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Rutherford Press Conference on Dec. 13, 2021.

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JamesB

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1 hour ago, Chip Kelly said:

As much as I like Miller I agree. He is your best trade chip.

 

Productive versatile forward with center and wing capabilities. Good size and surprising speed for a big body too.

I agree about Miller, would have to think Boston is in win now mode with Bergeron a pending UFA etc. JT Miller would fit with them well in my opinion.

 

Could JT Miller and Hamonic/Poolman for Carlo, Frederic, Debrusk and a 1st or 2nd round pick work? We could flip Debrusk to a team for a 2nd round pick and maybe a mid to late rounder as well?

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2 hours ago, Rindiculous said:

I don't like the term sellers.  Honestly, at this point I feel at least until this offseason we should be staying the course.  We've got a more complete team on paper than almost any other in the NHL.  We don't have the worldbeaters like the Edmonton's, Toronto's, and the Tampa's of the world.  I think our team could be modeled after Carolina, tons of good depth throughout with good coaching.  We don't quite have the depth of Carolina, but right now selling off some of our current team will be useless to making us better.  We've got one of the youngest cores.  The only older players on our team are fringe players that have no value to sell off like Travis Hamonic, Brandon Sutter, Luke Schenn, Tyler Myers (maybe he has some value, but he probably has more value to us than we could ever get in a trade).  OEL isn't going anywhere nor should he, he's key for our left side right now.  The next oldest guys are Tanner Pearson, JT Miller, Bo Horvat.  None of these guys are old (28 and younger), most likely to be in their primes for the next 5+ years during the time we should be contending anyway.  So there's no reason we should be selling off our roster.  Only reasonable thing I could see is a lateral move which does not make the squad better or worse.

 

The only reason we have been so bad is our penalty kill.  If we had even average special teams, we're a top 10 team in the league (just look at all the Canucks +/-, it's excellent which shows how good we are 5 on 5 especially with Demko).  If that gets better due to coaching, we got a good team on our hands that we should not be selling off under any circumstance.

I completely agree with you.

I am glad Rutherford said he deosnt plan on making changes until end of January

 

He probably does not know this team well yet.

He may be pleasantly surprised in 1.5 mths with the magic BB is doing in getting our guys to play up to their potential.

If we go on a tear until Olympic break and is one of the best teams in the league during that period and looks well on our way to seucring a playoff spot, would JR let thigns be and let the team go as far as they can?

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Chip Kelly said:

Depends on the player though.

 

Benning tried with Baertchi and Granlund and Vey to mixed results.

yup, you have to get the pro-scouting correct. Jim made some big mistakes on that, so hopefully the new GM has a better eye on that kind of thing. 

 

I do feel a bit for Gramlund, he had that 19 goal season and then needed wrist surgery, wasn't the same player after. 

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2 hours ago, JamesB said:

I have not seen a new topic on Rutherford's introductory press conference (or "media availability" as they are now called), so I decided to start one. 

 

This is best Canuck press conference I have ever seen. There are two main reasons.

 

A. There were a lot of good questions and surprisingly full and honest answers from Rutherford. Even Aquilini was more forthcoming than usual.

B. I absolutely loved what I heard from Rutherford.

 

Here are some high points (from my point of view).

 

1. Coaching. I had been wondering about how the Boudreau hiring fit with Rutherford. The answer is that Aquilini was talking to both of them separately. Rutherford had to delay accepting the job because he was ill and Aquilini asked if it was okay if they went ahead with Boudreau and Rutherford was on board. Rutherford was very positive about Boudreau but was careful not to insult Green. I really liked the way Rutherford handled the discussion of coaching. (Rutherford noted that he and Boudreau have known each other for about 50 years and always wanted to work together,)

 

2. Trades. Rutherford said he is no hurry to make trades, He said he wanted to get to know the team better and will probably take from now till the end of January. He said people have been calling him about trades already but he is not initiating calls yet. He wants to get the front office sorted out first. He said the team is missing a few pieces but that, given the cap situation, it is hard to do a lot quickly. Everything he said makes perfect sense to me.

 

3. Draft Picks. Rutherford said that he did not want to trade high draft picks -- that the Canucks are not in the right phase of the cycle to do that. Agree 100%.

 

4. Wall and Gear. Rutherford apparently had no role in firing Wall and Gear. Aquilini had been reviewing the organization and apparently decided to fire those two guys on his own.

 

5. Demko, Hughes, and Pettersson. Rutherford said that Canucks already have one of the hardest pieces to get in building a Cup contender -- a franchise goalie in Demko. He also loves Hughes. He is high on Pettersson's talent but agreed that he needs to improve. Nothing shocking in these comments but good answers to questions.

 

6. Why did he take the job at his age? Apparently it was a close call and he turned the job down at least once before he accepted and has turned down other opportunities. But he was very impressed by the fact that Aqulini went to his home to talk to him (credit to Aquilini) and that he sees a lot of potential in the Canucks (esp. with Demko and Hughes to build around). Also, he appreciates being back in Canada and appreciates the enthusiasm in Vancouver. And of course he loves the game. My guess is that after being retired for a while the timing was about right, so I think the Canucks were lucky on this one. 

 

7. Vision. Rutherford did not go into a lot of detail, saying he wants to evaluate things first, but what he did say makes sense to me. This is just my reading of what he said and could be wrong but my paraphrase is that, given the age profile of the team, the "window of opportunity" might open in a couple of years and then stay open for a few years. So, if he adds players he wants them to be on the young side. Also, that is why he does not want to trade high draft picks now because those are the guys who will be good in 2 or 3 or 4 years and will be on cheap contracts. You need some guys like that on a Cup contender. Rutherford is not going to spell things out in that much detail but that is what I am reading into his comments. I love the fact that I can see a coherent logic behind his comments. 

 

8. Contrast with Benning.  Benning loyalists might want to omit this point. To me Rutherford is the opposite of Benning. First, he speaks well and carefully (including handling politically sensitive topics very well). It is a huge relief to have a GM who can go for more than two sentences without a major grammatical or logical error. Second, when I listened to Benning I would normally cringe at half his answers. With Rutherford I was applauding pretty much every answer. With Rutherford I can see an underlying consistent plan whereas with Benning I had the sense that everything he did was just an opportunistic reaction without a coherent plan. 

 

9. Experience Factor. Aquilini emphasized the importance of the experience factor. I wanted to ask Aquilini if experience was so important, why did he hire a rookie President, rookie GM and rookie NHL head coach last time round. Anyway, I think Aquilini has it right this time.

 

10. Bottom Line. Love this this hire. 

 

Thank you for the summary. No complaints with any of this. Welcome to Vancouver, Jim 2.0! 

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10 minutes ago, JM_ said:

I wonder if we'd be better off trading for young RFAs vs another 1st? would help to compress the development timeline. 

We could use both. Depends the prospect.

 

Miller could probably net you a first and a good prospect minimum considering he has a 2 years left, we could retain salary and take a 1-2 year cap dump back(maybe someone buried?).

 

We'd be essentially getting 2 solid rentals worth of return for Miller.

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4 minutes ago, Junkyard Dog said:

We could use both. Depends the prospect.

 

Miller could probably net you a first and a good prospect minimum considering he has a 2 years left, we could retain salary and take a 1-2 year cap dump back(maybe someone buried?).

 

We'd be essentially getting 2 solid rentals worth of return for Miller.

It was interesting hearing that JR's already received calls on our players. Makes me wonder how close Benning was to trading someone out and what the return would have been. Maybe some of that will slip out into the media, but then 1/2 that stuff is usually BS.

 

Man, Miller 1/2 retained is a no-brainer for any cup contender. Anyone but Edmonton or Calgary. 

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23 minutes ago, JM_ said:

It was interesting hearing that JR's already received calls on our players. Makes me wonder how close Benning was to trading someone out and what the return would have been. Maybe some of that will slip out into the media, but then 1/2 that stuff is usually BS.

 

Man, Miller 1/2 retained is a no-brainer for any cup contender. Anyone but Edmonton or Calgary. 

Tough thing is I don’t see us moving a centre as there is no viable alternative anywhere in the organization. 
We have some good winger prospects in the organization, a good goalie prospect but are pretty thin at centre and what we have is nowhere close. 
I said in the summer and still believe priority number 1 should be a partner for Quinn. But we basically need to find someone to trade wing for right D and that is very hard to find unless a really premium winger.

Rutherford was very good at finding NHL level players out of college and other places that could plug holes in Pit. 
Should be very exciting and interesting next few months. 

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1 hour ago, Junkyard Dog said:

Miller will be 30 years old when he needs a new contract. Might not be the best idea for a team wanting to create a long-term window in 2-3 years to sign a 30 year old to a big long-term contract. Especially when we already have a contract like that in OEL, when we will have a 28 year old Horvat the same year needing re-signing and a 25 year old Boeser this off-season. We also have Garland on a more friendly deal and Hog needing a raise the same year and Pod the following year.

 

Unless you're willing to part with Horvat which I wouldn't want to do since he's younger and we can likely get cheaper.

 

Also we won't have the cap to fix the D than too.

He'll be 30 when we start that contending window, still very much in his prime years. Yeah his contract might hurt when hes 35, but we lose a lot more by letting him go. 

I dont think Jims plan is to have 100% of the team at age 25 or under. There's value in having a couple of guys like OEL and Miller, and it's not like they'll be unproductive. 

Myers, Pearson, Dickinson, Poolman, Hamonic.. all expendable. Plus cap going up.. There's plenty of room there to give everyone the raises they need and have a lot left to upgrade. So I really dont know why people are in such a rush to sacrifice Horvat, Miller, or Boeser. 

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  • -DLC- pinned and featured this topic

Rutherford wants the team to be faster.  With his connection to Pittsburgh I can see him trading for Kapanen.  Perhaps Boeser ($5.875MM) + Motte ($1.225) for Kapanen ($3.2MM) plus a RHD (Marino $4.4MM).  Hate to trade Motte but the numbers need to work.  Just a thought.......

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58 minutes ago, DrJockitch said:

Tough thing is I don’t see us moving a centre as there is no viable alternative anywhere in the organization. 
We have some good winger prospects in the organization, a good goalie prospect but are pretty thin at centre and what we have is nowhere close. 
I said in the summer and still believe priority number 1 should be a partner for Quinn. But we basically need to find someone to trade wing for right D and that is very hard to find unless a really premium winger.

Rutherford was very good at finding NHL level players out of college and other places that could plug holes in Pit. 
Should be very exciting and interesting next few months. 

thats a good point, college free agency could be an important part of this. You'd think JR would be pretty influential in that kind of signing.

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8 minutes ago, singing chef said:

Rutherford wants the team to be faster.  With his connection to Pittsburgh I can see him trading for Kapanen.  Perhaps Boeser ($5.875MM) + Motte ($1.225) for Kapanen ($3.2MM) plus a RHD (Marino $4.4MM).  Hate to trade Motte but the numbers need to work.  Just a thought.......

I hope he doesn’t simply trade for players he had in Pittsburgh.

 

That doesn’t give us our own identity.

 

If we’re trading Boeser it needs to be for a high end top 4 defenseman. Getting two average pieces does us no good. 

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1 hour ago, Junkyard Dog said:

I move Boeser and Miller personally. 7.5M qualifying offer for Boeser. Hog is 20 years old and fits our age group better and will likely be much cheaper. Garland on very cheap friendly deal. They small but play bigger than they are and are a lot more consistent than Boeser on top of being faster than him.

I get it but I’d still keep brock. 

And like I said I love hoglander/ garland and agree they play bigger, but you can only do so much when your 5’8” i worry in the post season these guys will get eaten up. 
size still matters in the playoffs. 
 

just me thou 
 

 


 


 

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This is what stuck in my head.

 

He has been watching their games . They are certainly better then their first 20 games. Maybe better then a lot of people thought . Likes fast teams. Still evaluating but deals should involve youth. Not trading high picks at this point.

Franchise goalie and defenseman in place . Petey improved but needs to find another level . 

I think Boeser will be on the block and don't be shocked if Petey gets moved.

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43 minutes ago, eeeeergh said:

He'll be 30 when we start that contending window, still very much in his prime years. Yeah his contract might hurt when hes 35, but we lose a lot more by letting him go. 

I dont think Jims plan is to have 100% of the team at age 25 or under. There's value in having a couple of guys like OEL and Miller, and it's not like they'll be unproductive. 

Myers, Pearson, Dickinson, Poolman, Hamonic.. all expendable. Plus cap going up.. There's plenty of room there to give everyone the raises they need and have a lot left to upgrade. So I really dont know why people are in such a rush to sacrifice Horvat, Miller, or Boeser. 

We gain assets for Miller/Boeser that we use to build the roster. We don't lose more by letting him go.

 

Also good chance he probably walks unless you pay him 8M+ long-term

 

We are not keeping Horvat, Miller and Boeser taking up 21M+ in cap while fixing the holes on the roster. We're literally the same team but worse if we keep everyone since we'll have to downgrade on the guys we're getting rid of you mentioned..

 

I know you like the players but this isn't plausible. 

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30 minutes ago, combover said:

I get it but I’d still keep brock. 

And like I said I love hoglander/ garland and agree they play bigger, but you can only do so much when your 5’8” i worry in the post season these guys will get eaten up. 
size still matters in the playoffs. 
 

just me thou 
 

 


 


 

To each their own.

 

I see TBL with back to back cups smaller forwards stepping up in key roles and a big defense core/bottom 6. Boeser doesn't use his size as well as Garland/Hog and relies on others a lot more to be impactful.

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So, looking into the future, what players are still on this team in 2 years?

(to start the 2023/24 season)

 

Horvat

Pettersson

Garland

Motte

Podkolzin

OEL

Myers

Hughes

Demko

 

my guess

 

By then possibly also add Klimovich, Lockwood, Rathbone and Woo

 

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