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Maniwaki Canuck

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Everything posted by Maniwaki Canuck

  1. Totally. He is an RD which gives him a small advantage (although so are Larsen and Biega, his main competition along with Pedan). Whatever happens, our D-depth is looking so much better. Pretty exciting to be a Canuck fan these days, no matter what the idiot media say.
  2. That's a nice way of putting it. He looks to have the best attributes of Biega and Larsen. Since he has been playing against men in college, he might just pull a Hutton and step right into the 6D spot. No problem if he doesn't, but he could.
  3. Absolutely. Whether or not you agree with every last one of his decisions, there's no denying that the guy is super-involved in scouting and internal talent assessment within the organization. It's what he's good at, and ultimately he's going to exercise his own judgement, quite rightly. I'd expect he asked for input from Green about Shinkaruk's development, but that's a separate matter from asking him whether to pull the trigger in a trade. The other issue here is that coaches (particularly at the AHL level) are in the business of trying to develop and improve their players. It's not their role to pass final judgement on them. If Green was to say of an AHL all-star "this kid is never going to make it - trade him", he'd be confessing his own failure as a coach.
  4. Pure speculation, i.e. "you can bet" on your preferred scenario. There are internal differences over these matters all the time inside of organizations. Remember the purge in our front office a year ago? I'm not saying that Green wanted to keep Shinkaruk, only that his public assessments of him recognized strengths as well as weaknesses: beyond that, we don't really know anything, except, of course, that Weisbrod really likes Granlund and Benning agreed. But back to Stecher: yeah, after what happened with Hutton last year, I do think he'll get a spot if he earns it. Since he's a RD, realistically, he'd be going head to head with Larsson for the same roster spot. It's not at all out of the question that he could prevail.
  5. Green also had plenty of good things to say about Shinkaruk. People can reasonably assume that Green had some input into the organization's assessment of Shinkaruk, but at the end of the day, Green is an AHL coach and Benning is the GM, you know, the guy who is ultimately responsible for personnel decisions. What amazes me on this board is how the nuthugger faction recruits Green as an active party to the decision to trade Shinkaruk with no direct evidence whatsoever that he actually was. Personally, I think that trade stank, but Benning has made plenty of good moves and doesn't need to coat-tail on Green's reputation. Endlessly invoking Green's alleged involvement in this deal only makes Benning look weak.
  6. It's the going rate: better him than Lucic. We may regret the last couple years of this deal, but we owe it to the Sedins to get this guy.
  7. Wouldn't surprise me either, even though Gaunce has more than earned a shot on the big club. But it's a numbers game and he's got another year without waivers. Even if they move Burrows and Higgins, they'll probably sign a UFA forward so it will work out the same. Frankly, I like Gaunce at 4C way more than Granlund and think he would consolidate the heavy lineup that's forming from our D out, but Weisbrod likes Granlund a lot so that's the end of that.
  8. Definitely "competitive" is a relative term. But I'm not so sure that he's a lock if he has a decent camp. It's already a numbers game and will be even more so if we re-sign Hamhuis or get any of the other UFA defense available. Admittedly Benning hasn't been shy about exposing players to waivers so maybe he just sends Pedan and Biega down but if he really does want to have 10-11 D to draw on, he's got to be a bit more strategic than that.
  9. At this point that would be my doubt too, although his shot is legit. All depends on how much he can learn though, because the basic tools are there.
  10. Stecher has a strong overall D game but is probably going to have to make the club on defensive reliability, not as a PMD like Hutton did last year. Their puck moving skills actually look pretty similar but Stecher seems like he might be a better PPQB and a more complete player, although obviously both are young and need to develop. Hutton is great, but he walked into a golden opportunity on a weak D-corps this past year and got the chance to show his stuff. Stecher is coming into a more competitive situation this year and will have to show solid 3rd pairing level defensive reliability to make the club. He could have a good camp and still lose out to Larsen, just because Larsen fits a niche better (offensive RD, PPQB). I'm okay with Stecher starting out in Utica, but am hoping he steps up and surprises us.
  11. I'm thinking a scary #2, a guy who can play most facets of the game well but excel at crease-clearing and physically punishing the opposition. The fact that he can play both sides also allows for different complementary pairings, e.g. put him with a smaller PMD or another monster to make a nasty shut-down unit. Besides his obvious strengths, he gives us a lot of versatility and is going to help us fix the horrible incompatibility problems that have made our D less than the sum of its parts in recent years.
  12. Agreed, and probably top 4
  13. This. He's made some unreal passes this year as well as some bad ones. All the "low hockey IQ" and "tunnel vision" stuff that was going around about him started to look pretty silly when he got on a roll after the WJC. Of course there was some regression, but part of that also came from playing down the lineup. Put him with Horvat and Baertschi and his passing will look just fine.
  14. Good, hopefully that enters into the equation for him.
  15. This is a serious situation. If he isn't interested in signing after thinking about it for a few weeks, Benning really needs to have a frank conversation with him, one that cuts to the chase about whether he ever intends to sign with us and if not, where he really wants to play. We still have some leverage while he's 1+ years away from free agency and can probably get some (maybe not full) value by dealing his rights to where he might want to go, although it might take a real poker player to get it done. This time next year, we'll have no leverage at all. Ideally this gets resolved before the draft when picks could figure into a prospective deal.
  16. Edler-Tanev and Hutton-Tryamkin are a credible but not great top 4, certainly less of a mish-mash than what we got by on this year. Probably Hamhuis-Sbisa will be our bottom pairing. The only thing that really excites me about that lineup is Tryamkin's and Hutton's upside. If Pedan could become reliable enough to play regularly, our D would suddenly have critical mass for a tough physical identity but as of now, that looks too optimistic. They aren't giving him the same chance to work through his puck-handling issues that Sbisa got. But if Tryamkin, Pedan and Sbisa could all earn a place on our D, we'd be looking way better against those California teams. That would be exciting. Failing that, it comes down to a key UFA signing or trade, as you suggest. I'm just not sure that either is likely.
  17. True, but he really needs to play D and get used to retrieving the puck behind the net and making the first past early and easy. Let the future start now! Weber and/or Bartkowski can sub in as forwards.
  18. Indeed. WD's handling of Pedan is my one concern in this situation too. I get it that he isn't totally reliable with the puck but that's partly a confidence thing and no less true of Weber and Bartkowski. Sitting him out sometimes so he can observe and learn is fine, but it's happened a bit too much for that to be the reason. I think WD actually prefers Bartkowski and Weber, which is totally unacceptable. It's huge that we're turning the physical tide against the California teams. The results are right there before our eyes and we have to cultivate the players that are making that happen.
  19. I'm not going to lie: this idea makes me smile!
  20. No doubt in my mind that Hutton-Tryamkin is a legit second pairing for next year. They complement each other very well and there's some still-untapped offensive upside with both of them. Optimistically, I'd even give them a shot at surpassing Edler-Tanev by year's end. Certainly Hutton has handled top-pairing minutes well enough since Edler went down. If we could get one of the good UFA D on the market this summer and pair him with Sbisa, we'd be solid again: effectively 3 second pairings as we had 5 years ago.
  21. I believe it's on the Canuck's TV official game highlight package.
  22. Yes, and I loved the sardonic half-smile on his face while the *ucks were chirping him. The perfect blend of contempt and amusement.
  23. Very much agreed. The amazing thing is that he's just settling into this league and is going to learn quite a bit more before he's done, but we're already getting these results. Of course he's not a raw rookie with his KHL experience, but it's still very impressive. How many other D his age or younger play with this kind of authority? Beyond Ekblad, none come to mind.
  24. Well that wasn't a very long wait! Last night showcased him as a one-man wrecking ball against one of the more physical teams in the league. Talk about an "equalizer" in the best sense of the term! Things are looking up around here, folks.
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