Provost

21 and a really solid D… probably a fair deal. If he keeps up his level of play he is a $6 million player, if he improves even in modest increments he will be worth more than his contract in 2-3 years. Ottawa is overpaying a little now while they aren’t really competitive for likely cap savings in a window 3-8 years from now that they should be competitive and even Cup contenders. You know, the reverse of how the Canucks operate. They sign contracts to save money in the short term while they are a bad, non-competitive team in order to pay extra in a window they have a chance to be competitive. Ottawa has a lot of good young players who are going to mature into their peaks at the same time, and will have enough prospects to have a pipeline of cheap ELCs to make up for when they have to pay all these good young guys. Tkachuk Sanderson Stutzle Pinto Batherson Chabot Chychrun I wouldn’t sleep on this team being really really good as these long term contracts become better deals as the cap goes up.

Yes, his value does increase… from “Hell no, we don’t want him and are offended you are even asking” from potential trade partners, … all the way up to “No, we don’t want him”

We have been trying to trade Brock and Garland for quite a long time now. For a team like Vegas, Petey doesn’t have to choose winning or money. He can get paid big bucks, have much lower taxes, and be on a contender. With the core and history they have, they can fill out the bottom half of their roster with cheap aging veterans on short term deals who want another kick at the Cup. There is a cadre of guys lien that every year who can being surplus value to a team.

We are still a cap strapped team once you add in Petterson and Hronek. Overpaying Petterson means taking away somewhere else and maybe trading away Hronek to make enough room. Four first round picks is at least some consolation.

Vegas is a team that could do that. Four first round picks don’t have the same value if they are almost certainly 25th OA or later because they are a contending team. They have the cap space and win mentality. Imagine Eichel and Petterson as your centres for the next decade. Pick your poison as the opposition for who you want your best D to match up against, the other guy will tear your 2nd pairing apart.

That is an idea as well, and probably better in terms of optics to the public. Players probably get annoyed by it as they sign for one set of dollars and get paid an other. All teams keep the same cap ceiling, but really they are equalized. Not sure how they split up the money at the end, but that can be figured out too. The biggest issue with all the different methods is how to calculate when a player gets traded between different tax regimes. You base it on average tax rates, but players will all pay different rates within that jurisdiction depending on what they have sorted for write offs. Getting traded could drastically change a particular player’s take home. I think the idea of having it team ceiling based means it is advantageous to Canadian teams retaining players. If they sign a player for $10 million, because they have an extra $4-5 million in cap space… it is harder for a low tax regime to fit that player under their cap. Many ways to skin this cat.

A team +/- cap ceiling relative to the median tax rate is easy to calculate and accomplish. There already is revenue sharing. The small market concern is really meaningless. If they can’t compete to keep their own players now, that affects their competitiveness. They aren’t forced to spend to the cap, this is just an outlet that allows them extra flexibility to do so if they want. All if this discussion is meaningless though as it is about fairness and parity. That is not a concern for Bettman though. Their concern is growing revenue. The teams in the south are generally the ones that need to grow the game so giving them an advantage due to taxes is to the league’s bottom line. Having Tampa or Vegas win the Cup is good from his perspective. Canadian teams are mostly already maxed out on ticket and revenue so who cares if they lose as long as folks keep spending money supporting them. It will take a huge push from the high revenue teams to make a change.

I don’t think you know what that term actually means… No bandwagon fans would be here commenting because there hasn’t been a bandwagon to jump on for a decade. Die hard fans are still here “hoping” despite the team having one of the worst overall records in the league for ten years despite spending to the cap unlike the teams worse than us, terrible vision from ownership, and many coaching changes.

He said it again just a couple weeks ago in a Friedman interview. He wants to win and wants to see if the Canucks are going to be that team before committing to us. This is a guy who already sat out for more money, he is going to take care of himself in this negotiation.

In a heartbeat… as should anyone. A guy who is likely better than Petterson within 3-4 years and is a hometown Canucks fan who is much more likely to stick with the team long term. The harder question is do you trade both Petterson and Hughes for Bedard. I still probably do that, just because of the timeframe it buys us to get really good.

Miller isn't standing in the way of a trade if the team starts rebuilding. Not much of a concern.

Not even close man... just looking at Petterson last year and he looked like the season that the Sedins went from baby fat kids to grown men with some strength behind them. He broke out because his body is maturing and he is getting bigger and stronger to go along with his elite skills. I have no expectation that he is going to regress and he has been picked by pundits outside the market to be a top 5 player in the league this year. A 100+ point top line centre with elite defensive ability... he would be the most sought after trade piece in a long time. That while being young and on a currently team friendly contract would make him worth an absolute haul. Boston would want to make a trade that keeps them competitive. They won't want to move a key current roster piece like McAvoy... it would be more like most of their top prospects and 1st round picks for a few years (they already have one traded away in '24 or '25).

That was the scenario being discussed. If we are bad again this year and Petterson doesn't want to commit to a reasonably long term deal. (like 4-8 years). In that case we have few options and all the cards are pretty much on the table as far as what paths forward remain. It is basically starting over again from scratch. The plus side is we don't have a lot of long term, unmovable contracts left. With the cap going up, Miller is easily tradeable and for a decent return. The younger players would fetch pretty massive hauls with a mix of young blue chip prospects, high picks, and decent but overpaid veterans on short term contracts coming back to make the money work. I think we are all crossing our fingers that the changes this offseason make a massive difference on the ice and that some young kid just blows the team away in pre-season and earns a spot on the roster displacing a higher paid veteran. It doesn't seem like it is enough to turn us into a contender, but "maybe" to get into the playoffs and win a few games... enough to make Petey think we have a future.

Well he is almost 25, not 23. He would be 26 right at the start of next season by the time that proposed trade happened. If the team is bad, and the player won’t sign long term to a reasonable deal… what exactly is your magical answer? Qualify him, take whatever short term arbitration award and watch him walk for nothing as an unrestricted free agent after the 2024/25 season? That is an amazing plan for success! I mean I guess if you want to submarine the team for an even longer rebuild? Maybe we give him $15 million to bribe him to stay so that we can’t afford to surround him with a winning roster?

I never said any such thing. Having numerous high end young players and picks is vastly important in a cap world where you need to find contract efficiencies. That isn’t a position that sane people disagree with. Our current core of players has resulted in terrible results on the ice year after year despite constantly rejigging the players around them. There are few paths to improving that roster in the foreseeable future. The team is capped out, and will be for years even with significant cap inflation because of raises due to Petterson and Hronek, and the increasing Eriksson dead money. The team has one of the worst prospect pools in the league despite being really bad for a long time…. There isn’t another Petterson/Hughes duo on the horizon. We are left with just hoping for something magical or coming out of left field happening. You also seem to counter your own argument. “How does one player make or break you?” Miller is one player…. But swapping him for several futures and allocating his cap space to other roster spots is bad? If the team is bad this coming season again, or even just fighting to be a fringe playoff team… there isn’t cavalry coming.

You don’t have to just infer that he doesn’t have trust with management. That was literally what he said in his interviews this summer. He just wants to win and needs to be sure the Canucks are a team that can do that before committing. He says he is hopeful, but the team has also been terrible his entire tenure so his reticence is understandable. That is WITH two superstar players who have provided way more contribution than their paycheques so far. Right now we just have to hope that an improved defence and PK (at least on paper), turns this roster into a solid playoff team and some young players vastly outperform expectations from out of nowhere to help us actually contend in the short term. Barring that, we have another lost decade ahead of us.

I agree that it “should”… we wasted the Petey and Hughes ELC years which was a window for being competitive. If you have elite players on cheap contracts it should be a massive advantage in a cap world. If we had this roster AND another Petey/Hughes calibre duo of prospects ready to join the team it would be a vastly different outlook. If we aren’t a dramatically improved team this year, and maybe even win a round in the playoffs I don’t see Petterson or Hronek signing long term, at least to reasonable contracts. If Petey is on a short term arb award instead of a long term deal you pretty much have to trade him. If you trade him, you should probably trade Hughes and start over. Of course with this ownership, we would trade them for older, worse players and trade away all our high picks to try to be competitive immediately.

IF IF IF IF… They have tried to sign him for months and he publicly came out and said he didn’t want to and that the reasoning is that he wants to be on a winning team. He said that a couple years ago and reiterated it again this summer. He isn’t convinced that the Canucks are that team. I think Petterson is going to have another breakout season. I also don’t think that suddenly turns this roster into a contender.

We aren’t a contender WITH Miller…. We aren’t even being picked as a playoff team. Unlike many folks here, I am actually interested in the Canucks winning a Stanley Cup in my lifetime. Going all in for “maybe” squeaking out a wildcard spot and a few playoff games in round 1 before getting eliminated is meaningless to me. If moving Miller turns us from the 15th place team to the 20th place team, but adds high end picks and prospects to actually help become a high end team… and gives us the cap space to sign other players to improve the roster… why not?

You don’t need a 1 for 1 replacement for Miller if you have more depth and better players all over the roster like could have been accomplished with trades and a buttload of cap space. You also suddenly would have some high end picks and prospects which will be badly needed in the coming years to pay for raises to guys like Petterson, Hronek, and Hughes. It is really tough to build a contending roster without cheap ELC players outperforming Their contracts and offsetting more expensive market rate players. We have to hope that we are very competitive this year as there is no cavalry coming in the pipeline, we still have one of the worst prospect pools in the league. All the the big cap increases in the coming years are already spent if you want to keep this roster together. Petterson/ Hronek raises and Eriksson’s increased penalty eat up about $12 million in extra cap by two seasons from now. Teams with their key players already signed and cheap ELC players on the way will use that $12 million to get better while we use it to tread water. If we aren’t going on a bubble type playoff run this year then we are screwed. We will have to trade guys like Petey and Hronek who likely don’t want to tie the rest of their careers to a floundering team.

There were numerous offers reported and the Canucks insisted on an NHL ready young centre back. There was also for sure a Penguins offer for significant futures. That would have also freed up a huge amount of cap space that could have been weaponized or used on other players when the cap was super tight around the league.

We haven’t given up on the Miler trade! :D He won’t last his contract in Canucks colours.

This is going to blow your mind… but in the sport of hockey, goals against your team count too… The Canucks had one of the worst goals against in the league. As many knowledgeable analysts have noted, it is easy to score goals if you aren’t paying any attention to defence. It is a lot harder to score when you are also trying to stop goals against. The Canucks played a style that padded individual stats while losing games.

He doesn’t have to ask for a trade, he just needs to not sign an extension and take the team to arbitration. That will be all the signal the brass need to start a trade in the works. You can’t let one of the top players in the league walk for nothing just as he is entering his prime. If we aren’t an above average team and win a round or two of the playoffs, it is probably time to think about restarting honestly as there isn’t any cavalry coming in the prospect pipeline to turn the team fortunes around. We have tripled down on this roster, so if we succeed it will be now or never.

As expected, he is hedging his bets to see how the team is doing. Teams with bright futures have guys lining up to sign long term. We have to convince players to stay due to years of mismanagement. We entirely missed a window to contend when we had two superstar young players on ELCs contributing way above their cap hits. Now it it pretty much hoping for a miracle and someone to come out of the woodwork. It is hard to be a top notch team if every contract is being full market rate.