Grape

I don't think a year of AHL does much to a guy who who already played against men for 2 years.

Ferland looks more skilled than I thought he'd be, but also a little softer than I thought he'd be

As I said, even given that being the case, you can't blame injuries when you literally have players that are naturally injury prone throughout the roster. Injuries aren't always just a matter of luck. It's a reason why the Sedins rarely got injured. Our for the past few years have been prone to injuries, especially soft tissue injuries, which are especially indicative to how injury prone a player is. It's part of the reason we weren't good, but you can't "blame" them and use it as argument that we should've been better and that the advanced stats were wrong.

You can't blame injuries year after year after year and act like the Canucks are the only team that gets injured. Saying we've sucked year after year almost exclusively because of injuries is one of the most ridiculous excuse one could come up with IMO. Our defense hasn't been by far the most offensively inept defense just because of injuries. Our bottom 6 hasn't had by far the worst goal differential in the NHL just because of injuries. And so on. Even if the Canucks are injured more often than most teams, that's reflective of the team and not just luck. A team with Tanev, Sutter, Baertschi etc... is definitively injury prone and that should be a factor into accounting for predictions as well.

The thing is, he's healthy right now. If/when he gets injured, then you move on to to a replacement player; but how does it hurt your team to have a perfectly healthy Sven Baertschi start the season? If the best player in the world is always injured for 90% of the season, you're not gonna cut him off of the team for that reason. You keep him until he inevitably gets injured and then wait until he recovers again. Obviously this is a massive reach but it's the same concept. Sven is one of our top offensive forwards, and undoubtedly a top 12 forward on the team when healthy. The fact that he is healthy now should be enough to keep him on the team at the start of the season. And I'm not sure what "system" you think Green implements, but I can guarantee you there's no system in the NHL that says "take offense away from an already offensively challenged team." I mean our bottom 6 had by FAR the worst goal differential in the league last year. Having the same guys like Leivo, Virtanen, Eriksson, Sutter in those positions will not change anything. It should be glaringly obvious when we trot out our "checking line" because they fit Green's "system," while other teams have scorers on their 3rd and 4th lines and continue to dominate. The answer for our bottom 6 woes should have been to add skill and offense to it. Sven could have been perfect for helping our bottom 6 not be historically bad again. Instead we're literally going to have almost the same bottom 6 because it "fits Green's system." I'm not bashing Green, I'm just refuting the idea that any coach would have a system that doesn't allow for there to be skill on the 3rd line, because that's crazy.

I believe so as well. I like Ferland, but Baertschi almost surely gives you more offense when he's healthy. I'd rather fix our scoring issues first before worrying about having culture setting guys who play the right way, can protect our stars, and set a tone etc... The primary focus should always be maximizing GF and minimizing GA. Now that I think about it, has Ferland even had to earn his role? Or did we just automatically give him a role alongside EP and BB? Don't see the meritocracy in having a guy just come in without competing and play on the first line, while a guy who might be better and has been on the team for awhile has to battle for even a roster spot.

Are people really happy he isn't a Canuck lol I'd take E. Kane in a heartbeat and never look back. He plays with passion and is offensively gifted.

Man I don't understand... I mean it's not like this move will drop us significantly in the standings or make us definitively worse off... But it's just the ideology that our GM would rather have guys like Schaller and even Eriksson over Baertschi just because they're "better fits." You've gotta keep your best 12-14 forwards in the modern NHL, or close to that. Baertschi is unquestionably one of them. I don't like the fact that we will willingly cut skilled players just because our top 6 is set and they don't "fit" on the 3rd or 4th line because of their play style. With this ideology, you're handicapping yourself to only 2 scoring lines at all times when the elite teams have 3 or 4 lines that can score, because apparently any skilled player on the 3rd line is worthy of getting cut for someone like Schaller or Eriksson. If this is the idea going forward I don't think our offensive struggles will improve unless our elite guys start seriously dominating

There's 2 counterpoints to this 1. That's what I mean when I say that this type of move is "archaic." Obviously I don't literally mean archaic, but you're not going to find many examples from the modern day of teams doing so. In the past, yes, it's how teams wanted to play, with grinders and tough guys and penalty killer scattered throughout the bottom 2 lines. But it's much more progressive to have your best 12 forwards or close to your best 12 forwards in the lineup nowadays. This is especially true for the 3rd line. Not many third lines have limited skill or offense in the NHL nowadays. The Canucks have chosen to do the opposite, even given the fact that this team has been offensively challenged in the past. Without Baer, our best offensive/skill players outside of our top 6 are: Gaudette? Roussel? Sutter? This is not a recipe for success today in the NHL. What bothers me the most is that JB believes that we have enough skill on the team, which confirms that he doesn't think much skill is needed to play on the 3rd line. 2. Your example specifically mentions Yzerman as being too one dimensional. The players that made the team over him are not checking line guys like Tim Schaller. Instead they were still very deserving of being on the team, as by a quick look at the roster, basically every forward was above PPG or near PPG. In that case, Yzerman was literally deemed to be not as good as the other players due to his defensive deficiencies while the others could put up points and defend. I don't think at all that this is the case with Baertschi vs Schaller. There is no way that Baertschi's defensive deficiencies make him a less valuable player than Schaller. In fact, you already have guys like Miller, Eriksson, Beagle, Ferland, Horvat, Motte, Sutter etc... who can kill penalties, so there's no way Schaller is even close to being as valuable as Baertschi is.

This is 100% the problem though. The problem was that he wasn’t competing with Schaller for a job just because they play “different roles.” Given that you want 12 forwards on the roster, and you have nine “top 6 forwards” and six “bottom 6 forwards,” you dont just cut the three worst “top 6 forwards,” you should always cut the three worst “bottom six forwards.” The idea that you can only have a certain amount of players like Baer while you need to have a certain amount of players like Schaller is nonsensical and totally archaic. I get it when it’s something like Motte over Goldobin, since their value is similar anyway, but the difference between Baer and Schaller is massive. You should ALWAYS pick the best players to be on the roster. So the fact that Baertschi wasn’t competing with Schaller just because they have different roles is stupid and archaic. I made this example earlier, but you’re not gonna see team Canada cut Brad Marchand and keep Brandon Sutter because Marchand didn’t make the cut for his scoring role while Sutter made the cut for his checking role. It ALWAYS should be the best 13-14 forwards and the best 7-8 on defense. It becomes evident when you play a team and they have 3 or 4 capable scoring lines, and you intentionally limited yourself to 2 scoring lines because you believe its the “right way” of constructing a roster.

It should never have been Baertschi. It’s like whoever made the decision is stuck in the past, thinking you have two types of forwards: top 6 and bottom 6 forwards, and that if you have too many top 6 forward you have to cut them because you can only have 6 of them. If you have a guy like Baertschi, a “top 6 forward” who is not in the top 6, you put him in the bottom 6, and when someone inevitably gets hurt you slide him back up. The idea that you have to set a bottom 6 composed of only types of players that suit the bottom 6 is so boneheaded and stuck in the past. Do you think team Canada thinks: “man we gotta cut Brad Marchand because he’s the 7th best “top 6 forward” so that we can have Brandon Sutter who is a great bottom 6 forward”? Obviously this is a stretch but you’re ALLOWED to have a guy like Baertschi over a guy a guy like Sutter/Schaller/Motte in the bottom 6. Im speculating on this being the reasoning. But it sure feels like the reasoning since we kept so many bottom 6 guys.

The fact that there are people who “confused” reacted to this comment shows how much homers are on CDC. At this point, people have to treat Jake like he’s another player, and not look at him as a sixth overall pick. If Jake was an undrafted free agent and has been playing the way he’s been playing for the past few years, people would think of him much more lowly compared to what people on CDC believe. I’d wager that people would see him as someone who reached his peak already, rather than someone who hasn’t gotten his game together yet. The fact that he’s a high first rounder is why so many on here have trouble letting go of the fact that he perhaps won’t be that good. Also, there are many, many flaws in OPs logic, one of the biggest being the comparison to the 2014 draft year. If we’re trading for a pick it won’t be a pick in the 2014 draft. It would be a pick in a future draft. A sample size of 30 in 2014 could give you wildly inaccurate results. Another flaw is that Jake is a forward, and they’re supposed to get more points than defensemen. Another flaw is the fact high picks like Jake get much more of an opportunity than other guys. Another one is that OP conveniently only picked goals rather than other stats to make Jake look better.

Where can I find highlights!?!

Exactly. Boston could be doing the same thing and laughing at our Virtanen, McCann, and Juolevi picks. They've done well drafting like us in worse positions than us, with a few bad misses. Pastrnak was an absolute steal. It does make me feel better that if they went with the obviously choices that went 3 picks after them, that they could be a dynasty right now. Instead they tried to be smart and landed one alright player instead.

I'd rather a 7-5 Canucks loss than a 1-0 Canucks win in the preseason for entertainment purposes. As long as it's mostly AHL guys and our 5th string goalie.

Eriksson has been a big positive in preseason. I don't think he needs a shot taken at him.

Top ten? I've genuinely never heard Columbus being anywhere close to top 10. Just with so many cities to choose from in the NHL, there isn't exactly an area Columbus is great at or better than others at. I mean I guess it is up and coming, but there's just nothing spectacular about it to me. I believe I saw a stat that Columbus is literally where the most average person lives, in the sense that if you were to test a new product for the American market, Columbus is the best spot to choose given that its demographic is almost exactly like the overall US demographic. Its downtown is nice, but any large American city is going to have a nice downtown, hell the first time I went to downtown Detroit which is supposedly one of the worst American cities, I was pretty blown away. At least with Nashville, there's something unique and spectacular about it (music). With Columbus I just thought it was an interesting city to pick given it's spectacular averageness. However, I'm heavily biased against Columbus as one may be able to infer from my sig or location, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask.

When you're a multimillionaire, you can pretty much choose what top end prep school to go to, so no need to tie yourself to cities like Detroit and Cbus IMO. Not knocking on these cities exactly, I live 40 mins outside of Detroit as of now and it's violent crimes are all pretty centralized in specific locations, so it's not as much of a problem as some think.

Have you been to Columbus? Do you really think Columbus is nice??? Not trying to be rude, just thought was an interesting take!

Pretty sure Gaudette does that celly or a variation of it after every goal. He could score against 5 year olds in a charity game and still celebrate the same way.

Trust me, I follow various forums for my other favourite sports teams, and CDC is overwhelmingly more positive than everyone else. Even HF Canucks boards are tame compared to most other sports boards. That being said, I think the same standard should be held for every offseason. Wait until we judge. If this was a seemingly bad offseason for JB most on here would be telling people off saying we gotta wait till we judge. The same should be applied in this case, where the acquisitions by JB seem positive. Let's see how things play out.

Was a careless high stick but you can tell he was trying to lift Hughes' stick

Utica beats Calgary but Stockton beats Vancouver

Wow at a certain point we were down 6-0 on aggregate I think We scored 6 straight to even it lol

I mean that margin is what you'd expect from a Canada vs Kazakhstan game, not a NHL team vs partial AHL team + a few NHL players team. I'm certainly not expecting our A team to outshoot their B team as badly later tonight, I'd be very glad if they did. I certainly don't think you'll think that our A team is bad if we outplay them this badly. Calgary looks impressive.