Provost

Don’t say that! We are clearly going to make it... don’t let objective reality and the standings the get in the way of your feelings ! I mean, isn’t that what we are supposed to do on this forum?

Maybe better quality N95 masks

It is actually a bit of an impossible choice, and one we will never know which was a better option. Could we have signed Markstrom to a little less and given him a NMC for expansion? Probably. Likely almost the same term and only a little discount. Would we have been better to do that and then use Demko as a trade chip to get rid of a bunch of salary and/or get another top prospect back? Maybe, especially in the short term. Would we be in much worse shape a few years from now paying all that money to an older goalie? Probably. We can blame Benning for a lot, but it is clear he put all his chips and effort on trying to sign Markstrom until he “ran out of time” to negotiate with his other UFAs. If I had my druthers at the time, we would have signed a cheaper 1B goalie than Holtby and tried to keep Stecher and Toffoli. Tanev and Markstrom were big losses, but they earned better contracts than we weren’t in a position to pay.

It appears someone’s main forum account got suspended and they had to pull out their back up one... or they are so sad that they have an account just to troll... ... and it is the same IP address as ......

I have to say, one thing I would have predicted for this season was that Roussell was really going to get his groove back after having a long time to heal and a proper amount of training. He has only been so-so. Last year when he came back, that was the catalyst for his line with Gaudette and Virtanen to take off and go on that spurt of great play for a few weeks. It all started right from the game Roussel came back. Just no sort of real chemistry with his linemates right now. He isn’t adding a lot most nights at the moment.

That is really the best you have ? My surprise that an OK depth player on a cheap $700k cap hit didn’t get picked up because of the unique Covid year? Yikes, that reeks of desperation dude... and it doesn’t even make the point You were trying to make... Heck, I even gave you a better freebie one just today about something I was wrong about.... I was talking about how I was wrong about calling Motte a fringe NHLer. Last year I called him a forward version of Biega... perfect for a depth guy, but not a regular on most rosters. Motte has shown himself to be a player who could crack most 4th lines in the league even just for his PK prowess... and probably play higher on several rosters.

I had to look the guy up... but just from the scouting report, I do that deal. It doesn’t even bother me that Gaudette could turn out to be better... he is not a great fit for how our team is built. Needing to keep the Horvat line taking defensive responsibilities has a negative effect on our whole lineup... we need him to be in scoring positions more. It is like when we got Malhotra to take defensive duties from Kesler. It made the top two lines much more dangerous as they got way better match ups that other teams couldn’t deal with. We need another Malhotra and Sutter/Beagle aren’t doing it.

I think it is too tough to compare them as they are too different. Dahlin is a better all around D, he could be Hedman like as he develops. I think of Hughes more like an Erik Karlsson/Phil Housely at their prime.... highly offensive oriented guys who are average defensively. That isn’t trying to undersell offensive D, heck Hughes had decent defensive numbers last year mainly because our side always kept control of the puck most of the time when he was on the ice. Given the choice of a re-do today... I still pick Dahlin over Hughes, but am glad we have someone in that conversation because we have never had that. My all time favourite Canucks have mostly been D... Ohlund, Lumme, Salo... Hughes has a ceiling so far above those guys it is amazing to consider. Having a guy who will likely be getting a lot of Norris votes most years in the next decade is great...

Yes... there is a reason they are an authority and you aren't and why people should listen to them and not you. You are sitting in your basement rage posting in sad frustration and getting salty for being wrong all the time.... and they are getting paid millions of dollars for their expertise and experience. ... yet it hasn't ever occurred to you that they are right at you are wrong, even when history shows that they are repeatedly right and you are wrong. That is literally everything anyone needs to know about you... flat earther/anti-vaxxer logic... no need to do the work to become an expert, you just need to be able to yell your ignorance louder to feel it is worth more than earned knowledge. I only have to be smart enough to listen to the marketplace and come to informed conclusions. You have to be a special level of genius to determine that you are solely qualified to reject all of that (again, flying in the fact of that fact that tactic has repeatedly failed you) based on your complete lack of objective authority in the matter. I genuinely hope the team can turn things around and go on a big run and will be cheering my ass off. I am also just realistic and the objective math says we are much less likely to make the playoffs than we are to sneak in. If anyone has dice in their house... take one of them, guess a number and your chances of it coming up that number are almost exactly what our chances of making it into the playoffs this season. About 1 in 6 right now. If enough people roll that die, some of them are going to guess the right number... but 5 out of 6 will be wrong.

Try to trade Beagle, Roussel, Sutter, or Virtanen... that is all that you need to know about their value around the league. The sum total of hundreds of years or hockey knowledge by actual experts gives a good sense of objective reality. Our bottom 6 is universally considered to be amongst the worst in the league... those guys make up most of it. Pretend to know better than everyone else... but you have zero experience, knowledge, or track record of being right for anyone to believe you over folks that are professionals in this arena. You are not smarter than they are... this has been proven repeatedly by just going back to your numerous bad takes on things. None of them garner any significant return, if they are moveable at all without taking equivalent bad money back. Once they get to the trade deadline of their pending UFA status year, they get some modicum of value because no one cares about their cap hits.

I would do that... but it doesn't seem like a great deal for Anaheim. If Getzlaf was willing to be rented out, they could get a 3rd round pick for him at the deadline when his cap hit didn't mean as much (reports are that they won't ask his to waive his NMC). That would mean they are effectively unloading Eriksson to get Jake. I don't think any teams are going to do that at this point. That was rumoured to be an offer from Ottawa in the summer that Benning turned down... but that is when Virtanen's value was at a high point, not now when his value has cratered.

Haha... only in your world is 25 points the same as 36 points. ... only in your world is an almost PPG pace over a few weeks (which was proof for you that he turned a corner and was a stud)... the same as being on a 15 point pace in the calendar year since then. ... sure, he is playing just as well now as he was a year ago. Don’t let reality get in the way of your (uninformed) opinion. Add Virtanen to your “all-star” foundational player team of Gudbranson, Sutter, and Beagle that you obsess over as being amazing... don’t let objective reality or your vast personal history of being repeatedly wrong about virtually everything get in your way... Funny how salty and aggressive you always get after being proven wrong (yet again) and that it is dumb that I was right about trading Virtanen when his asset value was at its highest. It would never cross your mind to not actively attack other posters in the first place with your bad takes? That way you wouldn’t keep getting put in the position of having to lash out in frustration. You know that you can disagree with someone without being a jerk about it... and it is OK to he wrong. It is the way you keep telling everyone else how stupid they are... and then repeatedly have history show that they were right... that is what annoys people about you. If you think the Jake issue is meaningless, then imagine a world where he was traded in the offseason to get rid of Eriksson’s contract... or even Beagle’s contract. Our team would look significantly better. (you haven’t pulled out old the “rage searching my old posts” for something I was wrong about months ago trick for a while... you should try that to make yourself feel better. I can make it easy for you, I thought Motte was a fringe NHLer, he has shown to be as solid a 4th liner as you are going to find and a perfect fit for the team having turned himself into a PKer that we desperately needed).

Maybe... but a 3rd round pick as currency for the expansion draft? That can be flipped for a big asset that another team might not be able to protect. We shovel he stocking up as many mid round picks (assuming we don’t go on a crazy run the next couple weeks and get back into the playoff picture). Those picks and some cap space can turn into players a lot more useful than Gaudette... like any number of #4D who will be unprotected during expansion

You literally just did math with a scenario of everyone getting exactly .500 to “prove” that we are really only a few games out of contention. We need two teams to get significantly worse than us to make up the ground... again circling back to then guaranteed points they are going to get while playing each other where it is impossible for us to gain the 4-5 games we are already behind them.

Yes... if your perfect scenario happened (of everyone playing exactly .500, we would only fall short by 2-3 games. In no realistic world is you perfect scenario going to happen, it has never happened before.... the perfect scenario which still leaves us out of the playoffs by the way. The playoff bar has never been just .500 which is what your scenario hopes that we get to. Part of that is because all the teams aren’t equal, and the other part is the OT extra point... the teams ahead of us could evenly split their games and all end up over .500 because they will have a bunch of extra OT points split between them. Go re-do that math using current winning percentages... which, at over 1/3rd the way through the season are a much better model for what is more likely to happen going forward as well... at least for most teams... one may go on a run and one falters... but the same as in the regular season, the teams on playoff spots after Christmas mostly stay in playoff spots at the end of the season. Using winning percentages, the current gap triples and we are 10-14 points out of a playoff spot.

... there isn't one team between us and 4th place like you keep suggesting... there are two teams. If everyone above us plays .500 between now and then we are still out of a playoff spot by 6-7 points. You are inventing some magical perfect scenario were the exact right combination of teams go above .500 and the others below .500 to get us just 3-4 games out of a playoff spot... and then you re imagining that at the end of the season it is reasonable to think we will go 8-2 to gain enough ground on their .500 pace to make up the ground we need to.

I don't think he will necessarily win the Calder, but I think he is a really good chance to be a finalist... which is crazy. I don't believe any team in modern history has had 4 consecutive Calder finalists... I think when I last looked there were a couple of teams that had 3... I originally thought he had a good chance to make the roster (mostly for cap reasons honestly.. but I also suggested it would be smart because it gives him a year of experience before Podkolzin comes, and a Hoglander-Horvat-Podkolzin lines seems to have the right mix on paper to complement each other... and it isn't likely they would want two rookies on the same line), but I ended up buying into the fact he would need another year of prep.

I don't think I can explain it any more clearly... one of those teams won't necessarily go on a losing streak, and it doesn't matter even if they do... because that would mean another team we are chasing is going on a winning streak (because they are playing each other a bunch and they can't both lose when they play each other). We need TWO teams to go on a losing streak while we go on a winning streak... it is much harder for both teams we are chasing to go on a losing streak when they are playing each other a bunch. Every team going .500 and splitting points fairly evenly doesn't help us because we can't catch up any ground in that situation either, it just keeps a mirage going a bit longer. If we need to win 3 more games than anyone else just to get back to .500 that gets really tough as you get fewer games to make that up, and that doesn't even get us close to the playoff bar as we will certainly need a lot more than 56 points to make it into the playoffs (probably like 63 points). All the three teams we are chasing are above .500 already...

We need more than one of those teams to go on a losing streak is kind of the whole point. We need 2 of 3 to go on big losing streaks which is hard to do when they are all playing each other half of the time... since one of them is always winning each of those games. If we only had one team between us and a playoff spot, the path would be much wider. A good example is between now and Sunday. We play the Jets twice and Edmonton and Calgary play each other twice. We can go 2-0 and the best we can do is not lose more ground in the race to get above the playoff bar. Calgary and Edmonton are going to share a minimum of 4 points between them for these two games (and possibly up to 6 points) and we can only get 4 points. Zero chance of gaining ground... literally impossible. We might close ourselves in on Winnipeg, but still have 2 teams holding or gaining ground on us.. which is enough to keep us out of the playoff picture. If we split with Winnipeg, we are guaranteed to lose ground on the pack we are chasing since they have 4 points split between them and we need to gain on both... and we keep getting fewer opportunities to make up the existing gap each set of games that passes.

Which is why it is pretty startling how far back we already are once you factor in games in hand everyone else has on us. If we all play at the same winning %, the spread gets 3x as much as it does now... but likely Toronto and Montreal can’t keep up quite the pace they are at. ... and being just 5 points back of two teams with 10 games left is a great example of how hard it will be to gain ground. If those two teams we are chasing play each other a few times in that last 10 games (likely)... then it is hard for both of them to play under .500 and let us catch up.

I didn’t suggest that we trade players now at all, that would be a bad idea for a number of reasons.. mostly because you should be able to show them you gave them every chance. Even use it to challenge them... “you guys need to put together a bunch of wins in the next two weeks... or we may have to start looking ahead to next year” The picture will likely look more obvious to everyone by the end of the month, after the March 2nd game. 6 more games, all against Edmonton and Winnipeg. That is the chance for a Hail Mary run to win most of those games and get us back in the hunt. I also believe that the trades will mostly happen within Canada. The US teams just have a lot more possible partners and sellers available to them so the prices are probably going to be lower for rentals. On the other hand, if on March 3rd the brass takes a realistic look at their chances... and if they remain less than 30% or so... they should move into active seller mode. We would likely be asking for picks in return instead of roster players, so the quarantine isn’t as big of an issue since we would be making those trades plenty early enough for those players to get onto the US rosters (the quarantine going down to the US is much shorter than coming up). If we can trade a couple of the obvious rentals like Sutter and Benn early to US teams, it could dramatically increase the later rental market within Canada. With only us and Ottawa as likely sellers (with only a few suitable rental players) and 4–5 buyers trying to load up... we could charge a lot for a guy like Pearson, or maybe even be able to move someone with term like Roussel or Beagle, which would be a dream going into expansion and another tight UFA season. That is my thought anyways of how to leverage the market.

I haven’t had this many people disagree with me (mostly the same ones) since I suggested in the middle of last season that Virtanen was likely having a statistical “blip” in performance and would regress back to his norm. All of the same type of wording on the responses back then about how I was insane and he had turned a corner in development and was finally a star player. This is familiar territory from quite a number of times I posted something unpopular. This will likely follow the same well worn pattern: 1. Folks are shocked and angry, flaming me with all sorts of ad hominem attacks 2. History proves me to be right. 3. Those people pretended they knew it all along or that no one could have predicted it. 4. Rinse, Repeat. I hope we beat the odds and go on a tear, or Winnipeg takes off and steals all the points from both Edmonton and Calgary. I just wouldn’t impact our future for those hopes.

And this post is exactly why this thread is necessary. Too many people are buying into an illusion brought on by the fact we have played 20-30% more games than some teams ahead of us. We are already 9 points behind Toronto this early and having played 4 games for every 3 games they have played. Over a full season that means we would be far behind them in a playoff race even if they only got to play 13 games less. We have gotten to play 4 games for every 3 Montreal has played... and they are well ahead of us. That would be like them only getting to play 60 games in a season that we get to play 82... and still beating us. It is actually hard to be this far behind so early with other teams having so many games in hand. It is also why we have players showing up so well in that stats... they have played almost double the games of some other teams in the league... so are behind in PPG.

That is exactly the scenario I laid out and you are spot on. There is a path, but it is much more narrow than in other years since there are no other teams to help us out that we aren’t competing against.