Biggest Offseason Needs [Discussion]

[Angry Goose]

I need to know what’s happening with JTM first.  I believe after that decision has been made the picture becomes much more clear. 

 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

1-2 more legit centres. Plus 1-2 more in the pipeline.

Defensive prospects.

Forward prospects.

Long term replacement for Demko if he gets injured. 

No more AHL plugs playing an entire season. 

 

Stop drafting small players with skill and hope the skill makes up for the size. 1-2 players on the team like that ok. 

Faster, bigger players will wear the other team down. And open up lanes for the smaller skill guys to work. 

Long term replacement for Demko if he gets injured is impossible to get. That's what Halak and Holtby were. I'm happy that we're going with Spence Diamonds as he's cheaper and will be okay with only playing 20 games for now.  

 

I heard somewhere that the average backup makes OVER 2 mil/game. Those are the backups that started the year before all the injuries came down. 

 

Agreed that I'm tired of drafting small players. Looking forward to stocking up this summer with some more prospects. 

 

If we look back at this year in terms of the AHL plugs, I have been happy with Burroughs, Juulsen, Lammikko, Dermott, and Dries. Schenn and Chiasson aren't AHL plugs but aren't far and I'm okay with those two as well. 

I didn't enjoy Hunt, Petan, and other guys that got playing time. 

 

So I guess I agree and disagree with your AHL assessment. If we swap out Petan and a couple of other AHL guys for a Linus Karlsson and Aiden McDonaugh next year, I'll be a happy camper. If things go right, we might also see a big jump from Danila Klimovich. 

[Canucklehead73]

I think everyone who is looking to trade away everyone and build around our "core" are a bit out to lunch, as we are already well on our way to building around our core.

 

I tend to agree with managements comments about the canucks not being as far off as it seems, and I'm hopeful they are looking to build not tear down.

 

You have to look at the big picture here, we have a guy in his prime hitting the 100 point mark, a coveted faceoff star who CAN also produce, a budding star with a lethal shot who plays a 200ft game, a gifted skating elite playmaking defensman, a developing starting goalie with star potential, we saw the start of a dominant relentless third line. Podz is almost breaking into the top 6 in points in his rookie year.

 

And the team stats... taking into account the horrible season killing start to the season, we were 18th in goals for, 9th in goals against, 9th in PP%, 7th in FOW%... Considering our horrible 1st periods we still manage to be 13th in SPG. Ok ok... so we won;t talk about the PK% at 73% that was a disaster, got a bit better under "Bruce there it is" once they started ditching the passive box debacle.

 

Do we have some personnel issues? Sure, Are we slow? yes. Soft? yes. Do we still have some bad habits? Totally...

 

Are will full of aging vets and in need of a rebuild? Not even close...

 

I actually feel we need to go all in and get aggressive, cap space is not our friend but trading some of our more pricey depth players we could make some moves

 

My target would be Filip Forsberg, let Boeser walk or trade his rights and sign Forsberg while we have another year of Miller at 5 mill...

Could we then move The Pearson's Dickensons, LTIR Poolman and go after a team like Calgary having to pay Gaudreau? Go after Zadorov?

Calgary is just an example as there are several teams with cap issues and players to sign who might be in tough to sign all their players...

 

My depth charts are not really indicative of lines etc just skill/ability imho...

 

Skating ability is our weakness and is my highest priority and why I made holes in our lineup

 

I think we need a top line or top 6 winger/center, a top 4 defenseman to play with Hughes and revamp our bottom 6 with a bit more size and grit

 

Top Line

Forsberg? Miller Petterson

Hughes Zadorov?

 

Second Line

Podkolzin Horvat Garland

Larsson Myers

 

Third/Fourth Line

Highmore Lammiko Lockwood  <- This could be a solid 3rd or 4th line, liked Lockwood's grit down the stretch for a little guy

Dermott ???

 

Third/Fourth line

??? ??? ???

 

Goalies

Demko

Martin

 

Bubble players

Boeser???  Boeser is a shooter but doesn't have the speed, could net us a top 4 defensman... do we give up on him?

Pearson??? Solid if not unspectacular, decent defensively and put up some points down the stretch, does he have the speed to stay?

Hoglander??? Regressed, ineffective at times

Chaisson??? Every team needs cheap wingers but would rather have a banger (Possible 4th liner or depth forward)

Schenn??? As good as Schenn has been defensively he lacks speed and passing skills, might stay as depth

Burroughs??? Like the hitting but hasn't shown much else on either side of the puck...

Keeper??? On a one way contract... RHD with toughness and some skill?

 

Trade Bait

Dickenson??? Dickenson needs a change of scenery, too pricey to play on the 4th line... Can we get a pick/prospect?

Poolman??? Definitely an flyer of a signing, Poolman was not terrible but nothing of note either...

 

Done

Hunt

Richardson

Halak

 

 

[SilentSam]

This would not hurt, still a good shut down D.  Used Sparingly , helping D core, 

 

 

 

SUMMARY▴

Zdeno Chara's salary is $750,000 and his cap hit is $750,000 for the 2021-22 season. He is a 45 year old left defense who was born on Mar. 18, 1977. He was drafted 56th overall by the New York Islanders in the 3rd round of the 1996 entry draft. He has signed 7 contracts worth a total value of $100,249,000. Over a career that spans 24 seasons (with at least 1 NHL GP), he has a total 679 Pts in 1678 GP, and 70 playoffs Pts in 200 GP. He will be a UFA at the end of the 2021-22 season when he is 45 years old.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by SilentSam

[Jaimito]

Wonder what will happen with Sutter. 

[Wise Guy]

Firstly, we’re not out of the playoffs just quite yet but we sure as heck could use some toughness and a heck of a lot meaner attitude. I guess my third thing would be BBB (bring back Bruce)

[DownUndaCanuck]

Honestly I'd be happy if we sit relatively pat. We were a top-10 if not a top-5 or 6 team under Bruce for half the season. No need to make massive changes IMO. If we play at this calibre next season and are still a top-10 team we're considered a contender.

 

Of course we could use some tweaks though, in the short and long term:

 

1) First priority is a top right handed defenceman to play with Hughes. Schenn is doing well but isn't a long-term solution, we got lucky with him. Ideally we need a young, rich man's Schenn (or Tanev from 5 years ago), but the other option is to get a young puck mover on the right side to play with OEL and play Myers with Hughes. Regardless, it's hard to find these guys outside of a massive trade or draft.

 

2) Shutdown 3rd line center so Bo can finally play offence again. He can score with the best of them so we need some depth because look how bad we've been without our middle 6 centers. Lammikko can nail down the 4th line and be one of the best in the league, and with Sutter a big question mark (even if he returns, I think we just play him on the wing and PK and reduced minutes). There are a few at UFA, I'd go after Tierney or Paul. Tierney is young, big and has played lots of good defence. 3M x 3 years works well. Dickinson just isn't good enough at center (but has been alright on Bo's wing).

 

3) Cap space. People talk about trading Myers but he was brilliant this season. Sure, he and OEL aren't anywhere near worth 13M but they will both be tricky to trade without spending picks. On the other-hand, Dickinson and Poolman will be much easier and have been useless for us. I think we could easily flip these guys to bottom-feeders to fill their lineup for a late pick or "future considerations" because they still carry plenty of value - we just need the cap space more.

 

Honestly everything else is falling into place. We've got star offensive ability in Miller, Petey, Bo and Hughes. We've got a star goaltender. We've got a great backup goalie in Spencer. We've got some fantastic defensive depth with a handful of great 3rd pairing guys (Schenn, Dermott, Burroughs, Rathbone really deserves a spot). We've got some fantastic depth scoring (Boeser, Garland, Hoglander, Podkolzin, Chiasson) and we've got some great gritty forwards (Lammikko, Highmore).

 

We're not that far off IMO. The above 2 issues fix our main problem - the penalty kill, make us a better defensive team and tougher to play against. That's what management should focus on.

 

How do we get there?

 

1) Tricky. The most sensible way to get a young tough righty is to trade a top young forward. Ideally there'd be a straight-up direct trade. Boeser, Garland and Hoglander spring to mind. There's not a great long-term solution in UFA. Lyubushkin is good but not good enough to play on our top pairing long term but could be possible. Manson seems like a good idea but I've watched him and he's brutal defensively. He's a -11 on that Colorado team in just 19 games played which is absurd so no thankyou. Klingberg is going to get paid stupid money by someone and he's 30, we don't need a 3rd over-paid defenceman. My best bet is still a young forward to NYR for Schneider or CBJ for Boqvist as I've said previously, but that's a big, ballsy move which I doubt a relatively young management group will make.

 

2) Easy. We sign Teirney to a 3M x 3 year deal. To make the cap space up we simply flip Dickinson and Poolman for picks/nothing to lower teams who could certainly use these guys because they're not negative value at all and still contribute plenty.

 

Assuming a Garland + 2nd + prospect (Woo?) for Schneider type deal (of course way off but something like that, or Boeser), I'd love to see this to start the season:

 

Pettersson - Miller - Pearson

Boeser - Horvat - Podkolzin

Hoglander - Tierney - Chiasson

Highmore - Lammikko - Lockwood

 

Hughes - Schneider

OEL - Myers

Dermott - Schenn

Rathbone (who we could rotate into the 3rd pair if we want more offence)

 

Demko

Martin

 

Realistically I doubt they trade for a top young defenceman because it'll just prove too difficult.

 

[StanleyCupOneDay]

What is our biggest need? Defence.

 

What is our biggest positional need?
 

1. RHD

2. RHD

3. RHD

 

Either in the draft or by trade we eventually need to find someone who will replace Schenn as Hughes partner. I also think at 6m Myers is too expensive to keep. Burroughs and Schenn, though they both have defensive lapses at times bring similar to what Myers does and imo makes Myers replaceable.
 

That and Myers doesn’t put up points, we just can’t have 2 D that don’t score on the same line or power play. We desperately need a blue line threat other then Hughes. We competed in the playoffs when we had a deadly blue line. We especially can’t afford the $13m cap cost for 2 Top 4 D who don’t put up points. We need an offensive minded partner for OEL. In a perfect world yeah I’d keep Myers, but I think the cap cost considering productivity is too great to keep him regardless of his admittedly gaudy +- numbers.

 

Poolman is a complete wildcard. He could be great under Boudreau or he could be a disaster. Multiple injuries have hampered any ability to get him in a rhythm. I don’t think we really know enough to say either way. My preference would be to trade him as I don’t know if he can handle top 4 minutes and be an effective OEL partner. We already have our 3rd D pairing which imo makes him also tradeable.

 

I think Boeser also needs to be traded which would free up more cap room and potentially net us that top 4 D we need. Unless he takes a major discount, but I don’t see that happening.

 

That’s nothing against them as players or people, they’ve been great team mates for us and I will always remember and cherish Boeser’s taking that wonderful girl to her prom. They’ve been fully on board with all the Canucks charities and had a positive impact for our team and the city. Sometimes though cost becomes too great to keep someone and that’s why I think we should probably move them for cap flexibility and to fill our desperate need:

 

RHD

 

Oh and a big shoutout to whoever it was in the organization that pushed for trading a 3rd round pick for Dermott, they need a promotion. He’s big, fast, young and it’s obvious he still hasn’t hit his ceiling yet. What a steal for only $1.5m in cap space. 6’ 200 lbs and he’s +6 in 15 games, good enough for 9th best on the team with over 75% less games played then everyone else. He might even have Top 4 potential. Grand theft.

[DSVII]

1 hour ago, StanleyCupOneDay said:

What is our biggest need? Defence.

 

What is our biggest positional need?
 

1. RHD

2. RHD

3. RHD

 

Either in the draft or by trade we eventually need to find someone who will replace Schenn as Hughes partner. I also think at 6m Myers is too expensive to keep. Burroughs and Schenn, though they both have defensive lapses at times bring similar to what Myers does and imo makes Myers replaceable.
 

That and Myers doesn’t put up points, we just can’t have 2 D that don’t score on the same line or power play. We desperately need a blue line threat other then Hughes. We competed in the playoffs when we had a deadly blue line. We especially can’t afford the $13m cap cost for 2 Top 4 D who don’t put up points. We need an offensive minded partner for OEL. In a perfect world yeah I’d keep Myers, but I think the cap cost considering productivity is too great to keep him regardless of his admittedly gaudy +- numbers.

 

$13.2 million Myers and OEL = 47 points

$7.8 mil Hughes = 66 points

 

Yeah we need more production back there, and a cap efficient one too. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by DSVII

[Strictly Bizness]

1) Trade Boeser. He needs to go.  Too slow and his shot comes and goes

2) Trade Myers.  A lot easier said then done.  May need to add a high pick

3) Trade Pearson.  Also a lot easier said then done.  Need to be creative

 

With those three we have now just shed $15,125M of CAP Space.  These need to be priorities

 

4) Sign JT Miller or trade and get a Kings ransom.  Try to get someone like Fiala +

5) If we can't get a Kings ransom for JT Miller, then we trade Garland and keep Miller  (With the first three transactions + Garland trade we shed $20,075M)

5) Sign Bo Horvat 

6) Sign Filip Forsberg if we trade one of JT Miller and or Garland

7) Need to find RHD on the cheap

 

 

If we trade JT Miller, our forwards would continue to be strong  (Top 6 would include Petterson, Fiala, Bo, Garland, Forsberg) 

If we trade Garland we have (Petterson, JT, Bo, Forsberg).  That's still very impressive

 

Bottom 6 forwards are decent with emergence of PODZ, getting some more of Lockwood, hopefully Hogz takes a step forward, Highmore, Lammiko.  Ideally would love to trade Dickinson but sure that is hard to do as well.

 

Our LHD would be strong,, Goalie continues to be elite.  RHD is the weakness for sure.  It is extremely hard to be strong at all positions, but having some RHD that can hold their own is what we would need to find

Edited April 27, 2022 by Strictly Bizness

[komodo0921]

Aggression.

This team needs to raise it's aggression bar.

Unfortunately, because of cap concerns, the teams options are limited.

I believe PA needs to replace guys like Hunt, Dries, Lammikko, Highmore, Petan, and Richardson with, cheap, aggressive, bigger players who, like the aforementioned players, are not going to light the lamp in any kind of consistent form but, will make life very difficult for opposing players.

PA needs to find more Luke Schenns.

He also needs to start addressing the need in our prospect pool.

If potential deals for a couple of our bigger named players becomes more real, I would like to see them looking at players like Luke Prokop, Ryan O'Rourke, Brayden Schneider, Maxime Comtois, and Nolan Foote in addition to "A" prospects, players, and picks. 

At this years draft, a player like Cutter Gautheir could be available at our pick (assuming 15th will be ours). He brings a degree of mean to the team down the road and could turn into a top-six player.

This team has a top-six that will rival any in the league but it's lack of push back is a glaring need that has to be addressed.

[ABNuck]

1. Draft a top end RHD (Jiricek, Nemc, Luneau or Lameroux)

2. Trade Myers once we have our RHD from the draft in place

3. Re-sign Miller (costs us 3.5mil extra...8.75 x 6yrs)

4. Re-sign or trade Boeser (costs us 750k extra...forget the QO, get him to re-sign for 6.5mil or less)

 

6.00mil OUT / max 4.25mil added per above + RHD on ELC = net savings of about 850k

Saved 750k on BU goalie, 1.00mil if Ferland retires (I believe we are still charged 2.75mil against cap), Sutter's 1.125, +600k offset for dead cap (Luongo OFF / Holtby & Virtanen ON) = about $4.25mil available. I believe we still have some bonus recapture charged against us next year but we should still have about $3mil to go get a decent 3C. The rest of the positions coming off the books (Richardson, Chiasson, Petan, Dries & Hunt) are all positions that will need to be filled anyways, so no savings there.

Overall we're actually not in too bad of a situation financially.

 

Top 9F: Pettersson, Miller, Boeser (or traded in player), Garland, Horvat, Podkolzin, Pearson, Hoglander, new 3C or Dickinson

Top 5D: QH, Schenn, drafted RHD, OEL, McDermott

 

EDIT: I forgot that the extra 3.5mil for Miller won't kick in until 2023-24 so we'll actually have about 6.5mil available this offseason...surely we can find a decent 3C for about 2.0-2.5mil and then bolster our RHD position with the additional 4-4.5mil? Miller or Stecher?

Edited April 27, 2022 by ABNuck

[Fred65]

To me the biggest encumberance is moving players out and off the roster. No one wants our trash. But we need to unload these players to allow us start dreaming about additions. Additions and renewing contracts is not easy with the cap probllems we have. So put all of our fantasies on hold untill players such as Dickenson and Poolman to name a couple are gone

Edited April 27, 2022 by Fred65

[BCNate]

Sign JT Miller long term

Sign Bo Horvat long term

Keep Bourdreau

Deal Boeser for picks/prospects

Dump Poolman, Dickinson for cap flexibility

[EP Phone Home]

Draft some Defensive help because lord knows we don’t have an abundance of assets to give up to fix our not so young D-Corps. The biggest problem we have is matching the age window from our defence in line with Demko and our forward group. Drafting doesn’t help fix that problem but getting tired of this team overspending in free agency or trading assets (which we don’t have much to work with in trades now) Hughes and Rathbone is great to come out of the draft but we need a lot more than those two.

 

 

Fix the blue line pipeline. A 3C and to somehow recoup that lost 2nd rounder. We need those draft picks to build up our youth and depth that we have lost the last two years with little drafting high talent. 

Edited April 27, 2022 by EP Phone Home

[RolexSub]

Just don't bring Petan, and Hunt back next season. Burroughs yes as he brings good physical play along with Schenn. Overall everyone else played well this year. We just need to fill a few gaps in getting guys to play harder, tougher, more intensity and faster and we should be ok for next year!! 

[Me_]

Biggest offseason move in recent Canucks history:

 

Re-Sign Bruce Boudreau.