HOPE - Do you like the direction the Canucks are heading?

[Where's Wellwood]

4 hours ago, NUCKER67 said:

What direction are they heading these days? I don't think anyone really knows. Will Benning be re-signed? I hope so. Will the Sedins retire at the end of the season? I hope so. Will they trade Gudbranson and Vanek? I hope not. Will they get an upgrade in goal? I hope so.

 

If Benning isn't re-signed then who knows where this team will be heading. New GM could come in and trade all our prospects for immediate help. I hope not.

 

The upgrade in goal is Demko. He's coming along. We don't need to sign anybody.

[IBatch]

15 minutes ago, CeeBee51 said:

they actually traded for him and it wasn't cheap.

Sportsnet Staff@SportsnetJune 23, 2017, 10:04 PM

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The St. Louis Blues have traded forward Ryan Reaves, and a second-round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for pick No. 31 and forward Oskar Sundqvist.

Even Pedan is part of PIT plans to toughen up and not take any #$& from rats come playoffs.   Wasn't cheap though...

[CeeBee51]

Just now, IBatch said:

Even Pedan is part of PIT plans to toughen up and not take any #$& from rats come playoffs.   Wasn't cheap though...

Won't do them much good if they miss the playoffs tho.

[Hamhuis2]

Glad to know most people agree with my article (linked below)

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/diondorazio/5-reasons-why-the-vancouver-canucks-are-not-as-bad-3b2ev?utm_term=.fvEnDNP96#.fn58OJNPl

 

Is there anything I missed? Anything you're hyped or concerned about that I may have overlooked?

 

This was not meant to be an anti/pro management post, just a simple sharing of my thoughts on the shape of the Canucks.

 

Thanks!

[kloubek]

51 minutes ago, Where's Wellwood said:

The upgrade in goal is Demko. He's coming along. We don't need to sign anybody.

Exactly.

 

I hope to God he works out, or that will completely hold this rebuild back.  Remember - Marky had even better stats in Utica, so as good of potential as Demko has, nothing is guaranteed.

[Nuxfanabroad]

Yeah..I've long sold hope for the 'Nucks; although I probably b*tch about every other issue, the world over.

 

It's a psychological form of explosive-imbalance..that being a need which one is deprived of, in youth, you spend the rest of your life obsessively trying to obtain. Explaining the zombie-like, trance state of my generation watching every Van game, yet afflicted with youth-flashbacks from the 70's & 80's..incurable, insatiable madness!

 

***The big DANGER(ultra-scary)***

 

What recent editions of the Coil, Wild, Avs, Isles, Cats(& likely a few others), have illustrated. Too early in resurgence, can create a yo yo fall-back, perhaps to a lower point than from where you started? The top youth you've rush to overpay(exiting ELC) now fall back from injuries & trajectory-expectations. Fans begin to turn on these 23-ish young darlings(with no character from ANY life-adversity), & your cap space is measured in thimbles.

 

You need a GRADUAL integration of youth, supplemented by character vets that'll show the ropes. Don't overpay instant success. Easier said, than done. Whoring agents & malicious media will all circle like vultures for their cut from a booming resource.

 

So hope?..Umm, yeah.

[IBatch]

1 hour ago, chilliwiggins said:

No  that was the model these guys were preaching  Boston was the model  even boston has changed according to the game

My point was that they believed that to be the future and failed to see the game actually changing right when 3 on 3 was brought in.

Many teams saw it. some didn't including Canucks.

They didn't anticipate the game change that's whats put us on an extended rebuild

Good grief if that is true than welcome to Keenan era 2.0 but instead of Messier we got L.E.

Saying that Linden and Benning are not aware of the last few years cup winners built on speed and skill, as apposed to the previous five years trending towards all about possession (LA and CHI poster boys for that era hello advanced advanced stats and a scourge of hirings as a result), I'm pretty sure every GM and hockey people are aware of this.

 

Just look at Bennings picks and it's hard to argue against he's not leaning heavily towards speed and skill instead of meat heads that can play too.  MT would have been our Marchand, instead he picked a Vlasic like defenseman, Pettersson, Boeser, Lind, Palmu....sure he's sprinkled in some Boston with his flyer on Tryamkin (which worked, bad on them for not getting him on board though), JV, and Jonah G., but they are in the minority..

 

With Pettersson shredding the record books with HHOFs Forsberg, Naslund and maybe the Sedins not playing as well at the same age, Lind making a statement that therr is nothing more for him to do in Juniors, Juolevi settled in and earning his props, Demko and Boeser both giving back huge to their clubs because they were developed the right way I really don't see the Boston 2011 anywhere on TL and Bennings strategies, and they definitely are paying attention to speed and skill. 

 

The NHL is fluid, teams try and copy the current champs constantly, right now speed and skill are the rage, in three years maybe it will be all about possession again or maybe a team like Nashville wins it and everyone will be looking for their four Karlssons plus a Rinne.  Or maybe a throw back like ANA cup team ( five frequent fighters) wins and the enforcer returns...who knows.

 

Maybe they considered it at the start, but they are building a young team highlighted with high end talent.  Soft for sure so far.

 

[coastal.view]

overall i say stay the course

 

but fans should not ignore significant misjudgment  that has occured

we have a nice prospect pool on offense.. the easiest area to rebuild

it appears management believed they did not need to build first, and with a degree of balance with the offense, a deeper crop of dmen

goaltending appears to be well taken care of in terms of depth

 

i wonder if they believed that with hutton, stetcher, tanev, later the gud acquisition, and the joulevi pick, that that need was looked after moving forward

unfortunately tanev has proven to be brittle, hutton appears to have regressed, stetcher has not improved much this season, gud, well he is soon to be an ufa and had played less then 1/2 the games here, and joulevi is a work in progress (still with good potential)

this has left the team with a questionable d corp and not much depth to push this group

and since d tend to take longer to develop it is a bit late in the rebuild to try to correct this problem in the upcoming draft since those players might not be ready to make a significant impact for 3 to 5 year

 

i'm curious to see how this problem is addressed by the team

[CeeBee51]

1 hour ago, kloubek said:

Exactly.

 

I hope to God he works out, or that will completely hold this rebuild back.  Remember - Marky had even better stats in Utica, so as good of potential as Demko has, nothing is guaranteed.

Marky was a lot older than Demko when he was in Utica, no?

[189lb enforcers?]

If most of the current top prospects make an impact in the NHL, the team will be fine.

If not, this might be a long, ugly rebuild. 

 

No worry, this year the Canucks are winning the lottery. Things look good. 

[189lb enforcers?]

3 hours ago, CeeBee51 said:

they actually traded for him and it wasn't cheap.

Sportsnet Staff@SportsnetJune 23, 2017, 10:04 PM

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The St. Louis Blues have traded forward Ryan Reaves, and a second-round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins for pick No. 31 and forward Oskar Sundqvist.

But nobody is taking liberties of the stars.

Maintenace move. 

[10pavelbure96]

6 hours ago, TheGuardian_ said:

Just another disguised pro Jim/Linden poll.

 

What direction? Followed up with a panic, "trade all the prospects for immediate help"

 

All this poll shows is that some fans are scared of change, that's all.

 

Obviously the only direction the team up, higher in the standings and it doesn't matter who is running this show. The only other question is or should be how long are you willing to wait for serious playoff games?

Scared of change??? We are rebuilding. There is a changing of the guard as we speak. If we were scared of change we would still have Luongo and Kesler lol 

[kingofsurrey]

What direction are the canucks travelling exactly....... ? 

 

From my perspective,,,, the canucks are heading towards the nearest golf course.   Saturday April 8th is the last reg season game....

 

 

Pretty sure Canucks have tee times booked for Sunday April 9th .   Good times...

 

I would prefer the club take a road less travelled ......  right to  the CUP>

[bobbyg43]

If they want millennial generation to anti up an invest themselves to this hockey club the do need to take a better tack on Marketing? This group is resilient to throwing money away in blind faith.(build it an they will come)

The game as well as management of the game has accelerated in its change, to be able to be relevant today ;you need complete all round   talent ,an to be able to discern trends ,improvise on fly an make good decisions more often than not.

I hope we are cutting edge ahead of the new curve an become more relevant in our division sooner than later for all our fans sakes.

[BowtieCanuck]

8 hours ago, TheGuardian_ said:

What makes you think that Linden/Benning won't sign any more Eriksson type contracts? Or sign more 32+ vets to 3 year 6 mil deals?

Any new GM will see that the team has/will have more prospects than they can possibly play and the longer prospects spend in the AHL, the lower their value in a trade.

 

The fact Boeser will have to be re-signed after next year is a good start.

[captainhorvat]

We are all canucks

[CanadianRugby]

I like some things and dislike others.  

 

Positives:

Our new scouting team Benning brought in have found a lot of good prospects beyond the first round.  Also, we've been terrible so have had a few high picks where we've done alright.  Couple of young guys on the team (Horvat, Boeser) are a good start of the future core that could be here for a long time.  Another high pick coming up, another draft where (maybe, finally) we might have a few extra picks this year.

 

Negatives:

Despite genuine best efforts to build a playoff team, it's been a disaster on the ice.  So far that's not been a problem, as high picks help in the long term the most.  Questionable contracts and trading away prospects/picks for more NHL ready players hasn't helped with results, which makes me question if Benning is good at anything other than drafting.  

[kloubek]

4 hours ago, CeeBee51 said:

Marky was a lot older than Demko when he was in Utica, no?

Was he?  I honestly don't know, nor do I care to do the math...

[RogersTowell]

Everything is going fairly close to what I thought it would so far this season.  The injuries piled up earlier than I thought and we're now a bit lower in the standings that I thought we'd be but that's OK.  We'll get a fairly high pick this time around.  I even have dreams of a top three pick, but whatever.  The lottery will be whatever the crooks in charge want it to be.  Pettersson and Boeser look like they might be the start of something really good.  Demko is developing nicely and there's hope he could develop into a #1.  Gaudette is coming along strongly for a fifth round pick and could be another core player in a couple of years.  Lind is another one to watch.  Juolevi is having a good year in Finland and might be ready to jump in to the NHL next year.  He has OHL experience on the small NA ice.

 

On the down side, Dahlen is buried in the second tier swedish league, although he's ripping it up nicely.  Gadjovich is doing OK, but not stellar imho.  Virtanen is showing signs of developing slowly but surely, but not what we'd expect given his draft position.  Gaunce finally showed a bit of offence last game, but will he do it consistently?  The Comets don't have a lot of Canucks draft picks making big contributions and we have a lot of what look like career AHLers on contract.  As fans, we get quite excited when we draft players, but history does not show a strong record for this franchise in developing prospects from within: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/teams/dr00008756.html - even now we have only one draft pick from the last three years on the roster.  In order to improve, imho, we'll need to see 2-4 of those draft picks ready to make the jump next season.  That will be, imho, the test for Benning's skills.  Sure he had a good draft year in 2014, but it's been three years since without a lot of contribution from those supposedly valuable draft picks.

 

I think in the long run we are bound to get better.  We've bottomed out the last couple of years, and this will likely be the last year we'll be in danger of bottom feeding.  If it isn't, then it's time to find a GM who can make something out of Benning's picks.  As for the playoffs, I think it might be the year after next.

 

[kloubek]

2 hours ago, CanadianRugby said:

Negatives:

Despite genuine best efforts to build a playoff team, it's been a disaster on the ice.  So far that's not been a problem, as high picks help in the long term the most.  Questionable contracts and trading away prospects/picks for more NHL ready players hasn't helped with results, which makes me question if Benning is good at anything other than drafting.  

Every GM makes mistakes - especially new ones.  And to be fair, Florida LOVED Guddy and I guess Benning has a crush of his own and let his feelings get the better of him.  The Eriksson acquisition I supported as it looked like a good idea to me for multiple reasons - though it hasn't exactly worked out.  (To be fair, Eriksson has improved) On the flip side, he made some good trades for Baertschi and Granlund as well, so overall I think he's doing at least OK. It does seem apparent that his eye for talent is his biggest strength though, and so far he has shown that to be far above average.

 

As for as genuine efforts to build a playoff team and I have to blame ownership.  They wanted to keep their window open for the cup far longer than they should have, and after that they wanted to put a competitive team on the ice.  That slowed our rebuild for about an additional two years, and resulted in getting not exactly ideal but still playoff-type players from very little as we had few worthy assets and almost zero prospects.

 

Again, I prefer to look forward than in the past, as obviously there were some collective gaffs from management and I think they've turned the page into the book of acceptance that they need to do what they need to do to make up a true playoff team again the RIGHT way. We have a very exciting prospect pool with some real potential there, and a couple of young guys on the roster right now that are a great base to work from.

 

Consider this: Before our awful run during the injuries, we were a pretty decent team.  Cusp playoff team, I would say - though just barely. We accomplished that with the players we have on the roster right now, minus Dorsett - who was admittedly having a great season.  Still, imagine what it will look like when we add all the up and coming talent.  We will almost certainly have an elite talent in Pettersson, and we have several of players who might not work out at all or actually have high end potential themselves as top six players. We also have a couple players who should be ideal 3rd and 4th line guys.  Basically, every line is going to get a dramatic improvement for the most part.  (I say most part because we will be losing players like the Sedins - who might be a defensive liability but are still putting up points)  Anyway, add those guys and we'd be a playoff team then right?  That's going to happen.  It's already set up.

 

Now, imagine that with a defense that can actually score at least at an AVERAGE NHL rate.  I have to think Benning's focus will be our D now, and we already have Juolevi on the way. (Though I feel the jury is still out as to what level of pairing he will be)  Still, if that is his primary focus you have to think Benning can get it done.  And if he does, you have a contender right there.  A favourite?  Not yet.  To have that we'd need a better goalie, and conveniently there is a strong chance we have one coming in Demko.

 

I think our future primarily rests in Demko being a good goalie, as well as Benning coming up with a scoring and defensively responsible D corps. If he can do that, I'm not worried.