[PGT] Maple Leafs @ Canucks

[VegasCanuck]

On a happy note, I'll be at the Game in FL on Saturday the 10th, so Hi from there!

 

[alfstonker]

19 hours ago, Boudrias said:

Cannot really follow your argument. Gillis took his team to the CUP finals and tried again the following year with less success. No one seems to mention Dave Nonis who succeeded Burkie but did a poorer job. Under Gillis the Twins matured into team leaders and set the tone for how the Canucks would play for over ten years. #2 & #3 overall picks.

 

Not sure if you are suggesting the quality of the TO prospects is superior to Van or on parity. TO has far higher picks in their pool and have a far deeper pool than Van IMO. I agree that Benning started with almost nothing. What he has assembled on the back end is nothing short of miraculous. Van's d-core is superior to TO's and is younger. Up front TO has a young group that is far ahead of Vancouver. I see nothing in Van that comes close. I have wanted a rebuild in Van for 4 years now and contrary to what Linden and Benning say publicly it is happening and has been since they took over. Van fans are so schizoid they don't no how to deal with such an effort. They usually pick one player a week to dump on and writeoff. The current flavor is Eric Gudbranson. Laughable.

 

It is one thing to build a winning team in the NHL and a another to build a serious CUP contending team. From what I see today Benning has goal tending and d-core in place. His challenge now is the forward group. The expectation that he can repeat with the forward group the same way he has with the d-core is a stretch. Odds are against him. As a bonafide 'tanking whiner' I would suggest that offence is the biggest challenge in the NHL today. Van does not have a deep prospect pool nor an elite one. TO does. Usually survival of the fittest kicks in and teams end up their seasons where there talent sends them. I thought at the begining  of the season that Van would draft top 5. While I expected the goal tending to be solid the d-core has surprised me with how well they are doing. To an extent the offense has also out performed. The #1 line is OK and Horvat is carrying the #2 line. I can be happy with a development year but unfortunately I see no young forwards other than Horvat knocking on the door of being a serious top 6 forward.

 

So yeh I want a top draft pick because the odds are better that the team gets a player that can galvanize a forward group. You can talk all you want about 2nd, 3rd and even 4th round picks but the odds are against those players making a dif. Canucks have an exceptional GM and I am sure he will snag 1 or 2. Best of both worlds is that he gets to work at the top end of the draft as well.

 

   

 

Please, don't be silly, go and look at the roster Gillis inherited. How can we have a sensible discussion when you make "other world" comparisons like that?

 

After that you seem to have settled down to a more reasoned opinion, one with which mostly I agree. 

 

Sadly at the end you deteriorate into what amounts to the same old tanking whine.

You then contradict reality by saying 2nd 3rd and 4th round picks are not likely to make a difference (what is your basis for that)  if you look at Boston's SC team it is obviously not true. Bergeron, Boychuck, Campbell, Chara, Ference, Kaberle. Krejci, Lucic, Marchand, Recci, Savard, Seidenberg were all picked outside the 1st round - did they make a difference? 

 

Even LA only had 2 players in the top 3, one of them was acquired and the other was a defender.

Patience.

 

[NotMasonRaymond]

Thanks for giving the Leafs 3 out of 4 points for the season. See you next year...hopefully the Cansucks can finally win at ACC...haven't won there since 2011. Yeesh. You guys suck.

 

#riot

[spook007]

2 minutes ago, NotMasonRaymond said:

Thanks for giving the Leafs 3 out of 4 points for the season. See you next year...hopefully the Cansucks can finally win at ACC...haven't won there since 2011. Yeesh. You guys suck.

 

#riot

4 years old

 

[Katobaron]

1 hour ago, NotMasonRaymond said:

Thanks for giving the Leafs 3 out of 4 points for the season. See you next year...hopefully the Cansucks can finally win at ACC...haven't won there since 2011. Yeesh. You guys suck.

 

#riot

Yep. Those out of conference points lost to another rebuilding team are really gonna come back to bite us.