What sports writers don't seem to see

[Dazzle]

2 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Don't we have several good prospects, just no elite ones?  (Excluding Demko.). 

Juolevi is not elite to you? He was the highest ranking defenseman to be picked in the draft.

[oldnews]

5 minutes ago, LaBamba said:

It's after our top 4-5 forwards that have people judging this team cautiously.  

I'd expand that to 7ish - Sedins x2, Eriksson, Sutter, Hansen, Horvat.... Baertschi.

Where the bottom six is concerned - Horvat at 3C I have no problem with.  Dorsett is a solid 4th liner.

Between Virtanen, Etem, Granlund, Gaunce, Burrows, Rodin (ptos and Utica)...I think they're fine to fill our four spots.  Most teams have two or three question marks in their forward ranks in any event.

[Honky Cat]

4 hours ago, WWM_Canuck said:

This is the most accurate assessment of where we are going in the next 3 - 5 years, particularly as it relates to prospects. We do not have a particularly strong or particularly deep class of prospects.

 

Carolina Hurricanes     0 playoff appearances in 10 years

Columbus Bluejackets   2 playoff appearances in 15 years

Calgary Flames             1 playoff appearances in 7 years

Edmonton Oilers           0 playoff appearances in 10 years

Arizona Coyotes           3 playoff appearances in 13 years

Jets/Thrashers              2 playoff appearances in 16 years

Toronto Maple Leafs     1 playoff appearances in 11 years 

 

Gee...I'm confused..why do these teames have better prospect pools that we do..?

 

[Dazzle]

1 minute ago, LaBamba said:

Are we friends? 

I would say not, but we aren't enemies either. For example, I don't specifically neg rep you for all the dumb things you say in threads.

[Dazzle]

1 minute ago, Honky Cat said:

 

Carolina Hurricanes     0 playoff appearances in 10 years

Columbus Bluejackets   2 playoff appearances in 15 years

Calgary Flames             1 playoff appearances in 7 years

Edmonton Oilers           0 playoff appearances in 10 years

Arizona Coyotes           3 playoff appearances in 13 years

Jets/Thrashers              2 playoff appearances in 16 years

Toronto Maple Leafs     1 playoff appearances in 11 years 

 

Gee...I'm confused..why do these teames have better prospect pools that we do..?

 

It's kinda debatable for some of them. I don't see Carolina having a really good prospect pool, compared to, let's say, Calgary. Calgary has always been pretty good with drafting/developing. Columbus has taken a long time to get to where it is and there were MANY bad/flubbed picks.

[Honky Cat]

It's kinda debatable for some of them. I don't see Carolina having a really good prospect pool, compared to, let's say, Calgary. Calgary has always been pretty good with drafting/developing. Columbus has taken a long time to get to where it is and there were MANY bad/flubbed picks.

 

False ^^...Calgarys drafting and development from 2004-10 is almost on par with Gillis' drafting.

   

 

[Aircool]

47 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

Not only is Gudbranson big - that's a horse that's been beaten to death - he's also fairly mobile for his size. Whether or not this translates is something we'll have to see this year and the years to come. He's still fairly young, which bodes well for his development. (Defenseman take longer to develop). He hasn't yet shown he can put the puck on net, yet he has never been given opportunities where he could. On FLA, he was never given any PP time, for example. He was too busy being the shutdown guy for the top lines. Tanev is a rare player that has been missed by every team, at least initially. He went undrafted and has turned out to be a defensive stud. Not all "smaller defenseman" succeed, but not all big ones are automatically good. You bring up Jared Cowen - loads of skill, but too slow for this NHL.

 

Where are these adjusted numbers where you say he 'still sucks'? If he has been tasked to shutdown top lines IN the playoffs on a playoff team, you can already tell he is going to be an essential piece for a non-playoff team like us. What we need is youth and experience mixed together.

 

I'm not sure why you hate the return. Edmonton's trade for Larsson was atrocious, given how they gave up an established player like Taylor Hall. Larsson is not better than Gudbransson in any way. Obviously, the price for young, high potential defenseman is high. McCann didn't have a good season last year and from some accounts, he may have had personality flaws that didn't work well with the team. This is all hearsay.

 

Well, you say that we have no prospects  - that's not true at all. Firstly, we have Juolevi, who is a potentially solid all-round, high pairing defenseman. We also have a number of underrated defenseman that are developing very well (they are producing points) in the leagues that they are in. We have loads of players that have leadership quality. It takes time, but we are definitely going in the right direction. Go have a look at the prospects section for defenseman. I read every single page of them, so I see both the moaning and the bandwagonism of a player. Seriously, you should be quite pleased with what you will find.

 

There's a lot of hypotheticals for this coming season. Is it that far of a stretch to think we'll do better if we have more luck with regards to injuries? Sutter will be back. Baertschi/Horvat, regardless if they are going to be put on the same line, will have improved. Sedins are always reliable players. There are others who may step in and impress. I'm not saying we'll be Stanley Cup contenders but as long as a team is in a playoff spot, you'll never know how far they can go.

 

Other players like Virtanen might not be on the team, but they should be important 'core' players when they are fully developed. If he can figure out the game, his size and speed will be deadly.

Well skating is a requisite in the NHL nowadays, for sure. So I don't give him credit for being "mobile for his size". Jared Cowen is proof, if you can't skate you are gone. Defenseman do take longer to develop, but Gudbranson isn't going to develop much of anything offensively, which is usually where they develop more so. Of course there are things you need to learn and will learn about playing defense, and he may well improve in that regard, but I'm just saying he's overrated, not useless. I think his ceiling is a 2nd pairing defenseman, I don't know if he's there yet.

 

Look up his analytics if you care, all I'm going to do is google them myself. 

 

Adam Larsson is significantly younger and brings some offensive skillset, while he's probably not ever going to be elite offensively, he may well settle into being a 40 point defenseman, Gudbranson will not ever be that, that's certain. While that trade was certainly atrocious, Larsson is definitely the better of the two players. That's just a horrible trade, not fair value. I think we overpaid in picks for Gudbranson, but it's a lot closer to fair value. I wanted McCann to get traded, and even called in January/February that he would, but I just don't like this particular return. I don't think we need middle of the pack defenseman, we have enough of those. We need better than that, and while McCann wasn't going to return that. I don't like us being put in worse draft positions to be less capable of therefore picking such a defenseman, by bringing in a player that will outperform McCann in the next couple years, and simultaneously giving up picks to do it, where we can further acquire value at least. We shouldn't be making the high floor decisions with our future, but the high ceiling ones.

 

I never said we have no prospects, I did say that there are more prospect pools better than ours than there are those that are worse. IE we are average at best. I like Juolevi, Demko, Boeser... And then we have some wildcards in Zhukenov, Olson, Brisebois. That's really about it for now, we'll see how others develop. I like Benning's ability to scout, we just need a lot more young talent coming through, so that we may use some as trade assets to move up in drafts, and acquire the right mix of players we need.

 

I don't think we were all that unlucky last year with injuries, in fact we were probably lucky. Brandon Sutter wasn't lucky, he personally got screwed over. But basically Edler and Sutter got injured all year, that's really not bad. Sure Henrik was playing banged up, but was Henirk our problem? No. That's a pretty typical year for injuries, so expect the same. Remember all the years Kesler and Burrows would get injured... Like our team was better, so it finished better despite those key injuries, now it's worse so it'll finish worse. Injuries happen. It's not like all the cup contending teams will finish bottom-5 if they suffer a couple injuries, they'll be just fine.

 

In today's NHL, you don't accidently win cups, that's been shown. I know you are smart enough to know that. This team won't win a cup for the next 5 years guaranteed, and if we keep on going down this path, I'd guarantee at least 15 years of no cup. Not that my guarantee means much, but I'm that confident that we are going down the wrong path.

 

Oh yeah, I also like Virtanen, we just need to figure out if he is smart enough to play at the NHL level. His junior success might have killed his career in a way, but it's WAY too early to be making any statements like that right now.

[Alflives]

57 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

Juolevi is not elite to you? He was the highest ranking defenseman to be picked in the draft.

My mistake.  I missed him.

[189lb enforcers?]

Has this site become like an internet North Korea of hockey forums, where one can only post endless praise and worship of the Canucks for fear of the wrath of the *real fans?

 

The culture here sees posters posting that the "cynical" posters must have terrible lives because they don't speak in terms of wish thinking or the power of positivity when accessing the team. Fanatical vs fan.

 

Aircool, getting shat on because he isn't marching with the herd of optimistic viewpoints, exemplifies what this board targets.

Since when and who says our prospect pool is great? Is great the new average? You'd have to be an incredibly biased fan of the team to make any rational connection to that; it's an insult to the Hockey world. Yet, he is informed that he must be some kind of social puck up for having an opinion as such. Seems a bit like a self-interest group in here.

 

 

 

 

 

[Salacious Crumb]

24 minutes ago, 189lb enforcers? said:

Has this site become like an internet North Korea of hockey forums, where one can only post endless praise and worship of the Canucks for fear of the wrath of the *real fans?

 

The culture here sees posters posting that the "cynical" posters must have terrible lives because they don't speak in terms of wish thinking or the power of positivity when accessing the team. Fanatical vs fan.

 

Aircool, getting shat on because he isn't marching with the herd of optimistic viewpoints, exemplifies what this board targets.

Since when and who says our prospect pool is great? Is great the new average? You'd have to be an incredibly biased fan of the team to make any rational connection to that; it's an insult to the Hockey world. Yet, he is informed that he must be some kind of social puck up for having an opinion as such. Seems a bit like a self-interest group in here.

 

 

 

 

 

No one ever said life was gonna be fair.

[JM_]

On September 15, 2016 at 11:40 PM, PrinceGeorgeGoon said:

Personally I think there is alot of plagiarism and plain ole faking it. Now if the Canucks finish dead last I lose nothing and it doesn't matter. They won't. 

 

It seems to me, "writers"  copy sportscasters, follow social media, message boards, and other reputable writers. There are rumors, articles based on conjecture and rankings with 0 data.

 

 

I'm quite certain that I've seen some Fansided article ideas that we taken right from CDC and HF Board. I kid you not. 

[Dazzle]

1 hour ago, Honky Cat said:

It's kinda debatable for some of them. I don't see Carolina having a really good prospect pool, compared to, let's say, Calgary. Calgary has always been pretty good with drafting/developing. Columbus has taken a long time to get to where it is and there were MANY bad/flubbed picks.

 

False ^^...Calgarys drafting and development from 2004-10 is almost on par with Gillis' drafting.

   

 

Not really. The list of players here may not be 'sexy', but they outnumber our draft/development successes by far.

Some of these players are still playing in the NHL.

 

2004 - 3rd round: Brandon Prust

2004 - 3rd round: Dustin Boyd

2004 - 6th round: Adam Pardy

2004 - 9th round: Adam Cracknell

 

2005 - none notable

 

2006 - Leland Irving - still on the flames team as a goalie - first round pick

 

2007 - Mikael Backlund

2007 - Keith Aulie

 

2008 - Lance Bouma

2008 - T.J. Brodie

 

2009 - Joni Ortio (the other Calgary roster goalie)

 

2010 - Micheal Ferland

 

 

Look through our years of drafting - who do we have that's still in the NHL? Calgary has drafted TWO goalies that are still on their roster. They have a good player in Backlund and Lance Bouma is still on their team. Michael Ferland singlehandedly wrecked the Canucks in the playoffs. In 2011, they were very productive, landing Baertschi, Granlund and Gaudreau. The first two are on our team now.

 

I'd say they are in much, much better shape than us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dazzle]

52 minutes ago, 189lb enforcers? said:

Has this site become like an internet North Korea of hockey forums, where one can only post endless praise and worship of the Canucks for fear of the wrath of the *real fans?

 

The culture here sees posters posting that the "cynical" posters must have terrible lives because they don't speak in terms of wish thinking or the power of positivity when accessing the team. Fanatical vs fan.

 

Aircool, getting shat on because he isn't marching with the herd of optimistic viewpoints, exemplifies what this board targets.

Since when and who says our prospect pool is great? Is great the new average? You'd have to be an incredibly biased fan of the team to make any rational connection to that; it's an insult to the Hockey world. Yet, he is informed that he must be some kind of social puck up for having an opinion as such. Seems a bit like a self-interest group in here.

 

 

 

 

 

Who are you? Are you a dupe?

 

Randomly picking this thread and picking a poster to defend? LOL.

[Jam126]

2 hours ago, Honky Cat said:

 

Carolina Hurricanes     0 playoff appearances in 10 years

 

 

Carolina made the playoffs in 2009.

[Dazzle]

2 hours ago, Aircool said:

Well skating is a requisite in the NHL nowadays, for sure. So I don't give him credit for being "mobile for his size". Jared Cowen is proof, if you can't skate you are gone. Defenseman do take longer to develop, but Gudbranson isn't going to develop much of anything offensively, which is usually where they develop more so. Of course there are things you need to learn and will learn about playing defense, and he may well improve in that regard, but I'm just saying he's overrated, not useless. I think his ceiling is a 2nd pairing defenseman, I don't know if he's there yet.

 

Look up his analytics if you care, all I'm going to do is google them myself. 

 

Adam Larsson is significantly younger and brings some offensive skillset, while he's probably not ever going to be elite offensively, he may well settle into being a 40 point defenseman, Gudbranson will not ever be that, that's certain. While that trade was certainly atrocious, Larsson is definitely the better of the two players. That's just a horrible trade, not fair value. I think we overpaid in picks for Gudbranson, but it's a lot closer to fair value. I wanted McCann to get traded, and even called in January/February that he would, but I just don't like this particular return. I don't think we need middle of the pack defenseman, we have enough of those. We need better than that, and while McCann wasn't going to return that. I don't like us being put in worse draft positions to be less capable of therefore picking such a defenseman, by bringing in a player that will outperform McCann in the next couple years, and simultaneously giving up picks to do it, where we can further acquire value at least. We shouldn't be making the high floor decisions with our future, but the high ceiling ones.

 

I never said we have no prospects, I did say that there are more prospect pools better than ours than there are those that are worse. IE we are average at best. I like Juolevi, Demko, Boeser... And then we have some wildcards in Zhukenov, Olson, Brisebois. That's really about it for now, we'll see how others develop. I like Benning's ability to scout, we just need a lot more young talent coming through, so that we may use some as trade assets to move up in drafts, and acquire the right mix of players we need.

 

I don't think we were all that unlucky last year with injuries, in fact we were probably lucky. Brandon Sutter wasn't lucky, he personally got screwed over. But basically Edler and Sutter got injured all year, that's really not bad. Sure Henrik was playing banged up, but was Henirk our problem? No. That's a pretty typical year for injuries, so expect the same. Remember all the years Kesler and Burrows would get injured... Like our team was better, so it finished better despite those key injuries, now it's worse so it'll finish worse. Injuries happen. It's not like all the cup contending teams will finish bottom-5 if they suffer a couple injuries, they'll be just fine.

 

In today's NHL, you don't accidently win cups, that's been shown. I know you are smart enough to know that. This team won't win a cup for the next 5 years guaranteed, and if we keep on going down this path, I'd guarantee at least 15 years of no cup. Not that my guarantee means much, but I'm that confident that we are going down the wrong path.

 

Oh yeah, I also like Virtanen, we just need to figure out if he is smart enough to play at the NHL level. His junior success might have killed his career in a way, but it's WAY too early to be making any statements like that right now.

So if you're so sure that Gudbranson isn't going to produce, what makes you think Larsson will score as much as you say he will?

Look at his stats:

 

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=118565

 

(Due to formatting issues, I can't post the chart.)

 

Larsson has shown NOTHING so far that he can produce 40 pts. That's twice as many points as he's had in his career (3 seasons of around 20 pts). If you think Larsson can score that many, surely your logic would extend to the idea that Gudbranson could score 20 pts, which is twice as many as he's had in his career.

 

Furthermore, why do you act as if Gudbranson is 30 years old?

 

Larsson's birthday: Nov 12 1992

Gudbranson's birthday: Jan 7 1992

 

10 months and he's "significantly" younger. LOL. This is me when I see the ridiculousness of your post.

 

 

and then I go like this:

 

 

 

And holy hell, what did you mean by this statement?

 

Quote

 

I don't think we were all that unlucky last year with injuries, in fact we were probably lucky.

 

You need to get some Prozzak.

[Honky Cat]

59 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

Not really. The list of players here may not be 'sexy', but they outnumber our draft/development successes by far.

Some of these players are still playing in the NHL.

 

2004 - 3rd round: Brandon Prust

2004 - 3rd round: Dustin Boyd

2004 - 6th round: Adam Pardy

2004 - 9th round: Adam Cracknell

 

2005 - none notable

 

2006 - Leland Irving - still on the flames team as a goalie - first round pick

 

2007 - Mikael Backlund

2007 - Keith Aulie

 

2008 - Lance Bouma

2008 - T.J. Brodie

 

2009 - Joni Ortio (the other Calgary roster goalie)

 

2010 - Micheal Ferland

 

 

Look through our years of drafting - who do we have that's still in the NHL? Calgary has drafted TWO goalies that are still on their roster. They have a good player in Backlund and Lance Bouma is still on their team. Michael Ferland singlehandedly wrecked the Canucks in the playoffs. In 2011, they were very productive, landing Baertschi, Granlund and Gaudreau. The first two are on our team now.

 

I'd say they are in much, much better shape than us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Irving is not still on the Flames..he played for Iowa of the AHL,and the KHL the year before that...He was a 1st round bust..along with Chucko,Pelech,Nemisz and Erixon..who were all also 1st round busts..2004-10

 

Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson are the starting goalies for Calgary this season..Ortio will be in the minors

 

The Flames prospect pool was poor up until the last 4-5 years...which explains why they've been in the cellar for the better part of 8 years..Bouma,Brodie,Backlund,Ferland are solid players,but saying that Calgarys drafting was good 2004-10 is a stretch.

 

I wasn't comparing Calgarys prospect pool with ours,but they've sucked for best part of the last decade,and had higher picks than us........It doesn't take rocket science.

 

 

[Honky Cat]

1 hour ago, Jam126 said:

Carolina made the playoffs in 2009.

Sorry..my bad

 

1 playoff appearance in 10 years.

[Jam126]

2 minutes ago, Honky Cat said:

Sorry..my bad

 

1 playoff appearance in 10 years.

The weirdest part about that 1 appearance was they went all the way to the ECF.

[Dazzle]

1 minute ago, Honky Cat said:

Irving is not still on the Flames..he played for Iowa of the AHL,and the KHL the year before that...He was a 1st round bust..along with Chucko,Pelech,Nemisz and Erixon..who were all also 1st round busts..2004-10

 

Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson are the starting goalies for Calgary this season..Ortio will be in the minors

 

The Flames prospect pool was poor up until the last 4-5 years...which explains why they've been in the cellar for the better part of 8 years..Bouma,Brodie,Backlund,Ferland are solid players,but saying that Calgarys drafting was good 2004-10 is a stretch.

 

I wasn't comparing Calgarys prospect pool with ours,but they've sucked for best part of the last decade,and had higher picks than us........It doesn't take rocket science.

 

 

That's fair. I acknowledge that Irving, who did used to play for Calgary, is no longer in their plans. Ortio is a pretty good goalie though. He can be a solid backup at the minimum.

 

I go through that draft list and yes, there are a lot of bad ones.

[LaBamba]

@Aircool I tend to agree with 90% of what you post. However I wouldn't say our prospect pool is horrible. I would say it's more in the average range. We are deep in potential bottom 6 forwards, but not so deep in potential top line/ d-pairings. This could change through a players development, but that isn't exactly quantifiable. After Boeser and Juolevi, offence in the system is almost non existent. This is why I was so opposed to the Shinkurak and McCann trades. We need those skill guys brewing in Utica more than we need another stay at home defensemen or a 2 way C on scoring challenged team.