Canucks Four Biggest Non-Mistakes Over the Last Year

[shazzam]

1) UFA Vrbata

- 31 goals in the regular season

- Will get sweeter if he is moved for at least a first rounder at the deadline

2) Trading Bieksa

- Needed to move on

[gino#29]

At least those people have jobs, which keeps them from living in their mothers' basements! Not saying that's you, of course. It's not what one does, but it's the effort they give in what they do. Like with the Canucks. We want guys that know their role, and work their hardest to help the team, no matter how their role is defined. Kassian comes to mind as someone that fancied himself a brain surgeon, who refused to work at Walmart, when asked to do so. Tortorella, asked the twins to kill penalties, and block shots, and the twins did all that was asked of them, even if that meant working at Walmart.

you work at walmart ?

[Alflives]

canucklehead?you're not even a canucks fan?you have nothing better to do but troll the canucks?what a loser!!!!

I see a lot of posters coming here from HF Boards, who are always negative. I really don't completely understand the whole trolling concept, but I'm learning. I guess it's like being one of the rat players on the ice, who run around stirring up trouble, but they are useless once ignored. Then they get sent to the minors, because they really can't play the game.

[gino#29]

How is trading for Prust and trading lack non-mistakes when we haven't seen the effects of them yet? Will it still be a non-miatake if Kassian is 15ish goal scorer and Prust is just a 4th line goon or Miller poops the bed? Feel like those two shouldn't count just yet.

did anyone watch montreal in the playoffs last year?prust stood out to me,he played great.but WHAA WHAA we lost an all important 5th rounder.lol

[Pete M]

I don't see where any of this is JBs doing. Those picks were missed by Gillis. As far as Mitchell goes, the management was very concerned about the terrible head injury. The Canucks were too close to the cap to take a gamble on a player with that kind of injury.

I think JB should be given some time to rebuild the d. Pedan and Brisbois are a good start. It looks to me that the developing process for young players has improved measurably, which will enhance the current and future prospects. I suspect there will be opportunities to pick up young (26/27yr) dmen in the coming UFA markets, as the Canuck cap hit will be much lower. Who knows, if they have a bad season this year, they'll likely pick up a good dman in the draft.

JB is rebuilding this team and in a few years the team if built properly will contend.

JB even admitted that he didn't realise the amount of depth at "D" that is required when playing and travelling in the West.

What concerns me is him putting value in players like Miller when he could be putting value in the defence and acquiring the player that we really need. Our "D" is marginal at best...

Take the Blue Jays as an example...they pickup the players they need and voila you have a contending team.

This same thing can apply to the Canucks now and in the future; but management needs to understand what makes a contending team.

Hate to hurt the optimist feeling, but Miller, a player past his prime, and Prust a player past his prime are not the answers.

[puckdontlie]

JB is rebuilding this team and in a few years the team if built properly will contend.

JB even admitted that he didn't realise the amount of depth at "D" that is required when playing and travelling in the West.

What concerns me is him putting value in players like Miller when he could be putting value in the defence and acquiring the player that we really need. Our "D" is marginal at best...

Take the Blue Jays as an example...they pickup the players they need and voila you have a contending team.

This same thing can apply to the Canucks now and in the future; but management needs to understand what makes a contending team.

Hate to hurt the optimist feeling, but Miller, a player past his prime, and Prust a player past his prime are not the answers.

You mention the Jays but their GM was criticized for a long time for not doing anything or filling their needs. What he eventually did was stock up on quality prospects and then made his move to get Tulo, Price etc.

I see Benning building in a similar way. He may not be drafting top D prospects but he is drafting quality forward prospects. As soon as he's ready to make his move (prob next year or two) he will have tons of cap space from expiring contracts and prospects from 4-5 solid drafts starting from 2014 to trade.

But like Jays fans the Canucks fans get antsy. If there is no immediate action then its grounds to fire the GM. But methodically building prospects and saving salary is key. Ignore the placeholder players like Miller. Just like the Jays players like Cabrera and Reyes were upgraded upon, Benning will do the same for the Canucks roster. Miller, Lack, Kassian, Bieksa, etc will soon be replaced by upgrades.

[Crabcakes]

JB is rebuilding this team and in a few years the team if built properly will contend.

JB even admitted that he didn't realise the amount of depth at "D" that is required when playing and travelling in the West.

What concerns me is him putting value in players like Miller when he could be putting value in the defence and acquiring the player that we really need. Our "D" is marginal at best...

Take the Blue Jays as an example...they pickup the players they need and voila you have a contending team.

This same thing can apply to the Canucks now and in the future; but management needs to understand what makes a contending team.

Hate to hurt the optimist feeling, but Miller, a player past his prime, and Prust a player past his prime are not the answers.

Baseball is different. There is no salary cap and players are much more mobile. The principle may be similar but there will be no "voila" moment.

It's Benning's choice to put money in goal. It's his thing to have a stable and reliable vet back there because it helps the rest of the team relax. [Personally, I could deal with a goalie who stops what he's supposed to stop, gets paid well but not near the top and put an extra $2M on D. but that's my preference.] I guess Benning's way works better when the D is young like the Canucks are slowly becoming.

It is my hope that the turnover that is coming will result in improvements on the back end. At least this year, they will be more mobile and move the puck better with the subtraction of Bieksa and Stanton and the addition of Bartkowski and Corrado.

[GB5]

As always.

The issue was having three goalies that would not pass waivers. JB openly knew this, but decided at the TDL to wait until the draft. One of them had to be dealt, and as mentioned, JB's model is to have a solid veteran #1 with an understudy backup. It was either Markstrom or Lack, and they clearly felt Markstrom had more upside as a potential #1 and likely much less trade value.

Nice summary.

I used the term "goalie controversy" in a previous post in this thread, your post is a more comprehensive explanation of what I meant by this.

[Gaudette Celly]

How is trading for Prust and trading lack non-mistakes when we haven't seen the effects of them yet? Will it still be a non-miatake if Kassian is 15ish goal scorer and Prust is just a 4th line goon or Miller poops the bed? Feel like those two shouldn't count just yet.

And what if Lack poops the bed, as he did in the playoffs? There's a reason why proven veteran goaltenders are paid the way they are.

They are positive trades because in Lack's case he was the one to move out of necessity and it appears we got a solid prospect, and with Prust/Kassian it was not just getting a character guy back who can help Dorsett out with policing, but also addition by subtraction in the case of Kassian. The Canucks wouldn't come out and say it, but more than hinted at issues with professionalism.

The big underlying part of this process is TL/JB bringing in players to create the culture they want on the team, not just making changes for change's sake. By this time next year, the team will be almost completely composed of such players and we'll have a pretty clear picture of the team they want. For many right now that picture is fuzzy and out of focus because they are staring at their noses.

[Kevin Biestra]

Yes I know this - I should have been clearer - check out his pre-NHL stats that are comparable to what Markstrom did last year - you may be surprised to find out that they were below average. He obviously thrived under pressure, and was lucky to get the shot given his mediocre at best stats pre-nhl (Markstom). I love Roy, one of my idols growing up.

Dang, those are some stinky numbers in junior, even for the 80s.

[IBatch]

Dang, those are some stinky numbers in junior, even for the 80s.

Yes sir, thank god he was given a shot or we wouldn't be playing against his team now...

[gino#29]

not reading the tripe on cdc forums,that would be a huge non-mistake.

[elvis15]

To be honest, I'm more into reading these forums to keep up to date on current goings-ons. What grates me the most is your constant fickleness that discourages new discussion. I mean to me, this was a completely valid topic that I was pleased to see, rather than all of the current negativity surrounding Benning's off season moves. To see you automatically come in with this holier-than-thou attitude to posters offering new opinions or views is sickening. Sure there are threads already discussing all of the points the poster brought up, but the whole idea of the thread from what I got, was the OP trying to incite some positivity on these forums for a change of the offseason. Why don't you try and lighten up for a change and allow new discussion rather than to be an annoying pseudo-mod?

So you're saying the other threads on each of the individual moves mentioned weren't good discussion and haven't covered this same opinion? Apart from you saying you like the positivity, I don't know what your opinion is on the topic(s) and if you feel it's a valid discussion I'd think you'd like to share your side.

I've certainly said my piece on it (here and in other threads), so I'm interested to hear about yours rather than just have you pick out one line from a larger post that actually discussed the topic.

Every time you start policing these threads you draw attention to your self - and you know it. Each one of your 'helpful' little post creates much more spam and derailment than without - and you know it. If you cared so much about the quality of threads in this forum then you'd stop.

Here's my thought process: I enjoy having a discussion on almost any topic, Canucks or not. I want to discuss that topic in as few threads as possible rather than trying to carry on that discussion in multiple threads all at the same time. I'm not sure why anyone would really want to try and follow the same topic in more than one place, but perhaps someone can share why that's better and convince me.

[elvis15]

if you make the playoffs you have a legitimate shot.

An argument that's made the rounds on CDC, for sure. While you may have made it to the 16 team playoff structure, you don't have an equal 1/16th of a chance at winning. You start off with a disadvantage from a home ice perspective to begin with, so that immediately makes it harder for you to advance.

Then you can factor in the actual historical odds of bottom seeds having success in the playoffs to see just how legitimate your chances are. Some teams have made great runs from the 8th seed, but very rarely does that happen and even more rarely does it result in winning the cup.

It's great to be positive (although I'm not sure "WHAAA, WHAAA" as a response to other posters is positive) but most businesses don't succeed without someone there as a realist as well.

Miller got us Brisebois. No miller signing, means no goalie trade, means no (3rd) Brisebois.

Miller cost us Barzal (or insert favourite prospect name here). No Miller signing, means maybe not quite as good a team, means a better overall pick.

Maybe he could have signed a veteran backup to split duties with Lack, then let that veteran walk after a year or so as Markstrom became ready, keeping Lack and Markstrom. Sure, we might have lost a few more games, but then maybe instead of a 3rd we didn't have before, we get a higher 1st - say instead of 23rd overall we get 15th, or better if we hadn't made the playoffs.

Then there's the cap space it would have afforded us. I'd say likely $3-4M more in cap space, and then we could have signed a defenceman. Just for an example, we sign Griess for the $1M cap hit he got instead of Miller. That's a $5M savings in cap. Dan Boyle got $4.5M on a two year deal.

I'm not saying Boyle would have come here or been the right choice even, but having the option to improve somewhere other than our goaltending (considering it has arguably been our strongest position depth-wise) certainly would have been nice.

[Canorth]

Nvm

[ForsbergTheGreat]

An argument that's made the rounds on CDC, for sure. While you may have made it to the 16 team playoff structure, you don't have an equal 1/16th of a chance at winning. You start off with a disadvantage from a home ice perspective to begin with, so that immediately makes it harder for you to advance.

Then you can factor in the actual historical odds of bottom seeds having success in the playoffs to see just how legitimate your chances are. Some teams have made great runs from the 8th seed, but very rarely does that happen and even more rarely does it result in winning the cup.

It's great to be positive (although I'm not sure "WHAAA, WHAAA" as a response to other posters is positive) but most businesses don't succeed without someone there as a realist as well.

Miller cost us Barzal (or insert favourite prospect name here). No Miller signing, means maybe not quite as good a team, means a better overall pick.

Maybe he could have signed a veteran backup to split duties with Lack, then let that veteran walk after a year or so as Markstrom became ready, keeping Lack and Markstrom. Sure, we might have lost a few more games, but then maybe instead of a 3rd we didn't have before, we get a higher 1st - say instead of 23rd overall we get 15th, or better if we hadn't made the playoffs.

Then there's the cap space it would have afforded us. I'd say likely $3-4M more in cap space, and then we could have signed a defenceman. Just for an example, we sign Griess for the $1M cap hit he got instead of Miller. That's a $5M savings in cap. Dan Boyle got $4.5M on a two year deal.

I'm not saying Boyle would have come here or been the right choice even, but having the option to improve somewhere other than our goaltending (considering it has arguably been our strongest position depth-wise) certainly would have been nice.

So your admitting Miller is better than Lack?

And as of right now I'm happy about Boeser,

Also you contradicting your self, at one end Miller made this team better and cost this team a high pick and then you say Millers cap makes up worse?

What is it, does miller make up better or worse?

[GreyHatnDart]

So your admitting Miller is better than Lack?

And as of right now I'm happy about Boeser,

Also you contradicting your self, at one end Miller made this team better and cost this team a high pick and then you say Millers cap makes up worse?

What is it, does miller make up better or worse?

I feel like people tend to look at season by season as opposed to long term when it comes to criticizing Bennings moves. Not necessarily Elvis, but with the points you made here Forsberg.

Let's say for example we went with Lack/Markstrom last season. Okay, so we end up lower in the league and get ourselves a Barzal (though I agree, Boesser is looking great so far) and now coming into this season we still have Lack/Markstrom. So, short of retaining the services of a decent vet, we can conclude we'd have a similar turnout and end up out of the playoff picture once again. Now, do we resign Lack to a contract at the end of this coming season? He's due for a raise if he's a starter, obviously. Does the money spent elsewhere (on D for example) make a big enough difference of not having Miller? I honestly don't think so.

Benning has repeatedly said he thinks goaltending is the most important position in hockey and I tend to agree with him. It's the only position that plays the entire game and having a GOOD veteran back there, and a solid prospect in the works, has the makings to be a good system. Do I think Miller was worth 6m? No I do not, but overpaying for a relatively short term while Markstrom develops makes a whole lot of sense to me.

[sockeye]

Well said lBatch. I've said this before; as much as I liked Lack on this team (his personality, work ethic, etc.), when the Canucks acquired Miller as a free agent and gave up nothing but salary, we automatically acquired some draft picks that we wouldn't have had otherwise because Lack/Markstrom would have been our goalie tandem. It was unfortunate that we couldn't have got more for Lack in the trade with Carolina but the market is what the market is. If we hadn't signed Miller, there would have been no goalie trade. Miller is a solid experienced goalie and those are hard to come by.

[Gaudette Celly]

Miller cost us Barzal (or insert favourite prospect name here). No Miller signing, means maybe not quite as good a team, means a better overall pick.

Vrbata cost us Provorov.

Hamuis cost us Werenski.

Sedins cost us Marner.

I smell someone peeking out of the tanker closet.

[GreyHatnDart]

Vrbata cost us Provorov.

Hamuis cost us Werenski.

Sedins cost us Marner.

I smell someone peeking out of the tanker closet.

I for one was extremely proud of our bounce back season last year. Obviously it hurt losing to Calgary (I have a lot of family there and there was a lot of sh*t talking before that series began) but I didn't have a doubt in my mind we'd win in 7 against them. I was shocked at the lack of "oomph" we had when it mattered. For whatever it's worth, changing up this team even more is most welcome, and with the amount of expiring contracts and cap opening up, I'm already looking toward to '16-'17.