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Completely agree with you here. Edler has had a solid career and I would love to have him back. But there were some people that saw him as #1D, and the media overhyped him as second coming of Lidstrom. Edler did look like he was on his way to becoming something special. 42 points in 2009-2010 season as a 23,24 years old. It did look like he would become a 50-60 point player during his prime years. I think back injury stunted his development and he plateaued into #2/#3 Dman rather than a #1 D. Still very good player and we need him moving forward as we integrate some of our youth into the lineup. To be fair, only Hughes and Juolevi has a legit shot at becoming better than him at some point.

Whether Tryamkin has far better skills than Chara is questionable but let's say that is the case... Chara is one of the best conditioned hockey player whereas Tryamkin is at an average level in terms of conditioning. Chara's skillset combined with his elite conditioning makes him an elite player. Skill alone is not enough in the NHL. I want Tryamkin back so bad but for Tryamkin to reach Chara's level, it will come down to how he can improve his conditioning.

Whether Tryamkin has far better skills than Chara is questionable but let's say that is the case... Chara is one of the best conditioned hockey player whereas Tryamkin is at an average level in terms of conditioning. Chara's skillset combined with his elite conditioning makes him an elite player. Skill alone is not enough in the NHL. I want Tryamkin back so bad but for Tryamkin to reach Chara's level, it will come down to how he can improve his conditioning.

Tryamkin highlights never gets old. Fun to watch again and again... hope he comes back next season. Hughes-Tryamkin Juolevi-Tanev Edler-Gudbranson

With EP and BB, point man just has to be good at teeing up for one time shots and getting an unexpected wrister through the first blocker. Rebounds will be banged in by Bo and Dahlen down low. Both Juolevi and Hughes can more than fill the PP point man role even though they don't posses a hard slapper.

Boeser as second liner!! That team is winning the Stanley cup for sure.

1st line with Goldobin makes sense. He played well near the end of the season. Over a full season without injuries, I expect 15-20 goals from Goldobin, 25-30 from Bo and 30-40 from Boeser. 2nd line: Baer-Pettersson-Eriksson. I would give Eriksson another chance at 2nd line RW spot. Eriksson is (or was) a very good player around the net and I think he will benefit from playing with a player that can shoot as hard and accurate as EP. EP should be able to get the puck to the net in a way that is hard for the goaltender to stop it clean and Eriksson should be able to bang in the rebounds. Baer is a good playmaker but he is a bit of a perimeter player so we need a player like Eriksson to supplement this line. 3rd line: Virtanen-Sutter-Granlund. I would like to see Virtanen on 3LW with Sutter. Over the next few seasons, I would like Virt to become a scoring line player but this season should be earning trust and establish himself as a core player on this team. This season will be about proving to the coaches and the management that he can play an important role on the team and I think he can do that best on this important line that will get lots of tough minutes. With all three guys knowing how to snipe, they should be able to burn the opposition off of the rush. I think JV's skating will really make this line hard to defend off the rush and would not be surprised if he gets around 15 goals or more. Heck, maybe all 3 players will get around 15 goals. 4th line (aka UFA line) seems good. We bought grit through the UFA and they will help the team become more competitive.

Interesting. Is it so farfetched to expect EP to score 80+ points if he plays with Horvat and Boeser? Also, with Barzal setting the bar so high last season, who is (going to be) better? EP or Barzal? Barzal looks like 90 point player with potential to reach 100 points.

If we win the #1 overall, I will do the same.

In the playoffs.

Dahlin doesn't seem to have any weakness in his game. He's got skating, hockey IQ, skill, size, physicality, good shot, and determination. Basically everything you want a hockey player to have, he has it. Hughes has elite level skating and my (biased) opinion is that he may even have better hockey IQ. Being a smaller player, he has to be really creative whereas Dahlin could just force his way through at times. But Hughes is a bit or quite below Dahlin in almost all of the other categories. I think Hughes will be a great player on his own but there is always some chance that he may not reach his full potential whereas with Dahlin, it seems like there is maybe less than 1% chance that he doesn't pan out like he is supposed to.

Sorry, Messier was center no? I think we have Bo, who is built strong like Messier.

For a second, I thought his jersey said LAK, and was mad.

Yep I watched it too. He was way thicker than Gadjovich. He is going to be really hard to play against for the opponents.

Super excited. He could potentially become the best defenceman in the franchise history. Now I feel like we have players in place that has potential to become the best ever in the franchise history, well, except that we might still be missing the game breaker like Bure. Pettersson: Best playmaker. Currently held by Henrik. Boeser: Best goal scorer. Currently held by Bure, Daniel, and Naslund. Horvat: Most complete player (Selke type player). Currently Linden and I guess Kesler. Juolevi/Hughes: Best defenceman. I don't know who would be considered the best defenceman in our franchise. Ohlund? Lumme? Salo? Jovo? Lidster? Demko: Best goalie. Probably Luongo and McLean. Might be hard to beat Luongo's NHL career but might have a shot at Luongo's Vancouver career. We are missing the game breaker of Bure's caliber but I guess that will be taken care of in 2019 draft with Jack Hughes. Above with the supporting cast of Gaudette, Virtanen, Dahlen, Lind, Woo, Briesbois, DiPietro, ... i'm looking forward to the next wave of the Canucks team coming up.

If Gagner works well with Boeser, then that's great. Allows us to spread the scoring by separating Bo and Boeser. Goldobin-Bo-EP Baer-Gagner-Boeser Granlund-Sutter-Eriksson Gaunce-Gaudette-Virtanen

Agree. Could be even better top 6. Horvat is heavier than Kesler and may be better suited for the playoffs. EP has a chance to be even better than Henrik. It looks like EP = Daniel + Henrik. Virtanen, I'm hoping will be an integral piece like Burr but at minimum and as long as he continues to progress, he should be able to match Raymond's production. The two players skates similarly fast but one is much heavier, like 30-40 pounds than the other. Boeser... We did not have a Boeser in 2011 cup run. Samuelsson was the closest we had but he was injured and not the same caliber as Boeser. Dahlen is another dark horse. He could be our next Burrows. Plays around the net, really smart, makes good plays. Maybe he will chip in 30 goals playing with EP. If we draft one more top 6 player, maybe Wahlstrom, I think we are set up front. By 2020, we could have a real good roster Dahlen-EP-Boeser Virtanen-Horvat-Wahlstrom Eriksson-Gaudette-Lind Gadjovich-Sutter-Jasek

It's good to hear that he is working on his stick handling. Shows that he knows what his weaknesses are and that he has devotion to working on improving himself. As long as he is improving on his weaknesses, I really don't think there is anyway that someone who is as heavy as he is and yet can skate better than basically everyone in the NHL doesn't find success in the NHL.

Karlsson is not the same calibre as Doughty? Honestly, if we can get Karlsson, I think we are winning the cup soon. He outscored the next best defenceman by like 70 points in the last 4 seasons and that second best man played one full season as a winger before focussing on defence. Doughty is all around player sure but one can easily make the case that Karlsson's caliber is one notch above that of Doughty.

Got what you are saying.. At the nhl level, no one does what gaunce is referring to as wasting energy. Missing a hit by a mile and getting out of position will not earn you any playing time. His comment seems to be more geared towards ahl or even junior level players. I kind of find the comment a bit arrogant especially since gaunce is playing a role that needs to bring some energy and yet, he doesn't bring much energy. For example, virt brings energy. He may miss a hit but only narrowly. Gaunce doesn't even attempt and hence never misses. Therefore, he never quite gets the timing right for a big hit. It's like expecting to be a good three point shooter but all you practice is being in good position. Gaunce needs to step up his physical game.

I remember this quote. I agreed with it then but disagree with it now. If you go for a hit and miss the guy, that is not a wasted energy. The guy who avoided the hit and his teammates sure take notice. The guy that went for the hit and missed, gets to fine tune his timing so that he will land the hit next time.

Yep. Little bit of everything in that pairing: offence, defence, size, physicality, good skating, crease clearing. My only concern is that they may not be so effective against smaller guys that are super fast and skilled but then, every pairing has a weakness. We saw Point walk right past Zdeno to score a goal. I think it's the best we can do for now and it's going to be pretty good I think.

This is a fair assessment I'd say. I thought Gudbranson looked good with Edler. Pairing Gud with Edler allows us to free up Tanev to be paired with one of the younger players. It could be Juolevi or any of the other prospects (McEneny or Sautner for example). Basically from the team's perspective, they have full info on Gud's health info so they must have thought that there really isn't a big risk when they signed him to a 3 years deal at a moderate cap hit of 4 mil.

Yeah that's fair enough. Dubois and Hischier were #1C so that they could be considered ahead of Boeser (although i don't think so myself). McAvoy was basically the #1D so sure. But is McAvoy ahead of Barzal? Because defence > PPG scoring center?

Burr? Sedins + Burr in one player.