Arrow 1983 Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 First, I will point out quickly the problems we most know are problems. Defence, we lack in this category. Most true Canucks fans (not including the trolls) know are defence doesn't match up to the top teams. I am not talking about just are defence men but also are team defence. Vrbata -17 Horvat -13 Burrows -6 these guys are not that bad this is in part due to team defence. Most would make the argument that these three are some of are better 2 way players. However I do not blame the problems the Canucks are having on are defence nor do I blame the goaltending for the teams issues. Yes miller has at times let in some bad goals but 1) what goalie doesn't and 2) Miller prior to the teams bad play of late was keeping us in most of the games and at times was the reason we won early on. 3) and this is the most important when talking about goaltending, when is the last time the team won their goalie a game. I hear a lot of times when has the goalie stole a game, IMO this works both ways. Lets look at what isn't a problem, believe it or not I honestly believe that goal scoring is not an issue with this team or at least not with the offence. Before you guys and gals flame me for this statement let me explain. D.Sedin 12g 10th, H.Sedin 8g 67th, Hansen 8g 76th. 3 players in the top 90 which means this is a legit top line. why you ask simple if the league was equal the top 90 players would make up the the 1st line of each team. Vrbata 6g 126th, McCann 6g 133, Burrows 5g 161st. 3 players between 91 and 180 this is a NHL legit 2nd line. Sutter 4g in 16ga rank 212 but injured currently so would probably make the top 180 which means the Canucks would have 7 legit top 6 players. So what is the real issue on this team. IMO it is the line up The first line is good it produces like a 1st line. The second line IMO should be Higgins McCann and Vrbata. first you might ask why Higgins not Burrows the reasoning is 2 fold. First, I Believe that Burrows is suited better as a right winger. Secondly, Higgins can provide the fore check on that line well Burrows will provide the scoring for the third line. That leaves Horvat and Burrows to make up the third line. You might have 2 questions for this line who is the third player and why is Horvat on your third line. Lets start with Horvat I believe this guy is going to one day be a top 2 way player in this league, however 2 way centres do not tend to develop as a goal scorer right away. They tend to be really good at the fore check and back checking part of the game first (Kesler was a prime example Toews to some extent as well) These are the players I would compare Horvat to. But to put him in a role that he is not suited for yet will only hamper his development. McCann on the other hand looks to be a pure goal scorer and should play with Vrbata to develop that as Horvat playing with Burrows will help develop Horvat's game. This is what I believed the plan would be when Linden and Benning talked about retooling on the fly. Playing vets with rookies to help to develop their game. Well I would make the argument lets take it one step further lets play the vets with the rookies who Complements their game. For the first question who is the 3rd player on this line. We have to ask who fits a third line forward role the best and who would complement Horvat's and Burrows game. Baertschi might be considered a third liner however I don't have a clue what his game is. IMO this guy has no identity. If some one can please explain to me what this guy brings to the game please enlighten me and probably half the Canuck fan base. Is he a goal scorer, a passer, a fore checker, defensive????? Please tell me what management sees in this guy. Another Vey IMO. Hunter Shinkaruk, is the only player in the Canucks system that I believe suits this role unless they trade someone for this position I believe it should be Shinkaruk. 1) Horvat and Hunter are friends and I believe this could create chemistry yes that magic word we like to say in hockey. Chemistry can be a game changer Naslund and Bert. Kesler and Burrows. The Sedins and anyone. etc. it goes on and on Kane and Toews. 2) Does Hunter complement their game. YES, Hunter is a pure goal scorer and Horvat and Burrows are 2 way players Burrows will get the dirty goals we know he will and Hunter will shoot the puck and Horvat will dish it out. The forth line, Cracknell, Dorsett, Virtanen and Prust. Cracknell is showing to be a dependable 4th line centre Dorsett brings his game every night and Virtanen can learn a lot from Dorsett. Virtanen needs to learn how to play big before he can play big and Dorsett can teach him that. I also believe they need to send Virtanen to the world juniors so he can get away from this league for a while. Maybe it will help him gain his scoring touch back. Prust gives you what you expect. Conclusion, If we are going to develop are rookies this way I say lets do it the right way. Key word play vets and rookies with the ones that complement each other. I really do not care if they make the playoffs this season as long as they develop their players. Play them in key situations and develop their play on the PP and PK Because this season is about the future of OUR CANUCKS. The issue with this team is the stubborn need to always make the playoffs and make more money. But what ownership management and couching does not understand is that if you develop your players properly you will go deeper in the playoffs in the future and make more money. I am not saying tank this season but am saying play the youth and let the season fall as it may. A fan for life but one that is more disinterested in the Canucks then he has ever been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuxfanabroad Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Nice effort, but insights like yours here, were presented last summer. Last Jan, I recall making 2 lengthy threads, essentially promoting a sell-off. Kinda' wish they had... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hatedkid666 Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 complement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlinkas wrister Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Couching staff ? Dear lord, that brings a whole new level of meaning to that position of power ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Biestra Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 6 minutes ago, Arrow 1983 said: First, I will point out quickly the problems we most know are problems. Don't you ever lie to me again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fateless Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 While I like your perspective, you can't rank players simply by goal production - that's almost as bad as ranking them purely by +/-. You have to look at their games as a whole and see if they're playing defensively responsible, are they playing hard minutes, are they playing on the penalty kill/powerplay, etc. The Sedins and Hansen are playing excellent this year, but the rest of the team is not. Part of the problem with ranking our players via goals is that our goal total is inflated from an excellent high-scoring start to the season, while the last 10 games has seen a massive downturn in scoring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuxfanabroad Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 7 minutes ago, hlinkas wrister said: Couching staff ? Dear lord, that brings a whole new level of meaning to that position of power ! Whilst the modelling, talent-agency has a 'casting-coach'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canucklehead44 Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 We were doing pretty well for goal scoring, but with just 3 goals over our last 4 games we have jumped to a little below middle of the pack (17th, 2.54 gpg). Prior to the last four games we would have been at 2.83, good for 6th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlinkas wrister Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 3 minutes ago, Nuxfanabroad said: Whilst the modelling, talent-agency has a 'casting-coach'. Yes ! Couching taking place on the casting coach ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuxfanabroad Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Word-play with persuasive sway... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BanTSN Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Contending teams rely on centers and defensemen. Right now with Sutter out the lineup of centers includes a hall-of-fame vet, a 2nd year player, a rookie, and a career AHLer. Effective minutes for each player: 16mins, 10mins, 8mins, 6mins = 40 mins per game. So even if Sutter were healthy, that's not enough. Clearly this is not good enough to compete for a long stretch of time. To improve you need more effective minutes from the young centers, and so far this isn't happening. It's premature to expect it. As for the defense, we have Edler and Tanev on top of their game. Hamhuis is on the decline and seems disinterested most games now, but he's still top-4 capable. The other top-4 guy has been a mixture of all the others. Weber is a power play specialist who needs to be sheltered. Sbisa is a mistake-prone physical guy. Bartkowski is a low-upside mixed bag. Hutton is an offensive-minded youngster. and Biega is a career AHLer. While a lot of people might view the defense as THE problem, and it's certainly a problem, it's not near as big as the problem we have with our centers. Because of the lack of effective minutes we have up the middle, our defense is being put under too much pressure and is being exposed night after night. What's really telling here is how horrible our pk has gotten. This issue has been the Canucks' achilles heel for years and years. Not enough capable-minutes centermen. Injuries to centermen. And not enough pk-capable centers. It's not really fair to give that task to primarily Horvat, but so far he's been brave with it. Benning is slowly addressing the issue we have with centers through drafts and trades, but results won't be instant. We have some nice center prospects. In the meantime, he cannot afford to forget about our aging defense that's half full of projects instead of prospects. Hutton is a nice surprise, but his true upside is unknown at this point and he's slowing his progress as we run into trouble here in the schedule. Our defensive pool has depth, but whether it's top-4 capable depth is unknown. Discerning what the core will be is a priority, but it's nice to have options. Benning probably should have selected some more defensemen instead of trading 2nd rounders away for project wingers, and he'll need these defensemen to be on a swift development path if he hopes to use them for any run that's carried by this group of young centers we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyLow_ Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 44 minutes ago, Nuxfanabroad said: Nice effort, but insights like yours here, were presented last summer. Last Jan, I recall making 2 lengthy threads, essentially promoting a sell-off. Kinda' wish they had... I've been advocating blowing this b*tch up since 2012, when our assets still had real value. Now it would be a much more painful process, but I still desperately hope for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift-4 Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 54 minutes ago, Kevin Biestra said: Don't you ever lie to me again. lirl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DIBdaQUIB Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 9 minutes ago, FlyLow_ said: I've been advocating blowing this b*tch up since 2012, when our assets still had real value. Now it would be a much more painful process, but I still desperately hope for it. You are right. Look at Chicago. While they really had no choice, they have been re-tooling almost annually be letting high-quality vets go and bringing in new youth. This has kept them competitive whilst also staying young. Nucks waited too long to begin moving contributing vets and now they are on the decline and hold insufficient value to attract top prospects or picks. Add to that the generous contracts for past deeds and NTCs and Gillis left this team in a shambles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adamth Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 i LIKE prust IN HIM I trust THE REST OF THE TEAM IS A bust lol , nicely said i agree with alot of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJDDawg Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 The problem is not "are defence men" or "are" forwards, or "are" goalies. In case you missed the 10 years of amazing hockey this team has just gone through, "are" team is now in a rebuild. Nothing more, nothing less. The actual problems are the expectations of fans of this team at this point in teams' cycle. How can you nitpick when JB is in the midst of trying to transform this team? It's not yet a finished product, so come back to CDC in three years. There'll be more to talk about then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyLow_ Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 6 minutes ago, MJDDawg said: The problem is not "are defence men" or "are" forwards, or "are" goalies. In case you missed the 10 years of amazing hockey this team has just gone through, "are" team is now in a rebuild. Nothing more, nothing less. The actual problems are the expectations of fans of this team at this point in teams' cycle. How can you nitpick when JB is in the midst of trying to transform this team? It's not yet a finished product, so come back to CDC in three years. There'll be more to talk about then. 10 years of amazing hockey huh? Yes there were some good years, but early playoff exits are not amazing to me. I'll nitpick when mediocrity is the goal instead of winning a cup thankyouverymuch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 9 minutes ago, MJDDawg said: The problem is not "are defence men" or "are" forwards, or "are" goalies. In case you missed the 10 years of amazing hockey this team has just gone through, "are" team is now in a rebuild. Nothing more, nothing less. The actual problems are the expectations of fans of this team at this point in teams' cycle. How can you nitpick when JB is in the midst of trying to transform this team? It's not yet a finished product, so come back to CDC in three years. There'll be more to talk about then. You can make your point without being a douchebag. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adamth Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 sTARTWITH THE SMALL THINGS MAKE SURE THIS TEAM - doesnt not easily be HAPPY W 1 GOAL- WE HAVE NOT WOn the cup yet LETS do this YOU lazy Canucks!!! dont make yourselves look like you SUCK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.I.A.H.N Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 1 hour ago, MJDDawg said: The problem is not "are defence men" or "are" forwards, or "are" goalies. In case you missed the 10 years of amazing hockey this team has just gone through, "are" team is now in a rebuild. Nothing more, nothing less. The actual problems are the expectations of fans of this team at this point in teams' cycle. How can you nitpick when JB is in the midst of trying to transform this team? It's not yet a finished product, so come back to CDC in three years. There'll be more to talk about then. Oh Dawg.............you are always hounding people..........are! are! are! are! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.