Maniwaki Canuck
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Everything posted by Maniwaki Canuck
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For sure, especially since Benning's "aggressive" summer of 2021 was straight out of the Rutherford playbook. Imho, aggressive is fine as long as you know what you're doing and the hits outweigh the misses. The Miller, OEL and Garland deals were both great. Winning a trade is a way better route to collecting talent than free agency but it's a lot harder to pull off.
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I'm expecting he'll do an initial assessment of the team based on input from surviving members of the management team and Boudreau. Then he'll hire a GM and together they'll assess that assessment against the team's play. After that it will most likely be hockey trades to fix the problems they've identified. That's where his gunslinger mentality will either get us over the top or plunge us into another rebuild. But he's going to take a legitimate shot at it with this core, which is the right thing to do, but won't be for the faint of heart. Better get their professional scouting in tip top shape in preparation.
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I love Smyl as much as the next person, going back to the NW Bruins days, but he was never in the running for GM nor should he have been. He's valuable as a loyal footsoldier in the organization and as institutional memory that connects deeply to the market and its history, but as a GM he'd be Benning redux. Let's appreciate the guy for who and what he is but not overplay that hand.
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[PGT] Boston Bruins at Vancouver Canucks | Dec. 08, 2021
Maniwaki Canuck replied to -Vintage Canuck-'s topic in Canucks Talk
He wasn't too nice to fall out with Linden and a bunch of others in the front office left over from the Gillis regime. More like a paranoid person who was too insecure to tolerate other opinions in the room. He was loyal to those who didn't challenge him. The result was the toxic culture of non-communication we're climbing out from under now. -
For sure all those trade agreements are terrible. But it was our business leaders who pushed for them because they don't want to pay decent wages to our own workers. But yeah, we can definitely produce what we need for ourselves and should get back to that. I'm not going to demonize China for coming out of dire poverty and becoming the world's leading economy. Wouldn't want to live there, but I'm pretty sure they've figured out some things we haven't.
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So yeah, after one game it can't be coaching, at least in terms of what Boudreau has to add. But there is addition by subtraction, and the team looked like they had shackles and weights taken off them last night. It's almost like they felt allowed to play the way they wanted to. But beyond any systems, I just think that trust between the team and management broke down over the non-offers to Tanev and co. and management's failure to stick up for the players when they weren't ready to return from covid last spring. There was a real backlog of negativity, and getting rid of Benning and Green was the only way to fix it. Boudreau is the perfect antidote and things are going to get better.
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So if the only thing they really went over in the morning skate was the forecheck, maybe that means that the more aggressive PK came from the players themselves. It like they knew what needed to happen, but weren't allowed to do it until now. That and adding Bo and Petey to the unit shuts down the King's PP that just scored 3 on Edmonton. Yeah, I think we had some coaching problems alright.
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Without pretending to know what Green and Boudreau are "really like" in the room, a bit of sunshine might be helpful right now just to get the team to relax and stop moping. AV had that in his repertoire when he was here, and Boudreau looks like he has it in spades. I'm sure he can be tough as well and will have some x's and o's to instill in the group, but the first thing is to change the morgue-like atmosphere around the team. He's a good man for that job.
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Boudreau will set a positive vibe in the room in a way that Green hasn't, and will know what to do with our offensive guys. Hopefully he sets Shaw free to fix our pk and breakout issues. But Walker is the ultimate standup guy who hopefully deals with the identity issues we've got. Very stoked to see what happens next.
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What a relief! Not saying I didn't support a lot of his moves, but the bad ones were really bad. Above all, the dysfunctional vibe around the team has grown to the crisis point, and letting him address the media one more time would have been an insult to all parties concerned. This is a mercy hook, and one that everyone needed.
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Can't rule out that he is still hurt since he missed a few games at the beginning of the season. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a groin issue. His skating is so slow, when last year it was at least trending up towards league average. And yes, he does need a playmaker so Petey's struggles are also factoring in.
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It's been good to see the Canucks play better over the last few games and win tonight. The improvement convinces me that this could still be a decent team in the hands of a new coach and GM. But last season and the start of this one have been nothing short of emotional abuse for fans and the players too (by the look of it). So I watch with a bit more distance than usual, even though I still watch. Go Canucks Go.