The Finnish Line

[Indecisive]

Hi all, still fairly new to making posts, but this was a thought I wanted to share.

 

I'm sure we're all familiar with the story of the 1999 NHL draft, where a flurry of events orchestrated by Brian Burke changed the draft order from Bolts/Thrashers/Canucks/Blackhawks

To: Thrashers/Canucks/Canucks/Rangers

Of course, we all know those picks were used to draft two of the best players in Canucks history in Henrik and Daniel Sedin.

 

With the upcoming draft, there are two young Europeans turning heads, both played together and showed chemistry, and are both from the same country. Sound familiar?

 

Finns Patrick Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi are great players, projected to go at numbers 2 and 3 respectively.

 

I ran the simulator (like any excited and hopeful Canucks fan) and the order was

 

Columbus Blue Jackets

Vancouver Canucks

Winnipeg Jets

 

With control of the 2nd Pick (Laine most likely,) the Canucks would need to trade to get the 3rd overall.

 

Burke was in a situation where he had the 3rd pick, and needed the 2nd overall (where Daniel was projected) to draft the two. After many trades that were somewhat hard to follow, he ended up giving up:

 

-Bryan McCabe

-2000 first rounder (11th overall)

-Two 1999 3rd round picks (75 & 88)

 

For the 2nd overall pick in the end. Of course this was because of many reasons, including the Rangers wanting Brendl at 4th overall, and were willing to trade with the lightning to get it (which made the lightning willing to trade the 1st overall for the 4th pick that the Canucks owned) Then after trading the first to the thrashers (who promised to pick Stefan) the Canucks got the twins.

 

TL,DR: We traded some assets to get the 2nd overall pick.

 

Back to our hypothetical modern day draft scenario, Austin Matthews is going to be 1st overall. 10/10 scouts agree. The Jackets will take him happily, with a replacement for Johansen.

 

We have the second pick, and will most likely take Patrik Laine. Great, we have an elite winger now.

 

The third overall belongs to the Jets. The Jets are all set with centre prospects, (Connor, Petan, Harkins) and have potential first line wingers, (Lemieux, Armia, Dano.)

However, their only strong D prospect is Morrissey. In greater need of another game breaker D prospect than another forward, the Jets may be willing to trade down or for D prospects. This is where Benning comes in.

 

We offer 

- Hutton/Subban+pick

-2017 or 2018 1st (their choice)

 

In exchange for

 

-3rd overall (Puljujarvi)

 

 

 

Now before everyone comes after me with arguments about trading Hutton, one of our best young Dmen this year, realize that we have Stecher, Tryamkin, Subban(if not traded), Briseboise, and possibly someone like Victor Mete or Lucas Johansen in the 2nd round, along with our current Dmen (Edler, Tanev, Sbisa, Hamhuis?) And only 6 spots to fill.

Hutton is a valuable piece, but for all we know, any of our other D prospects could suprise like Hutton did.

 

This would allow us to have:

 

Sedins-Hansen

Baertschi-Sutter-Rodin (Free Agent???)

Virtanen-Horvat-Etem

Puljujarvi-Granlund-Laine

Gaunce

 

Edler-Tanev

Sbisa-Stecher

Tryamkin-Hamhuis?/other

Pedan

 

Line-up could easily change.

 

Personally, I see both Laine and Puljujarvi as elite players in the future, and could be the pair of forwards the Canucks need for our 2021 Cup run. While they are great players apart, they would be amazing together, and could easily make a future core with the likes of Granlund (yay finns), McCann, or Horvat in the middle.

 

Obviously this is very unlikely, and more of a wishful thinking/unrealistic topic (I love Hutton, and probably wouldn't trade him) but I was wondering a few things that this topic touches such as:

 

-How much is the 2nd/3rd overall pick worth?

- How much is Hutton worth?

- Are teams willing to trade their high picks in the modern NHL?

-How shrewd is JB?

 

Anyways, let me know what your thoughts are, and any constructive criticism is appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

[ItsMillerTime]

You're saying Puljujarvi is going to be elite? Why would jets want a top 4 dmen who might not even play top4 minutes. Jets have Byfuglien Trouba Myers and Enstrom as their top 4. Why not make their winger prospect even better and have trade bait later.

[Indecisive]

10 minutes ago, ItsMillerTime said:

You're saying Puljujarvi is going to be elite? Why would jets want a top 4 dmen who might not even play top4 minutes. Jets have Byfuglien Trouba Myers and Enstrom as their top 4. Why not make their winger prospect even better and have trade bait later.

Because you can't afford to have 4 forward lines filled with franchise players. Hutton is a young proven D man that proved he can play top 4. Byfuglien and Enstrom are getting older, and I would hardly consider Enstrom top 4 now. When you have two great centre's in Petan and Connor, and then Harkins in there too, you can't afford to pay them all if they become what they should be, and that is elite/franchise players. Add in Lemieux, Dano, Morrissey, Hellebuyck to the payroll, and you can't spend 6+million on another winger. When they're all making 5+. Hutton would likely be a 3-4 Dman, making maybe 3-4 million, and knowing Benning, he would even throw in a 5th round pick for the heck of it.

 

P.S. I Expect Connor to be making 8 million+

[Harvey Spector]

Hutton is just starting his career. He could be an elite top 2-3 guy in a couple years. I'm not trading him as he's our only young offensive D at the moment. 

 

Why do we need both Finns anyways, they don't even play on the same team?  They are not twins like the Sedins with chemistry from birth. That's like saying Washington should have traded for Malkin to play with Ovechkin because they're both Russian. The Canucks already tried this before when they traded for Mogilny who played one year together with Bure in 1988. It didn't work out at all. Bure had good chemistry with Larionov who he never played with before moreso than with Mogilny. 

 

If the Canucks land a Finn that would be awesome. But we don't really need to severely deplete our D core that's already thin in order to get a second Finn...

[Indecisive]

9 minutes ago, Harvey Spector said:

Hutton is just starting his career. He could be an elite top 2-3 guy in a couple years. I'm not trading him as he's our only young offensive D at the moment. 

As far as we know, Hutton could be that #2, offensive defenseman that we need, but he isn't the only D prospect. Subban has great offensive instinct, and once he learns and develops, he could be great. Troy Stecher has looked great, and some even compared him to Ghost bear, although that could be an exaggeration. 

 

Why do we need both Finns? We don't, having one would be amazing, but having two would be even better. As I mentioned earlier, I believe they will be franchise players, and can make up a stellar first line. They proved at the WJC that they can play together, and even if for some reason it doesn't work out, we can have a good 1-2 punch like a Crosby/Malkin situation. 

 

Also, in my opinion, our D pool isn't that depleted if we lose Hutton. Sure he's one of our best young Dmen, but again, we have more prospects with potential to be #1/2 Dmen, and there will be more prospects as the years go on. Because they're prospects, they all can be a #1 Dman, or a career ECHLer. We just have to wait and see.

 

On a side note, It's quite obvious that we won't contend for a few years at least, but when we do contend, we want future captain horvat to be in his prime, and having players around him that peak at the same time make our chance at a cup better. Our core from 2011 is full of players that are all around around the same age. I see it as picking a group of guys as your core, then just filling in the cracks. 

 

Being optimistic, all our forward prospects (Virtanen, Boeser, etc.) All live up to their potential. We have to trade some of them. We can't afford to have too many good players (see Brandon Saad) by having a core of elite players, you can build a good team around it (Toews, Kane) and be competitive every year.

 

 

[Harvey Spector]

2 minutes ago, Indecisive said:

As far as we know, Hutton could be that #2, offensive defenseman that we need, but he isn't the only D prospect. Subban has great offensive instinct, and once he learns and develops, he could be great. Troy Stecher has looked great, and some even compared him to Ghost bear, although that could be an exaggeration. 

 

Why do we need both Finns? We don't, having one would be amazing, but having two would be even better. As I mentioned earlier, I believe they will be franchise players, and can make up a stellar first line. They proved at the WJC that they can play together, and even if for some reason it doesn't work out, we can have a good 1-2 punch like a Crosby/Malkin situation. 

 

Also, in my opinion, our D pool isn't that depleted if we lose Hutton. Sure he's one of our best young Dmen, but again, we have more prospects with potential to be #1/2 Dmen, and there will be more prospects as the years go on. Because they're prospects, they all can be a #1 Dman, or a career ECHLer. We just have to wait and see.

 

On a side note, It's quite obvious that we won't contend for a few years at least, but when we do contend, we want future captain horvat to be in his prime, and having players around him that peak at the same time make our chance at a cup better. Our core from 2011 is full of players that are all around around the same age. I see it as picking a group of guys as your core, then just filling in the cracks. 

 

Being optimistic, all our forward prospects (Virtanen, Boeser, etc.) All live up to their potential. We have to trade some of them. We can't afford to have too many good players (see Brandon Saad) by having a core of elite players, you can build a good team around it (Toews, Kane) and be competitive every year.

 

 

Subban isnt even in the same category as Hutton, sorry. I'm not relying on him at all to even make the team. Hutton is a legit 2-3 guy in a couple of years and he is 6'3" and could fill out to 220 pounds. Stecher is a nice catch but he is small and quick and again doesn't have the size of Hutton. I don't see any prospect we currently have on D with the potential of Hutton.

 

Sure it would be nice to have both Finns. They will both be elite and replace the Sedins as our franchise players. However in my opinion Hutton is pretty much untouchable at this point. Maybe another trade scenario to get both Finns might work, but at this point I am looking at Hutton and Tryamkin as our future potential top pairing D and I wouldn't want to mess that up. 

[Kanucklehead10]

 

1 hour ago, Indecisive said:

Because you can't afford to have 4 forward lines filled with franchise players. Hutton is a young proven D man that proved he can play top 4. Byfuglien and Enstrom are getting older, and I would hardly consider Enstrom top 4 now. When you have two great centre's in Petan and Connor, and then Harkins in there too, you can't afford to pay them all if they become what they should be, and that is elite/franchise players. Add in Lemieux, Dano, Morrissey, Hellebuyck to the payroll, and you can't spend 6+million on another winger. When they're all making 5+. Hutton would likely be a 3-4 Dman, making maybe 3-4 million, and knowing Benning, he would even throw in a 5th round pick for the heck of it.

 

P.S. I Expect Connor to be making 8 million+

Yeah. "IF"  Pedan, Connor and Harkins will turn out to be elite/franchise players and that's a big "IF"

It's a toss-up with any of those guys on whether they can translate their success into the NHL level. 

In that case, we have Virtanen, McCann, Boeser, Gaunce...etc... so if we get 2nd overall, I guess we should overlook the Finns because the guys we already have can "potentially" become elite players that we won't be able to afford later on. lol.

What you're saying is pretty ridiculous.

It's pathetic if you're managing a hockey team and you're already scared and concerned at the draft on whether you will be able to in the future, afford the player you're picking.

You pick BPA regardless for your team and salaries you deal with when the time has actually come for its attention.

It's not like GM's don't pick a player because they think he will cost too much in the future. Plus you can always draft the player and see the contribution to the team in comparison to other prospects and see who is more valuable to your team and who isn't and then deal with that later.

 

That being said,

 

If I'm Winnipeg, I'm picking the 17 year old, 6,3 200 pound Finn with exceptional speed, vision, stick skills and playmaking ability tearing up the Finnish elite league and will most likely make the NHL next year in his first season (what most pro scouts are saying). He's that good.

That's what you'd call a franchise player.

 

Puljujarvi is way ahead of any of Winnipeg's prospects.

 

[48MPHSlapShot]

Sorry, but Hutton is as untouchable as anyone is our organization right now. Defensemen, no matter how talented they seem to be in lesser leagues, are always crap shoots. We finally have a young, high caliber NHL Dman that has proven to be an effective player at the NHL level.

[LordHorvat]

1 hour ago, Indecisive said:

As far as we know, Hutton could be that #2, offensive defenseman that we need, but he isn't the only D prospect.

 

 

Hutton is not going to be traded if he's our "number 2 offensive defenceman that we need."  

[khay]

I don't like the idea of trading Hutton but let's say we offer that package to the Jets. The problem is that the Jets won't trade Puljujarvi for Hutton and 2018 1st. They just lost Ladd. In fact, they don't have elite talent up front. Schiefele, Wheeler, and etc are all very good players but not quite elite. They don't have enough top end talent to make them a playoff contender, let alone a cup contender in the super competitive central division. Add Puljujarvi to the deep prospect pool that they have plus the defence corps that they already have and they may be able to contend for the cup in few years. That's what elite talent can do for you. You surround them with good talent and you get a cup contender. You have a lot of good support players but no top end talent, then you are lucky to get a playoff team.

 

Besides, we already have pretty good wing prospects in Boeser and Virtanen. If we add Laine, that's 3 high quality wing prospects. Add Baertschi and that's four wingers + Daniel Sedin, who looks like he could play longer than his brother (I think these two guys might not retire at the same time... Daniel may be able to sustain high level of play thanks in part to playing wing). Five wingers that can play in the top 6, I would say we are going to be OK even if we don't get both Finns. One Finn will make us happy fans.