CanucksAtHome

To be fair, you said Nichuskin>Harvat. You were right about that one; that Harvat guy is crap.

Hey Ken - I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were trying to get at - I actually agree somewhat with your opinion. It's hard to say for sure what else was available on the market at the time, and we also don't know how dissenting Hodgson was in the Canucks organization. I have no idea how much Cody wanted out, but if he was raising a big fuss about it internally perhaps they just wanted to get what they could for him at the deadline.

An interesting note on Cody hodgson - so far this year he has only 2G 6A and his +\- is -20. And ken, if I understand you correctly you are saying that you feel like those trades took us away from being strong contenders?

Let's go back to the good ol' days, shall we? The one where Canucks win back to back Presidents' Trophies. We exorcize some demons beating the Blackhawks in game 7 OT after being up 3-0 in the series. Ryan Kesler dominates the Predators in round 2 of the playoffs. The Canucks make the Stanley Cup finals on a Kevin Bieksa goal so bizarre that Cory Schneider (and probably 1/2 of Rogers Arena) had no idea what had happened. And then the ups and downs in the finals against the Bruins which had Raffi Torres scoring a game winning goal with 20 seconds left in game 1, Alex Burrows scoring a goal 10 seconds into OT in game 2, Max Lapierre's happy dance after scoring the winning goal in game 5, and eventually succumbing at home in game 7 prompting the ugly events that took place in downtown Vancouver that night. Back in those days, the Canucks dominated with a lineup predicated on mostly skill over size. But over the course of that ill-fated playoff run we got beat up, and injuries took their toll. As the years passed basking in the limelight of making the finals, we started to get old. Our skill players were still pretty good, but seeing as Father Time waits for no one, the extended seasons of battling caused our top players to lose a step or two. As time went on this problem only seems to have been exacerbated. Having to play the Pacific Division giants of Anaheim, San Jose and LA 5 to 6 times a year is a grind, and at times these California teams have utterly dominated the Canucks with their size, speed, and tenacity. With only 3 teams guaranteed to make it out of the new Pacific Division each year, the question remains - what is the best way to compete in this tough division? Some critics of the Canucks claim that they are too soft. Although they may be somewhat undersized, I would not say that they are soft players. Even though they may get outmuscled by some of the bigger teams, I would argue that the Canucks still play a reasonably hard game. A lot of these critics also suggest that the Canucks overcompensate for this by acquiring only big, tough players. And to be fair, some of these players are needed. We got a start on this process by trading Cody Hodgson for Zack Kassian, who is a work in progress. We effectively traded Cory Schneider for Bo Horvat, who is a tank. Most recently we drafted the Zdeno Chara-like Nikita Tryamkin (6'7", 230+ lbs) in the 3rd round last year. Also, don't forget about the acquiring of Shawn Matthias. Despite this influx of size, you still have people arguing that we should have taken the bully-like (I mean this in a good way) Nick Ritchie instead of Jake Virtanen 6th overall in this year's draft - and at 6'1" and 210 pounds, Virtanen is no slouch. At the end of the day I would be happy with either pick, but I really like Virtanen and it's pretty cool that they took a local boy who will play his heart out for his home team. Another issue with the Canucks that was notably raised by John Tortorella was that the core group of the Canucks is going 'stale'. Many people insist that the only way to regain our former glory is to trade away our core, finish in the bottom of the standings and draft high-end talent like Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel. While it's definitely true that as our core players age (past their prime) their production will regress, I strongly believe that many of them still have value. The character, humbleness, passion and generosity of Henrik and Daniel, Burrows, Bieksa and Hamhuis truly exemplify what it means to be a Canuck. I can think of no better role model for our young players to train under. For these reasons I think it would be a mistake to trade them away (in such a case where a NTC would be waived). So how do the Canucks proceed? How can we get back to an elite team not only soon, but for many years to come? Like many of you, I have also closely followed the Canucks player and administration moves over the past year. New GM Jim Benning and President Trevor Linden have made many moves since taking office, molding the team to fit their long-term vision. From these moves it is clear that the front office is focused on producing a depth of smart, coachable, hard-working two-way players with a bit of size mixed in. The end result of this is that our prospect depth is now deeper than it has ever been over the past decade. We have young forwards like Horvat and Vey already making an impact, with other players like Virtanen, Shinkaruk, Gaunce, Jensen, McCann and Kenins poised to contribute over the next few years. And don't forget Jordan Subban - I expect him to fill out over the next few years and compete for a roster spot. And Tryamkin clearly doesn't need to fill out anymore. I'm pretty sure he fights bears in his spare time for fun. The point of all of this bluster is that with our recent moves we are setting ourselves up for future success. No one in their right mind will claim we are Stanley Cup favourites, but as long as you make the playoffs you have a shot. And we are definitely playoff contenders - whether or not we keep that up is yet to be seen; the end of the season will be a grind for sure. I would love to talk more about how I perceive the Canucks are modelling their team, but this post is already long enough - I'll have to make another one about that. If you made it through the whole article, you have my appreciation! Thanks for reading, and if you have any comments or reasonable criticisms I would be interested in hearing them.

I can't imagine in any circumstances the Sedins getting traded... As far as I'm concerned it would be great if we could have young talent form a new top line, with the Sedins and Burrows being a killer second/1b) line. One might argue that this wouldn't be possible due to the Sedins high cap hits, but taking into account young players on rookie contracts filling this role, it seems plausible. In a few years it would be great if our lineup was something like: Some combination of McCann Horvat Virtanen Shinkaruk Vrbata if he's still here Sedin Sedin Burrows Matthias Vey/Gaunce Jensen/Kassian Dorsett Vey/Gaunce Hansen And then there are players like Higgins and Richardson that would be question marks... it really all depends on how much money we could get them for or if we would even need them (e.g. if some of our younger prospects don't pan out). And even in the case where we can't get them there's always trades and free agency. The greatest thing about our pool of young talent is that it offers great flexibility in designing a lineup. Having a consistent influx of good young players allows you to spend your money elsewhere to strengthen other parts of the lineup. In a perfect world I would love it if our system became a hybrid of the Boston and Detroit models: 1. Have skilled vets who are great leaders (Detroit - Lidstrom/Datsyuk/Zetterberg). The con of this is that as they get older you may have to absorb the same high cap hit for a player on the decline. This isn't a problem if you: 2. Draft well (Detroit/Boston/any consistently good team, really). You can afford to pay good money to your aging vets/stars if you can have good young players on rookie contracts. If your young players come into their prime and you can't afford to pay them all top dollar, then you can trade them for other needs, strong depth players, or picks, continuing the cycle. 3. Have a strong 4-line team (Boston). Being able to roll 4 lines and trust all your players in almost all situations makes your team a nightmare to match up against 4. Don't waste cap space on elite superstar talent (Detroit/Boston/LA). Every team needs skilled players, but to be effective as a team unit it's not necessary to have superstar players with long term 10M+/year cap hits. I'm sure most people would love a Crosby/Ovechkin/Toews/Kane type player, but I think that devoting a large percentage of your cap to 2-3 players weakens your flexibility for the rest of the lineup. To bring things back to Gaunce and our other prospects, I am a fan of how the Canucks organization are methodical and don't rush our prospect development. Just because we aren't favourites to win the cup doesn't mean that we should quickly tear down our core and go full rebuild. Dynasties aren't built in a day, let alone 1-2 seasons. If our prospects fill out the roles that we have assigned to them, our team will look very strong in the future.

I'm watching the Canucks game today and I don't have DVR... they just interviewed Jake Virtanen and I swear the sportsnet caption said "Jack Virtanen". Can anyone verify this?

Before I start, I just want to express how excited I am that the Sedins will be Canucks for the next 4 years As a (poor) student living in Saskatchewan, I've never had the opportunity to see an NHL game. In the few opportunities where I've been in Vancouver or Calgary, I've either been too busy to go or there haven't been any home games while I was there. So when my brother pitched the idea of going on a road trip with he and my Dad to Edmonton to watch the Oilers play the Leafs (they're both diehard Leafs fans), I was incredibly excited even though I knew I'd be really sore after a 5 hour trip there and back. We got to Rexall Place around 6PM (an hour before game time). We toured the arena, got some food and watched the pre-game skate; all was well. About 10 minutes before game time, some 'overly enthusiastic' Leafs fans took their seats in the row in front of us. It was obvious from the moment they walked in that they were drunk. As the game started, they almost immediately began harassing other fans; some were Oilers fans, others were wearing jerseys for other teams. I didn't wear my Canucks jersey because I anticipated these things happening. Back to these fans; they had a pint of beer at each intermission to keep the 'adrenaline flowing'. As the game progressed and the Leafs started racking up a healthy lead, there seemed to be a tipping point; they started swearing even more (it seemed to comprise over a third of their vocabulary), and would occasionally jump up during the play which made the people behind them mad because they couldn't see. Not wanting them to ruin our family trip, we ignored them. The same can't be said for everyone, though. With about three minutes left in the game, one fan beside us finally had enough and stood up to one of the guys, told them to 'sit down or he would make them sit down' (not the best choice of words). The guy immediately turned around with an 'oh yeah?' kind of face and punched the guy right in the nose. They tangled up while other fans tried to pull them apart. People and beer were flying in all directions, and it took security a solid 5 minutes to get there. The Oilers fan who confronted this Leafs fan had a pretty solid black eye after the whole ordeal. They only kicked the Leafs fan out (I hope he got arrested) because it was obvious that he was the aggressor in the situation. I was talking to one of the event staff who said he had noticed the fan for most of the game and could have called a supervisor, but most of the security staff were busy breaking up other fights so it wouldn't have done much use. I don't doubt that those other fights involved situations that were similar to the one we experienced. Whenever the Leafs or Habs play on the road, there are always a healthy contingent of fans that show up to the game (think Vancouver in Phoenix/LA/Anaheim). If they live in the area, it's probably the only time they will get to see them play all year. Add alcohol into the mix, and you're just asking for these things to happen. Arenas try to curtail this by not selling alcohol after the 2nd intermission, but I don't think it does much good. It's really unfortunate that teams have to sell alcohol to make money because it really takes away from the atmosphere. So please, if you're going to show up drunk at a game, don't bother showing up at all.

*edit* This post repeats some of the comments I made on John Garrett's actual article; in case you were wondering if I had stolen points from someone else. I just read John Garrett's article, called "Conspiracy Theory"; you can find it here. Although I respect Mr. Garrett's opinion, and he raises some good points, I'm not sure how I feel about someone with such close ties to the Canucks organization making a formal criticism like this. Calling out referees, let alone the league as a whole is not the most professional thing in the world to do unless you have cold hard facts. Mr. Garrett states several stats about how the Canucks have been excessively penalized (relative to their opponents) over the past few years, with some focus on the playoffs. Some examples of this are: "Last season the Canucks had 51 power play chances in their first 10 games. They had 33 in their last 10..." "This season they had 12 power plays in the first two games and 17 in the last nine." I am well versed in statistics (I am currently doing my PhD in the subject), and I am fairly confident that these facts are perfectly normal within statistical variation. Sometimes you will get a lot of power plays, other times you will not. Even in the largest case, 20 games relatively speaking is not that large of a sample. So there's one possible explanation for those numbers... However, not everything can be explained by that, so let's look at another point Mr. Garrett raises and see if we can find any other plausible explanation. "(The Canucks) were penalized twice as much as the San Jose Sharks in their first round playoff loss." In recent years the league has made great strides in trying to call obstruction penalties more tightly... consider the hooking, tripping, and interference penalties that no one would have dreamed of being called 5 years ago. Since the Canucks were largely a speed and skill based team, they performed quite well during the season when these penalties were being called correctly and consistently. However, come playoffs, these penalties were all of a sudden no longer called. Because of this, the Canucks players could be obstructed without as much penalty, resulting in the loss of their greatest team asset. I feel like this is a more likely explanation for the Canucks penalty woes in the playoffs; they relied on drawing obstruction penalties but these were no longer being called. In my mind, the lack of consistency in penalty calling from the regular season to playoff transition completely nullifies what the league is trying to accomplish with making the game more skill based. This is why big teams like Boston, Chicago, LA, and now San Jose do well come playoff time. The Canucks brass has raised this issue to the league before, but to no avail. This is why you have seen the Canucks make several moves (like acquiring Kassian, Sestito and Horvat) in an attempt to get bigger. Management is starting to realize that until the league gets their act together, you have to be big to win.

C is for consistency, something the Canucks have been starting to find as of late. Consistency in the power play (save for a little dry spell), consistency in goaltending, and most importantly, consistency in getting wins. However, if I were writing this post a couple of weeks ago, I would not be singing the same tune. After losses to Calgary, Columbus and Carolina and victories against Detroit, Minnesota, and San Jose, I was left wondering what team would show up on game night. At times the Canucks were dominant against powerhouse teams, and at others would look like minnows against cellar dwellers. Although as a fan this is maddening, I've learned to accept that there are ups and downs over the course of an 82 game season. Now for something that bothers me a bit more... consistency in officiating. As a trained referee, I am well aware of the need to alter your officiating SLIGHTLY depending on game situations. This doesn't mean looking for penalties for one team or letting blatently unfair penalties go uncalled, but rather taking control of the game if it appears to be getting out of hand. Cory Schneider makes a pretty good comment about this in his post-game interview after playing the Bruins. The referee's main goals are to protect the players, stop unfair advantages, and to ensure the flow of the game, not just to sit there and call penalties. I can assure you that something occurs every shift which warrants a penalty if one were to strictly follow the rules... slashing and interference are the first two things that come to mind. However, like I said the primary job of an official is to stop unfair advantages. If a player interferes with another who has no chance of being in the play, it's useless to call a penalty. Doing so would make games take ages and irritate everyone to no end. Therein lies the dilemma of an official. They have to make split second decisions as to whether certain actions warrant a penalty. Now, the referees in the league are mostly fantastic at using their discretion - it amazes me to no end how many things they have to be responsible for on EVERY SINGLE PLAY - but there's one thing I'd like to see change, and that's officiating during the playoffs. It is undeniable that the intensity is much higher and that the emotions of players are at a peak; this leads to a much more physical game, which I think is fantastic. However, it also leads to a much dirtier game. There are a Boatload of teams (who will Remain Unnamed) whIch base a majority of their strategy oN slaShing, cross-checKING, and punching playerS during and after the play. In my mind, this adds nothing useful to the game. They are plays that under the current 'playoff officiating system' are allowed unless are 'sufficiently' vicious. You can understand how players get confused about how something that wasn't a penalty at one point in the game is a penalty later. This inconsistency turns some playoff games into a joke. Take for example Brad Marshmallow punching Daniel Sedin, or when he doesn't even have the puck. It's OK because it's a battle, right? I don't think so, and I think it makes the game worse because of it. Given all of this stuff that happens, going through the playoffs really is a war. If you look at the Canucks injuries during the last postseason, maybe only a couple were a result of 'clean' physical play; the rest were due to the likes of slashes, cross-checks and other cheap shots. I think officials need to wake up and control the dirty stuff, otherwise it just makes the game inconsistent and out of control. I'd like to close with a wonderful picture my girlfriend drew on her computer!

Today was a busy day, however a great day. It was such a good day, that it made the Canucks loss only feel remotely terrible, as opposed to rage-enducing terrible. All I can hope is that third period fired the boys up to come back home. I'm really tired right now, so I'll make it short and sweet - the future is bright!