma and leadership. He might make a great coach some day.
  4. Never really understood why he didn't get a chance in the past few years. His AHL season in Providence was excellent and his last four NHL games produced four points. Even his 37-game season for the Canucks in 2017-18 showed a big offensive improvement, even if it was still lacklustre.
  5. What a cool idea! I love how it challenges students to think about some deeper questions of morality and ethics too. An idea I have is to also include an element of if COVID affected the two different classes of nations in the way students expected. Maybe ask them to come up with some sort of "hypothesis" beforehand and then evaluate that afterwards. I suppose it could also invoke confirmation bias, but it could be argued that confirmation bias might already be there.
  6. I think championship calibre teams have amazing third line forwards, but RNH is above even the third line guys on a team like Tampa Bay. He scores at close to a point-per-game, tough admittedly, this year is the only year he's been reasonably close to that mark. I actually think we have a great potential high-end third line scoring centre in Gaudette, who I think has real 60-point potential within the next few years. I would also argue that a strong defensive core is more crucial to a cup-winning team than forward depth. Injury problems aside, I'd actually be much more interested in Klefbom, Edmonton's top defenseman, than RNH for our purposes.
  7. Based on what I've noticed thus far, Canada and the US are by far the best two teams in this tournament so far. Sweden and Russia are probably 3rd and 4th, in that order. I fully expect it to be a North American final (or whenever they would meet, I don't know the knockout format that well).
  8. I'm actually a bit RNH fan and think he's very underrated, playing in the shadow of Draisaitl and McDavid. That said, I too am not certain about the price. Hughes and Petey could be insanely expensive and Boeser will probably want raise too. If it can be made to work, I wouldn't mind the signing, but I also feel that RNH is wasted as a 3rd line centre. He's easily a top 6 calibre player and we'd be much wiser to spend our money in a place of weakness, like defense, especially if Edler doesn't re-sign. In short, I'm not certain we have the cap space, but even if we do, we'd be better off signing a solid 2/3 defenseman (Schmidt-level) instead of another high end centre. Even a winger would be better for us than extra centres.
  9. To be fair, Sakic, is three inches shorter than Petey.
  10. He looked like a beefcake last year, but it turned out that Petey has a way of looking both jacked and remaining below 180 pounds at the same time. I have to imagine his body fat % is pretty impressive.
  11. I expense the physicality will dramatically increase as the season goes on. Can't imagine teams in the North will be happy with Tkachuk's antics, etc.
  12. I wouldn't be surprised to see the pairings mixed up over the year, but I think at this point, unless things change a lot this year, Edler is too good to be playing third line minutes, though maybe it would happen periodically during a losing streak or something. However, it is reasonable to expect that at his current age, Edler will fall off at some point and it's possible that it's this year.
  13. Did not see that one coming. Guess Boston wasn't offering anything? Both teams feel like they're on the downswing from their window.
  14. If Loui gets 29 or more points in a shortened season, I will eat my hat.
  15. Eating healthier is both exciting and depressing at the same time.

    1. Show previous comments  3 more
    2. Phil_314

      Phil_314

      I've been trying to cut back on sugar/ sodium/ processed foods, and while many condiments have lots of those, there's some whole/ low amount replacements (e.g. been using Worchestershire sauce, cane vinegar and others) and it helps to retain some good flavor while having better nutritional value.

    3. -AJ-

      -AJ-

      I'm not being super strict with my diet, just making small subtle changes. I'm blessed to have a pretty fast metabolism, so I can get away with a lot, but I also realize that as I get to my 30s and beyond, that won't last forever, so I'm trying to learn some better habits earlier.

    4. Tortorella's Rant

      Tortorella's Rant

      It's easy to do once conditioned and you'll never go back. I felt like a slug eating crap the last three days and got back to the gym and a sense of normalcy today. 

  16. I always find it interesting when career bottom six guys extend their careers for longer than one might expect. 567 games. Based on his 2018-19 season in the AHL, he could've stuck around for some AHL time still, but I imagine with the state of the AHL/NHL, it wasn't worth the bother. Best two offensive seasons: 2016-17: 78 games, 16 goals, 19 assists, 35 points 2012-13: 46 games, 13 goals, 14 assists, 27 points For one season, in 2012-13, he was almost approaching 2nd line offense, which is neat. I definitely remember him most as a Blue Jacket.
  17. East in a landslide. North is probably the most even division, but none of them are super dominant teams. I would say all three other divisions have two or three teams that are better than every single North Division team, but the lower end of the North is probably one of the strongest of the divisions.
  18. Yeah, I was wondering that just today. I have to assume for round 3, they'll just completely re-seed all four remaining teams (the divisional winners).
  19. Something something Vancouver Island something something BCHL
  20. I disagree. I think Hotlby is capable of holding a starting job, especially if he only plays around 60% of the games. I think Demko will play well with 40% or fewer games.
  21. I think the team will struggle and will either finish just outside at 5th or barely make the show at 4th in the North division. I expect Demko and Holtby to be a decent tandem, but I feel as though our defensive depth will be our kryptonite. Outside of our top four, we sorely lack experience and depth and when inevitable injuries hit, we could be decimated defensively.
  22. I can't give him a ranking as of now. The variance is too high to give him a reasonably reliable evaluation. It's like picking a number between 1 and 1000 and then pretending you can stand by the accuracy of that number. Predicting future results implies some uncertainty (due to the fact that none of us are future tellers), so that would be more reasonable. Even still, I expect Holtby to be the starter next year, so then you'd have to break down your question into more specific categories: 1. Will Demko be a #1 goalie this coming season? Well given I expect Holtby to be the starter, the answer has to be no. 2. Will Demko be of a starting goaltender calibre next season? This is a much more interesting question, but again, sample size really restricts the answer here. If Demko plays 25 games and plays very well, does that make him a good starter? Most starters are playing at least 50 games in a season and history shows that workload has a huge impact on the performance of goaltenders. So, in sum: 1. I think the question of whether or not Demko is a #1 goalie right now can't be reasonably answered. There's just not enough evidence to go off of. 2. The question as to whether or not Demko will be a #1 goalie next year is more reasonable, but even then, he'll likely play the backup or 1B role to Holtby, so the sample size still won't be there. The better question might be more general: How good of a goaltender is Demko? This removes the "starter" aspect of the question and is less restrictive. To answer that, all I can say is I've seen him as a backup and he looks to be a solid backup. Generally struggles with heavy workloads over extended periods of time and excels with spot time playing periodic games.
  23. Way too early to give him a ranking. Need a bigger sample size. Based on how he played against Vegas, he's a Vezina contender. Based on how he ended the regular season, he's a fringe starter.
  24. I think as a young'un, I used to value penalty minutes as a positive stat, but I now feel that it's a metric for the bad side of what we like about guys who take penalties, physicality. I find some of the better metrics to find tough guys are things like number of fighting majors, hits, and penalties drawn (making the opponents take penalties). That aside, I thought I'd mention that I think Potvin would at least tie or if not even beat Lidstrom on my list if he'd played as long as Lidstrom. It's truly a shame he had to retire so early with such incredible numbers. I'm just glad he made it to 1000 games unlike Orr.
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