If I only had a brain...(player?)

[Arrow 1983]

8 hours ago, bigbadcanucks said:

Sounds to me as if the "what if" questions about Linden and Bure are things you have conjured up in your own mind.  I don't recall the "what if" conversation about either Linden or Bure, and I was heavily vested in the Canucks as a season ticket holder and part of a corporate sponsor group during the Linden/Bure era (company I worked for had the scoreboard advertising rights).

 

Trevor Linden drove the play while he was on the ice, and brought with him immeasurable intangibles.  He was never going to be a 50-goal scorer or a superstar regardless of who he played with because he was an all-around player who was as defensively responsible as he was opportunistic offensively.

 

Pavel Bure was a play driver who scored 254 goals while in a Canucks jersey and the question being asked was how many could he have had if he were healthy 1995 to 1997 and didn't have deal with work stoppage in 1995-96, not what could have he done if he had a better centerman.  Bure played with Greg Adams, Russ Courtnall, Murray Craven and Mike Ridley as his centers most of the time.  Bure was a playmaker who finished most of his own plays, so he didn't rely on a centerman to feed him for one timers/tap ins. 

 

But I'll play along with our game and say that Lonny Bohonos, a Winnipegger, with the right playmaking centerman could have been a superstar for the Canucks. 

That's not true, I remember a time when people where calling for a player that could keep up with Bure That's why they brought in Alex Mogilny.

I don't know if it was a what if situation but there was talk of getting Bure a line mate of his caliber 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Arrow 1983

[alt kilgore]

28 minutes ago, Arrow 1983 said:

That's not true, I remember a time when people where calling for a player that could keep up with Bure That's why they brought in Alex Mogilny.

I don't know if it was a what if situation but there was talk of getting Bure a line mate of his caliber 

That true.  But it ended up with Mogilny playing primarily with Ronning and Gelinas.   Mogilny's play after Ronning was inexplicably not re-signed, took a dip.  Every GM makes some dumb decisions. 

[Arrow 1983]

1 hour ago, kilgore said:

That true.  But it ended up with Mogilny playing primarily with Ronning and Gelinas.   Mogilny's play after Ronning was inexplicably not re-signed, took a dip.  Every GM makes some dumb decisions. 

That's because Bure got injured 

[Arrow 1983]

1 hour ago, kilgore said:

That true.  But it ended up with Mogilny playing primarily with Ronning and Gelinas.   Mogilny's play after Ronning was inexplicably not re-signed, took a dip.  Every GM makes some dumb decisions. 

96-97 was the only year they played must the season together 

 

95-96 Bure got injured 

 

97-98 Mogilny got injured 

 

I remember it like yesterday i was so mad that Bure got injured these 2 super stars where on the Canucks and then everything went wrong

[aGENT]

2 hours ago, Tom Sestito said:

Sure, I totally agree it’s subjective. I don’t think that changes the necessity of being aggressive.

 

We have a two year window here before JT/Bo are UFA’s. Both will require significant pay raises. 

 

Either you are aggressive to improve into a top team (not just one that squeaks in because of a bad division with no real chance of winning multiple rounds) or you take a step back here and don’t sacrifice the future to make win now moves. 

 

I don’t like what the team is were we to maintain status quo or close to it.

Neither Hughes or Pettersson are even in their primes. The only young, core players even legit ready to 'contend' are Horvat and Boeser. And Boeser really only this year.

 

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

Never mind that the 'status quo' isn't really the status quo after this season of 'everything that could go wrong...'.

 

We'll keep on building, progressing, adding youth and getting better.

[alt kilgore]

2 minutes ago, Arrow 1983 said:

That's because Bure got injured 

Not sure what you mean. Bure wasn't injured for the whole of Mogilny's run here.  For the most part, Bure played with Linden, and Adams, later Russ Courtnell.  Mogilny was kept with Ronning because it worked, the creative little waterbug who could always find a way to feed him a shot. And with Gelinas they let Alex do his thing.  Mogilny talked about how he missed Cliffy.

[alt kilgore]

14 minutes ago, Arrow 1983 said:

96-97 was the only year they played must the season together 

 

95-96 Bure got injured 

 

97-98 Mogilny got injured 

 

I remember it like yesterday i was so mad that Bure got injured these 2 super stars where on the Canucks and then everything went wrong

Good point about injuries. 

I was just posting how it ended up working out.

[IBatch]

17 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

There was a huge backlash when Quinn didn't re-sign Larionov because of the payment needed to be made to the Russian Sports Agency.  That was a huge "what if".  If Larionov had been re-signed Bure would have had his full time centre for the next several years and things would have been vastly different.  Murray Craven was no Larionov.  And Adams and Courtnall played wing not centre.  If Larionov had still been around after that first year I think the Canucks win the Stanley Cup in 1994.  He was the missing link up front on that team.  

 

Larionov went to San Jose and turned that team around with Sergei Makarov.  He then went to Detroit where he joined the other Russians on the team and helped them win 3 Stanley Cups.  Larionov was a massive loss to Vancouver, especially when we didn't have a true centre on the team to play with Bure.

Wow.   Well done you know that history very well.   Makarov was so good he coached his own line - didn't matter what the coach did (Crisp i think it was) on the board he'd come up and say - "NO no no no - you do all wrong ", take the chalk/marker and re-do it his way and explain why.    Eventually he made a line around those two and they practiced  by themselves on the other side of the ice.   KLM line was just that good, even in their early 30's and only with 2/3 of it, they helped make SJ relevant ... also played spoilers a couple times in the post season.   DET did well with Larionov too...FAB 5...nothing has come close to the first wave of Russians that came in.    KLM  BFM we're too crazy good lines. 

[IBatch]

9 hours ago, kilgore said:

Not sure what you mean. Bure wasn't injured for the whole of Mogilny's run here.  For the most part, Bure played with Linden, and Adams, later Russ Courtnell.  Mogilny was kept with Ronning because it worked, the creative little waterbug who could always find a way to feed him a shot. And with Gelinas they let Alex do his thing.  Mogilny talked about how he missed Cliffy.

Didn't have both healthy together very often though.   One year together when it could have been 10 really.   Trading for Mogilny was one of the happiest days as a fan, Luongo the other.    In hindsight we'd have been better off keeping Ronning and Peca for the WCE era team.