"Locked on Kings" discuss Canucks

[Comeback_Kings]

Just now, Warhippy said:

If Bouchard was available he'd be exactly who the canucks would be looking at/for

I think Canucks have enough offence in Hughes, OEL and Rathbone, they need a top 4 shut down RD, a player who could develop into a Cernak or Parayko  

[King Heffy]

1 minute ago, Comeback_Kings said:

I think Canucks have enough offence in Hughes, OEL and Rathbone, they need a top 4 shut down RD, a player who could develop into a Cernak or Parayko  

I really wanted Conor Timmins before the Avs traded him to Arizona.

[DeNiro]

3 minutes ago, Comeback_Kings said:

I think Canucks have enough offence in Hughes, OEL and Rathbone, they need a top 4 shut down RD, a player who could develop into a Cernak or Parayko  

That’s why I had so much hope for Woo. If he could have turned into that rugged two way guy it would have been perfect.

At 22 he could obviously still develop into an NHLer but his upside probably isn’t as high as it was once projected. Maybe Colliton can be the difference for him though.

 

[kloubek]

8 minutes ago, DeNiro said:

That’s why I had so much hope for Woo. If he could have turned into that rugged two way guy it would have been perfect.

 

Indeed. But I watched Woo here in Calgary while he played for the hitmen. I have to say, I saw nothing standout in his game. He was decent (against WHL competition), but after watching him for a few games, it seemed to me he was pretty average in most respects and had no standout skills I could see. So while everyone was gushing over how good a defenseman he was going to be, I remained quiet.

 

At least with a guy like Rathbone you can see some standout skills which will all buy guarantee him an eventual NHL job if he can get his defensive play together. If Woo EVER makes it to the NHL, 3rd pairing is his absolute ceiling imo.

As for LA, I may be wrong but I feel they still have a little ways to go before they are likely to make the playoffs. They have some good young players (especially on D), but they need to generate more scoring before they can play with the big boys into the post-season, imo. I believe we are going to see a separation in the Pacific with Calgary, Edmonton and the Canucks clearly in the top tier with 105-115 points, LA with maybe a half dozen points less, then Anaheim about 6-10 points lower than that, with San Jose and Seattle pulling up the rear.

Edited August 26, 2022 by kloubek

[Warhippy]

2 hours ago, kloubek said:

Indeed. But I watched Woo here in Calgary while he played for the hitmen. I have to say, I saw nothing standout in his game. He was decent (against WHL competition), but after watching him for a few games, it seemed to me he was pretty average in most respects and had no standout skills I could see. So while everyone was gushing over how good a defenseman he was going to be, I remained quiet.

 

At least with a guy like Rathbone you can see some standout skills which will all buy guarantee him an eventual NHL job if he can get his defensive play together. If Woo EVER makes it to the NHL, 3rd pairing is his absolute ceiling imo.

As for LA, I may be wrong but I feel they still have a little ways to go before they are likely to make the playoffs. They have some good young players (especially on D), but they need to generate more scoring before they can play with the big boys into the post-season, imo. I believe we are going to see a separation in the Pacific with Calgary, Edmonton and the Canucks clearly in the top tier with 105-115 points, LA with maybe a half dozen points less, then Anaheim about 6-10 points lower than that, with San Jose and Seattle pulling up the rear.

LA scored 10 less goals than the Nucks while allowing the same amount while having 1/2 of their blue line effectively injured on average for 24+ games.  Doughty and edler were gone for over 14 of the season.  They added Fiala while losing very little

 

If they are even healthy on the back end they'll be very much a playoff team

[kloubek]

Oh geez... completely forgot about Fiala.

 

Carry on....

[CanucksCountry]

On 8/23/2022 at 11:17 AM, Warhippy said:

  If we lose Horvat, Pettersson, Miller, Myers, Hughes, OEL or Demko that's it.  That's our season.

Yeah i don't know many teams that could lose their top 3 centers top 2 Dmen and their starter and still be competitive, if McDrai go down for Edmonton their season is dead in the water too  

Edited August 27, 2022 by CanucksCountry

[Warhippy]

4 minutes ago, CanucksCountry said:

Yeah i don't know many teams that could lose their top 3 centers top 2 Dmen and their starter and still be competitive, if McDrai go down for Edmonton their season is dead in the water too  

You misunderstand.

 

Pick any one of them.  Any one of those players go down and that's our entire season.

[CanucksCountry]

2 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

You misunderstand.

 

Pick any one of them.  Any one of those players go down and that's our entire season.

Ah my bad, However I'd still disagree with that besides Demko, we lost Pettey and Hughes at times last season, in fact we won every game Hughes was out under Boudreau, Pettersson was still healing his wrist injury till January and the Canucks still had a winning record with him dealing with that under Boudreau, This team is a lot deeper then most give Credit for I agree depth is a huge thing but I do believe at Forward we don't need to worry about it, as for the Defense we'd be SOL if we lost Hughes and OEL but i feel most teams would be. 

[Warhippy]

18 minutes ago, CanucksCountry said:

Ah my bad, However I'd still disagree with that besides Demko, we lost Pettey and Hughes at times last season, in fact we won every game Hughes was out under Boudreau, Pettersson was still healing his wrist injury till January and the Canucks still had a winning record with him dealing with that under Boudreau, This team is a lot deeper then most give Credit for I agree depth is a huge thing but I do believe at Forward we don't need to worry about it, as for the Defense we'd be SOL if we lost Hughes and OEL but i feel most teams would be. 

It's not a lose {player + player] situation it's literally any one of them.

 

That's why it's so worrisome.

[J.I.A.H.N]

37 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

It's not a lose {player + player] situation it's literally any one of them.

 

That's why it's so worrisome.

Sorry Hippy, but I gotta disagree, with the expection of Demko...............we would be lucky if Martin could replace Demko, and Hughes can be somewhat replaced by OEL, and our forwards appear to be deep., 

 

Hey, I could be wrong............

[Warhippy]

59 minutes ago, J.I.A.H.N said:

Sorry Hippy, but I gotta disagree, with the expection of Demko...............we would be lucky if Martin could replace Demko, and Hughes can be somewhat replaced by OEL, and our forwards appear to be deep., 

 

Hey, I could be wrong............

My reasoning for this is simple.  Miller outscored our next closest forward by over 30 points.  We were like 4-27-4 when he didn't score a point.  that is on the backs of career years by Pettersson Horvat and Miller on the F group plus Hughes on te back end and Garlands campaign.

 

Adding unknowns in Mikheyev and Kuzmenko is all well and good, but we live and die by 3 players.  Hughes/Demko/Miller  If either of them go down, that's our forward scoring, our defensive scoring or our only saviour if the blue line fails (which it has frequently)  Now, even if those big 3 have perfectly healthy seasons without injury or issue of new contract/trade rumours weighing them down; if Bo or Pettersson go down, that's basically our secondary scoring or defensive forward gone and we've nobody to fill that void.

 

That's why I keep indicating those 5 players as being the end all be all.  Edmonton lives and dies by 2 players but they're the best players in the league.  Calgary has so much depth it doesn't matter if you remove one or three.  Vegas is a wild card.  Anaheim is so young but has so much unspoken of youth plus were 2nd in our division to start March last season before blowing it up.  LA has a solid team and arguably the deepest most skilled prospect pool in the league.  San Jose and Seattle are who even knows but probably just filler.

 

We're so top heavy it's a scary thing to consider what happens if one of those pieces go down long term.  That's my point regarding losing any one of those key pieces of either that 1st tier of 3 or second tier of 2

[IBatch]

19 hours ago, Warhippy said:

LA scored 10 less goals than the Nucks while allowing the same amount while having 1/2 of their blue line effectively injured on average for 24+ games.  Doughty and edler were gone for over 14 of the season.  They added Fiala while losing very little

 

If they are even healthy on the back end they'll be very much a playoff team

Edler and Doughty.   Will both likely miss games again.   And how many more goals did Van score after the coaching change?  And how many less allowed?    LA isn't a threat.   Probably going to pick 10-12 next year again. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by IBatch

[mll]

Just now, IBatch said:

Edler and Doughty.   Will both likely miss games again. 

They each missed over 40 games last season - it forced others to step up.  Walker also only played 6 games last season but is now back healthy.  Edler is not even projected to be a lineup regular this coming season.  

[IBatch]

Just now, mll said:

They each missed over 40 games last season - it forced others to step up.  Walker also only played 6 games last season but is now back healthy.  Edler is not even projected to be a lineup regular this coming season.  

Yep.  And well expect more of the same.  

[IBatch]

18 hours ago, Warhippy said:

It's not a lose {player + player] situation it's literally any one of them.

 

That's why it's so worrisome.

We can afford to lose a mess of forwards.   Our D we all know is a different pickle.   But long gone are the days of watching Edler and Tanev man the fort and playing 2/3-3/4 of the games and then watching the wheels fall off.    We've got a decent amount of 5-7 guys (on the D).    Plus we don't play a system that relies on our D's anyways.   We are a counter attack team when we can ... five man box is gone.   Good riddance.   We don't have to worry about our D if we are in the offensive zone.   

 

Edit:  Guess who had a worse PK the  Bruces.   COL and FLD.   

 

Guess who had the best PP down the stretch.  We did over 30%!.   And overall our PP was 26.9% with Bruce (2010-2011 Sedinery etc only managed 24.4% - best in the league ).   All year, even with Green, our 5 x 5 play was decent.   I'm not worried about next season.   It's the one after that.  

Edited August 27, 2022 by IBatch

[Warhippy]

18 minutes ago, IBatch said:

Edler and Doughty.   Will both likely miss games again.   And how many more goals did Van score after the coaching change?  And how many less allowed?    LA isn't a threat.   Probably going to pick 10-12 next year again. 

LA....was in the playoffs.  Handily.  with less scoring, less viable defense and less depth.  All areas they in fact improved on this off season.  But all of a sudden they'll be picking 10-12?

 

I'm not sure what metric you're using but barring a catastrophic turn of events.  They have the deepest and youngest pools of prosects in the league at all positions and some of the highest amounts of cap space for all playoff teams.

 

We'll have to bookmark this

 

10 minutes ago, IBatch said:

We can afford to lose a mess of forwards.   Our D we all know is a different pickle.   But long gone are the days of watching Edler and Tanev man the fort and playing 2/3-3/4 of the games and then watching the wheels fall off.    We've got a decent amount of 5-7 guys (on the D).    Plus we don't play a system that relies on our D's anyways.   We are a counter attack team when we can ... five man box is gone.   Good riddance.   We don't have to worry about our D if we are in the offensive zone.   

 

Edit:  Guess who had a worse PK the  Bruces.   COL and FLD.   

 

Guess who had the best PP down the stretch.  We did over 30%!.   And overall our PP was 26.9% with Bruce (2010-2011 Sedinery etc only managed 24.4% - best in the league ).   All year, even with Green, our 5 x 5 play was decent.   I'm not worried about next season.   It's the one after that.  

We can not afford to lose a mess of anything.  Miller scored 30+ more points than any of our other forwards.  Hughes was where our blue line production came from.  When he went out OEL did passable but not exactly great.  After him it was a cliff for production.  

 

You're suggesting that LA will somehow miss but we'll somehow make it and I can't fathom a situation in which that happens at this stage 

[Warhippy]

18 minutes ago, mll said:

They each missed over 40 games last season - it forced others to step up.  Walker also only played 6 games last season but is now back healthy.  Edler is not even projected to be a lineup regular this coming season.  

The others that stepped up did very well, showcased that depth as well as ensured that cap space was at a premium.  Walker and Doughty being healthy entirely transforms LAs blueline

[mll]

54 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

The others that stepped up did very well, showcased that depth as well as ensured that cap space was at a premium.  Walker and Doughty being healthy entirely transforms LAs blueline

I see them stronger this season.  Their defence was already reliable despite all those injuries and should be better just by having players healthy and their younger Ds progressing.  They've been looking for a player like Fiala for a really long time per Blake.  They've also brought in a new assistant coach in Jim Hiller who was on Trotz's staff in NYI - he's replacing Sturm who is taking over their AHL team.

 

[Warhippy]

10 minutes ago, mll said:

I see them stronger this season.  Their defence was already reliable despite all those injuries and should be better just by having players healthy and their younger Ds progressing.  They've been looking for a player like Fiala for a really long time per Blake.  They've also brought in a new assistant coach in Jim Hiller who was on Trotz's staff in NYI - he's replacing Sturm who is taking over their AHL team.

 

I agree.  I don't see any logical reason aside from brutal injuries over the long term that they falter or take a step back this year.

 

I also think the same about Anaheim as well.  They lost Getzlaf, who was prone to taking bad penalties; slow, but also a producer.  But replaced him with quality youth.  They've a ton of depth and cap space.  Added some decent role players and more youth.  Klingberg will help a lot for the Ducks, I expect with him Shattenkirk will look a lot better over the season.  Vatrano is a great addition and MAcTavish looks amazing.

 

They were 2nd in our division up until March 1st last year and only got deeper and faster.

 

I have said that I think if anything our division got tougher and I meant it.  

Edited August 27, 2022 by Warhippy