Matt_T83

Bozak hit 55 points as a 3rd line center. And he hit 49 points 2x in a row before that. My point is that you can't say "he hit 50-60 points 2 years in a row!!" and proclaim someone a 2nd line player. It doesn't work like that. A 3rd line player that has career years playing against weaker opposition could have 60 points, and then drop down to 40 points in a 2nd line role. As the quality of opposition increases, your point production will decrease. We will see at the end of the year if I'm right or wrong. If it helps the Canucks win, I will gladly be wrong.

If the team really wanted to compete they wouldn't have stupidly waived Baertschi. If he's not in good shape, send him on a conditioning stint. Our questionable GM has committed us to getting better now, so we should be focusing on that. That would mean keeping the BHB line in-tact. Those guys clearly had chemistry, and breaking them up was stupid. We need to trade for a legit top 6 left wing (??), and pray JT Miller is the real deal. ??-EP-Miller Baer-Horvat-Boeser Pearson-Gaudette-Virtanen Ferland-Beagle-Motte That lineup would actually have a slim chance if JT Miller can produce in a top 6 role, which is what we paid for when we traded for him. Loui Eriksson can be the 5th left wing, rotating as needed. But cannibalizing the BHB line to put Boeser with EP is silly. It was obvious that Baertschi's value was immense on that line, and not much without it.

We shall see. Players typically plateau at 25-26, so JT Miller is not likely to improve much. Horvat on the other hand still has another year or two before he plateaus, and he had a good year last year on a terrible team. And even NHL advanced stats have been shown to be biased towards the quality of the team. When a player goes to a better team, their advanced stats increase, and vice-versa. A truly 'good' advanced statistic should be completely independent of the team. So let's just see how JT* Miller does on the Canucks this year.

I feel bad for you. Will quote you at the end of the season.

Thanks! I agree with you. Tampa was desperate to shed cap hits, and this guy was overpaid at $5.25M AAV. Tampa probably laughed that Benning was dumb enough to trade them a 1st round pick that's not even draft lottery protected. A shrewd GM would fleece those teams looking to make cap room ... but apparently Benning just gives out premium picks.

I've thought this since before the season started. This sums up what most analysts think of the trade: When people have to say "The GM made a desperate move, but he won't be around when the Canucks pay the price" ... that says something. Benning should have to put up $1 million of his own money as a bond on a trade like that. Desperate, bad trades to "go big or go home" should punish the GM personally if it fails.

OK. So I can quote you in a year or two and you'll apologize when you're wrong? Thanks. See you then.

Team is weak. We have no #1 or #2 left wing. And we've got no real #2 right wing. So we're basically a team with 2/3rds of a 1st line, 1/3rd of a 2nd line, and then a 3rd and 4th line. Our GM gave up a 1st and a 3rd to trade for overpriced, overvalued JT Miller. This is a joke. Edit: I don't know why management would ever break up the BHB line. To me, that's what gave them the best value from Baertschi ... and now he's waived because of it. I can't imagine this was Green's choice. More than likely management told Green to play EP with Boeser.... and that's why Baertschi is now off the team. That was a legit 2nd line. Now the team is worse because our GM is too incompetent to find players to play with EP, so he cannibalizes a functional line to do it.

I'm more concerned about the long term prospects of giving up a 1st and a 3rd for a 3rd line player, and signing a defenseman not proven be a reliable #3 guy to $6M AAV. Those are tangible concerns my friend.

I think the opposite. It showed desperation. He signed a very risky contract with Tyler Myers. The guy was on a defensively deep Winnipeg Jets team. He hasn't even proven that he can be a legitimate 2nd pairing defenseman. And in every defensive pairing, there's usually someone "carrying" the pair. At $6M AAV, he needs to be CARRYING the 2nd pairing, meaning he needs to be #3 D-man, not the #4. I don't see him ever being a #3 D-man, which makes that a bad contract. Then you've got the JT Miller trade ... oh boy. We gave up a freaking 1st round (in one of the next 2 drafts) + 3rd round pick for this guy!!! He's nowhere near good enough. He was a 3rd liner on an offensively deep Lightning team. That means the Lightning's opposition were focusing on shutting down the 1st and 2nd lines, leaving JT Miller more ice and scoring opportunities in the bottom half of the lineup. This guy is an average 3rd liner that had an above average year. JT Miller will likely not be able to translate his success to a 2nd line role on the Canucks, where he will face far more top defenders from opposing teams. I believe 2 years from now we will still be a non-playoff team, and then the Lightning are going to get our draft lottery pick in 2021. What a disaster.

:D I'll at least wait to see this season before I make that statement. If JT Miller can play 70-80 games we should have our answer. Also, just to be clear, what is the expected output of an "average" 2nd line player? I know this is always debated. Do we have numbers for what a decent 2nd line player should do? 20 goals? 60 points? 70 points? And what TOI should we expect? I would personally expect a decent 2nd line player to put up 20-25 goals* with 15-20 minutes average TOI and 60-70 points. The +/- doesn't matter quite so much, since that does depend a lot on other players on the ice with him.

You mean the JT Miller that mostly got points from assists on other players goals last year? The JT Miller that benefited from a deeply offensively talented Lightning team? When the other team is desperately trying to shut down your top 2 lines, a 3rd liner like JT Miller can get a lot more open ice and put up some points. He's an average 3rd line player that had an above average year last year. The Lightning were smart and sold him while his value was high. This is the exact same as Anson Carter after he had his career year with the Sedin twins. Overvalued. If I'm wrong, I will gladly apologize to you and proclaim myself an idiot. But I do not believe that I'm wrong. JT Miller is an overpaid 3rd liner.

We need to stop putting grinders with elite players. Ferland and Pearson are not acceptable 1st and 2nd line players. The Canucks have no legitimate left wing players at all. The team needs to trade for #1 and #2 left wing players. X-EP-Boeser X-Horvat-Virtanen That needs to be our top 2 lines. And if Virtanen can't cut it, the team needs to trade for a #2 RW as well. We need to stop wasting time with inferior lineups and fix our team.

I'm not worried about EP, but the Canucks roster is concerning. Everyone knows EP is a threat, so they shut him down. And he's got ZERO help from the roster to take pressure off him. When teams "key in" on one player, that should open up scoring opportunities for other players. The problem is, the Canucks don't seem to have "other players" that can be a threat. That makes it way too easy to shut EP down. Loui Eriksson looks like he doesn't even belong in the NHL lately. Virtanen always shows flashes but never consistency. I mean, the Canucks basically have 3 good players: EP, Horvat, and Boeser. That's it. That's a solid #1 line, but at the cost of your second line barely being equal to the average NHL 3rd line. This is simply unacceptable team building in today's NHL. Jordie Benn is not the answer ... he has 11 goals in his last 216 games. Tyler Myers probably isn't the answer either -- he was on a defensively deep Winnipeg Jets, and hasn't even proven himself a reliable 2nd pairing defenseman. This team is in trouble.

I agree. We've got great 1C and 2C now, which is awesome. We've also got some good defense prospects coming up. But as you said, our bottom 6 are basically all grinder plugs. We're going to need a solid 3rd line center, and another elite winger to play with Horvat. We also probably need another top pairing Dman, as I'm not really sold on Juolevi. We've still got some huge pieces we need to acquire...

I agree that he could still become a 2nd pairing D-man. However, he's gonna need another 1-2 years of development before he's NHL ready... that is unless his recovery is nothing short of miraculous. That means we'll get him later than we wanted, and his ceiling will be lower. It sucks.

He is smaller, but give him 1-2 years and he'll probably put on 10 pounds. If he can get to ~185-190 pounds, he'll be a decent NHL defenseman. And don't underestimate the strength of a shorter 5'10 guy that weighs 190.

I love Burrows and I'm so happy that he's having a bit of a comeback year. It's too bad the team around him sucks... because he's playing solid for us. Chipping in offensively and we have better +/- when he's on the ice.

The fact that you just admitted 2 players don't have the refs respect and then criticized him proves you're a gutless ????. NO REFEREE should EVER have a "grudge" against a player. These are professional referees in a professional sport. They have a MORAL AND LEGAL obligation not to be biased and to call the game fairly. And yes they do have a legal obligation idiot, because the games are bet upon. Any game that has professional gambling (betting) attached to it must comply with all obligations that come along with such a status. One such status is that the players and referees must act professionally at all times, not throw games, and not call games unfairly due to bias. If a referee DOES happen to have a personal bias against a specific team or player, then he should notify the league to have himself removed from said games, or organize the schedule such that he never referees that team or player. Anyone who says "referee X hates players Y and Z, deal with it" deserves to be shot in the head for being a troll.

100% agree sadly. I like Tortorella. I really do. I hate bashing him, and I won't say anything negative about him. But styles do clash. I agree with the assessment of many commentators that Tortorella's style works best with young players. Tortorella just does not mesh well with a team of old veterans like the Canucks. Mike Gillis HAS to go. If you keep Torts, you need to trade Kesler and Edler (great players with value) and get young. At least with a younger skilled team Torts can do some work. But MG is incompetent.

The team hasn't played well in the third... They can still come back. But those penalties were ALL marginal calls. Jensen for holding, Bieksa delay of game, and Sestito boarding were soooo marginal. As a referee, you can call those... but you can't call ALL of those back to back to back at the start of the 3rd period, when the NYI ALREADY started the period on the power play. They literally had 9 minutes of power play to start the 3rd period. That's unacceptable refereeing. I guarantee if I watch the replay that I can find TEN examples of the NYI committing penalties equivalent to the 3 the Canucks got at the start of the 3rd period. And I GUARANTEE not one of them was called. When something like this happens, the referees need to be fired.

Really really poorly done. I'm not sure whether it was Gillis who couldn't pull the trigger, or the owners that couldn't stomach a rebuild. Either way, this team is old and slow like everyone is saying. We needed to ship off Kesler and Edler NOW in return for picks and prospects. If we did that, we could have an off year next year,followed by being a cup contender again in 2015-2016. Kesler and Edler will now have lowered trade value in the summer. If we keep them, we are wasting their talent on a team that won't win. This is 100% a Schneider situation all over again. 2013 trade deadline, the Canucks could have gotten an arm and a leg for schneider from teams like Toronto. They didn't trade him, and all they got was Bo Horvat (no disrespect to a great young player, but a premiere goalie is worth more than one top prospect). I have a feeling that ownership can't stomach big moves, and Gillis doesn't have the balls to just do his job. When you're a GM, this is your job and your reputation on the line. If you listen to what ownership tells you to do (when they are NOT hockey experts), you are taking bad advice from people who don't know what they are talking about. Gillis needs to get busy making moves or just get fired. And we need a GM in the future who tells the owners to go stuff it, and makes the moves he thinks are best for the team.