1 Step Back, 2 Steps Forward?

[MrCanuck94]

Hey all,

 

I see the general consensus online is that we will be a worse off team than last year and it is an understandable take, but, are we actually?

 

A look at our depth chart:

 

 

Looking at our main losses:

 

Markstrom - sure this season may be a slight loss but I do not directly correlate his value with Holtby. The ability to give Demko more reign is where the value lies to help him become a true #1.

Toffoli - Having Toffoli would've put us over the top no doubt, however, his loss technically does not put us in a negative compared to last season. Reason being, Toffoli and Boeser only played at the same time for a handful of games, most of them neither being at 100%. This loss keeps us at status quo of having one true top 6 RW from last season.

Tanev - Tanev was a warrior, but let's not forget how injured he was the past decade and how often we were looking to get rid of him. Sometimes it is better to move on. Schmidt is a HUGE upgrade on him.

Leivo, Stecher and Fantenberg were smaller pieces that can easily be replaced by youth and depth signings.

 

Looking at the losses and possible replacement as a whole:

 

Markstrom - Holtby = Slight loss but potential for higher gain with Demko becoming a true starter and not having the weight of that contract.

Toffoli - Virtanen = Jake might not be able to put up consistent efforts, but he is near a lock for at least 20/20 a season and he's been growing each season. As mentioned, this is more of a status quo move than anything. Let's not forget that Podkolzin should also be here by March/April and that will be a huge upgrade to our RW depth moving forward.

Leivo - ? = I see Macewen as his direct replacement depth wise, in fact, I would say Macewen is an upgrade. We played most of the season without him, don't think he affects us much although he would've been a solid depth middle six piece. We also have Hoglander, Podkolzin and Hawerlyuk as further depth for this option.

Tanev - Schmidt = Huge upgrade.

Fantenberg - Juolevi = I see this as a huge upgrade. Juolevi's transition game is very good and he has very high hockey IQ while being groomed to play high minutes and PK minutes. Could be a solid replacement on PK2. Of course, a lot of this relies on his health and how well he transitions to the big league.

Stecher - ? Is Rafferty or Chatfield a huge downgrade or will they hold their own? Perhaps we free cap to sign Hamonic who would be a defensive upgrade.

 

We have a lot of young depth that are ready to compete for spots or be call ups this season with Bailey, Hoglander, Michaelis, Lockwood, Juolevi, Rathbone, Rafferty, Brisebois, Chatfield, Podkozlin.

 

I do not believe we will be in as bad as position as many have us at. Rather, we may be taking a slight step back for major steps forward.

 

Thoughts?

[Phil_314]

The only losses I could see would be in net (if Demko's not ready and Holtby's too old, which I don't believe happens) and Jake and MacEwen don't prove to be top-6 and top-9 ready respectively.  Given how they believed in Zack and he showed a good shot, physicality and hustle I think he'd already be a good 3rd line RW (penciled him in for my play-in lineup).  It's Jake that I'm still not sure of, seeing how he went from 36 to 69 games to famously being scratched and called out during play-in scrimmages.  If he steps back and Ferland's a no-go we could take a step back depending on who's available to sign.

The 2 steps forward I agree with though.  Even if Jake doesn't prove he's ready, Pods (as long as he finds his form in the KHL) could be the 2nd line RW savior that the team's anticipating.  Til then we just gotta take the bumps.   

[MrCanuck94]

Michaelis and Lockwood seemed to be forgotten in conversation. Sure there's a chance that they do not amount to NHL players, but vice versa they could make impacts in the bottom 6 sooner rather than later as well.

 

I fully expect Macewen, Juolevi and Hawryluk to be locks for the team this season.

[JeremyCuddles]

It all comes down to what can Holtby and Demko do. I am a broken record. Our team defense was atrocious. Not even sure adding a Pietrangelo could have fixed that. Seems like a coaching issue. I am hoping they learned from the Vegas series what happens when you can't out skate your opponent. The thing that really put us over the top. Was Marky during the regular season and parts of the playoffs standing on his head. And Demko was the only thing that kept Vegas from blowing us out those final few games.

 

So we are gonna need our goalies to stand on their lids and/or hope our coaching staff makes better adjustments to how our team plays defense. I admit Schmidt is an upgrade on Tanev, but it won't completely change us from being a bottom of the league team in terms of shots against to the top 10. That's a systems adjustment that needs to be made.

[King Heffy]

I agree overall.  At some point, the young talent we have amassed needs to get a shot.  If Jake can't manage a top six role, he's got hungry young players breathing down his neck.

[MrCanuck94]

1 minute ago, N7Nucks said:

It all comes down to what can Holtby and Demko do. I am a broken record. Our team defense was atrocious. Not even sure adding a Pietrangelo could have fixed that. Seems like a coaching issue. I am hoping they learned from the Vegas series what happens when you can't out skate your opponent. The thing that really put us over the top. Was Marky during the regular season and parts of the playoffs standing on his head. And Demko was the only thing that kept Vegas from blowing us out those final few games.

 

So we are gonna need our goalies to stand on their lids and/or hope our coaching staff makes better adjustments to how our team plays defense. I admit Schmidt is an upgrade on Tanev, but it won't completely change us from being a bottom of the league team in terms of shots against to the top 10. That's a systems adjustment that needs to be made.

We definitely were atrocious much of the time however starting defence lineup is only 6 players and adding Schmidt and Juolevi is changing 33% of our defence moving forward. It is a good start and our transition game should improve greatly next season.

[JeremyCuddles]

3 minutes ago, MrCanuck94 said:

We definitely were atrocious much of the time however starting defence lineup is only 6 players and adding Schmidt and Juolevi is changing 33% of our defence moving forward. It is a good start and our transition game should improve greatly next season.

We'll see if those changes amount to anything. I already mentioned how poor Tanev was at puck retrieval in the thread about him signing with Calgary. So if Schmidt can actually skate and take puck from player that's a big upgrade. But again, the defensive system was largely passive. Unless we are gonna say the entire team was just lazy and never wanted to chase down pucks. Setting up camp in the slot and saying "get hit or hope the goalie makes an insane save" is a defensive style that got exposed hard against Vegas. Even St Louis gave us the business but we had enough speed to break through their defenses. And Binnington was a sieve. 

[-DLC-]

Marky stole a lot of games that we had no business being in....goaltending is HUGE.

 

With that, some of our young guys have gained a bit of experience and as long as we can score (we'd experienced droughts at times) we'll be ok.

 

Confidence and momentum are huge in sports...so it's really an unknown.  Sky's the limit.

[Coconuts]

I think the whole taking a step back bit is a tad overblown. And even if we do, we're likely not the only team doing so in a stagnant cap world. Us taking a step back would likely be mitigated in part by other western teams also taking steps back. We're not the only team that's had to make tough decisions. 

 

We're also not coming back with the exact same team. There's no reason Horvat, Boeser, Petey, Hughes, and Demko shouldn't be able to build on last year's performances. We'll go as far as our youth and supporting cast will take us. 

 

Marky's been great for the last 1.5-2 years, no question. But it's not as if Holtby shouldn't still have gas in the tank at 31, and I'm confident Ian Clark can help him bounce back. Dude has cup, Vezina, and a Jennings. Much better pedigree than Marky, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to be a quality netminder next season and you've got to expect he's determined to prove just that. Demko should also improve. I really feel Holtby will surprise some people, in a good way. I was really hoping we'd sign him to platoon with Demko. A lot of our success, or lack thereof, will come down to goaltending and which system/systems we play in front of them. 

 

Tanev and Schmidt are a wash, with Schmidt being a clear upgrade. The Toffoli bit is honestly overblown, if Boeser hadn't gone down with injury there's a good chance we would never have acquired him. We were scoring before Toffoli, and he was only with us for a short amount of time. Did he factor into our making the playoffs? Sure, but small amount of time all the same.

 

I like Fanta, but Juolevi looks stable and has higher pedigree. I think people will be pleasantly surprised by his game if their expectations aren't unrealistic for a rookie D. 

 

Jake's a wildcard, but Podz and Hoglander aren't likely too far out. Gaudette could surprise as a winger. Lind and Lockwood are guys to keep an eye on too. 

 

I wanted to keep Leivo, but he's not irreplaceable. Neither is Stecher. 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Coconuts

[Zhukini]

I'll be wild surprised if we don't take a step back this year. We have 4 top 6 forwards, 2 maybe 3 really good dmen, and are putting a lot of pressure on Holtby to bounce back and Demko to show up. 

 

2021- onwards is where gigantic steps forward should be expected even though it should have been this season. 

[Jetliner]

we would have been a bottom 5 team if not for marky last year. consistently getting 35 plus shots against.

 

i don't see our defense being as good or better than last year. 

 

assuming Holtby is average, like he was in washington last year, we will be a worse team than last year. 

 

 

[KirkSave]

With the roster we currently have on paper, I expect this team to make the playoffs, whenever next season occurs and as we know, once you're in, it's more than possible to go on a run and make some noise.

 

In order to make the playoffs, a lot of things will need to go in our favour:

 

-Holtby regains his old form and Demko continues to progress his game and takes on more starts

- defense stays healthy and young prospects like Juolevi and Rafferty settle into the NHL game and become effective, trusted d-men

- young stars continue to lead the team and drive the bus even with heightened expectations from without and within and more attention from oppossition

-Our PP continues to light up other teams, helping us steal games and put teams away

-*Green loosens his leash on Virt, who comes in to next season in the best shape of his career, gains confidence and becomes a 25-30 goal scorer in our top 6

 

*This is my ultimate hope for Jake and no, I have not shot-gunned prior to this post.

 

The present and the future of this club looks bright! I am excited to watch the boys in blue get back on the ice and upset Calgray in the 1st round

[Angry Goose]

 I like gamble.  It's a shortened season and who knows with covid what will happen to that.  Canucks could certainly take a step back with a bunch of rookies learning on the job but who cares-i think it could be really fun

[IBatch]

For the net gains and losses are a wash on paper, the team hasn’t gotten better, but it also isn’t worse either, about the same, maybe a baby step forward.   He took two steps back then leaped just ahead of where we were ha ha. 

 

Schmidt for sure is an upgrade, and Holtby a downgrade, albeit that’s a fickle position and hard to really gauge.   I agree we could for sure make the playoffs and have another great run - BUT and this is the but - like last year a lot of things have to go right.   Where the two steps or progress was made for sure is not getting mired down in another 10.5 million dollars of contracts paid to 30 plus players for the next 4-6 years, and that’s hard to say given I really like both Markstrom and Tanev, JB did well to stick to what would work for the team, and not budge from there.    I’d call it more clearing trail ahead then anything, and really happy he did it. 
 

On that note all of this will be for nothing if JB makes a bad trade to make a bad signing just to compete this year.   By that I mean prematurely clearing cap for the cost of futures.   Nothing he has said or done these past few months suggests he will.   I’d be shocked at this point if he does say blow the farm to move LE and sign Hoffman.   Aside from a minor tweak here or there to get cap compliant and to have someone other then Myers or Schmidt to expose at the ED (at this point it’s one or the other, nobody else is signed long enough but them and played the minimum NHL games) I truly hope he’s done.    
 

Hard to say for sure but so far a very successful off-season.   Holtby was the correct target of those available and it’s for sure a good contract for the team, and of course Schmidt was a home run of sorts.    That’s what you can do if you have the cap space.   Hope he keeps that huge chunk of change in his back pocket for the following two seasons as other opportunities will be available.   

[VegasCanuck]

I think we're close to even to last year. Our young players will be that much more experienced and stronger. Its going to be a weird year, I think we'll be okay, there's a lot of teams struggling to keep everything together.

[erkayloomeh]

While I liked Tanev I think people underestimate the impact of his lack of offensive ability given he's a top pairing guy.  I expect someone in the top 4 and making upwards of 4 to have somewhat of an offensive game. 

If Schmidt is truely a top 2 guy then we have certainly filled a big hole on D. And finally have a true top 2. 

This is a year where we are waiting for some contracts to be up and where we need to give some prospects a chance.

Our forwards are really starting to gel and are going to be going into the year with alot more confidence. 

The year after this one is going to be a big year. Pods and hogs should arrive and some unwanted contracts will be gone freeing up cash and even further development of the youngsters. 

Next season is going to be a real exciting time for us leading up to the season. 

 

 

[Slegr]

It’ll be interesting to see if there even is a season this year to be able to compare at all. 
I sure miss hockey in October.

[Googlie]

26 minutes ago, Slegr said:

It’ll be interesting to see if there even is a season this year to be able to compare at all. 
I sure miss hockey in October.

And now the AHL has pushed back to Feb 5. - wonder if the NHL is the driver of this, or the follower?

 

Full release from the AHL:

American Hockey League President and CEO Scott Howson has announced that the league’s Board of Governors has approved moving the anticipated start date of the 2020-21 season to February 5, 2021, due to the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis.

The AHL continues to work with its member clubs to monitor developments and local guidelines in all 31 league cities. Further details regarding the 2020-21 American Hockey League season are still to be determined.

[lmm]

2 hours ago, Phil_314 said:

The only losses I could see would be in net (if Demko's not ready and Holtby's too old, which I don't believe happens) and Jake and MacEwen don't prove to be top-6 and top-9 ready respectively.  Given how they believed in Zack and he showed a good shot, physicality and hustle I think he'd already be a good 3rd line RW (penciled him in for my play-in lineup).  It's Jake that I'm still not sure of, seeing how he went from 36 to 69 games to famously being scratched and called out during play-in scrimmages.  If he steps back and Ferland's a no-go we could take a step back depending on who's available to sign.

The 2 steps forward I agree with though.  Even if Jake doesn't prove he's ready, Pods (as long as he finds his form in the KHL) could be the 2nd line RW savior that the team's anticipating.  Til then we just gotta take the bumps.   

Holtby is 137 days older than Markstrom

are you expecting Marky to fall off a cliff at midseaon?

[10pavelbure96]

This season will be a very condensed schedule, we also lost our 3rd string goalie in Domingue, which doesnt seem like much,  but an injury to Demko or Holtby and who gets bumped up?

 

I dont think DiPietro is ready for the big league yet and its best for him to get steady starts with the comets. 

 

We need a veteran AHL goalie/backup