We need to start drafting and developing D prospects to address our defense

[Coconuts]

This thread is mostly a ton in cheek rip off of the one @Odd. made but for real, maybe if this organization wasn't historically awful at drafting and developing it's own D we as a fanbase wouldn't be discussing acquiring D from other teams as often. I mean.. prior to having Hughes fall into our lap because of Arizona going off the board and Detroit whiffing you've pretty much got to go back to what.. Ben Hutton when it comes to D we've drafted who had any sort of longevity as Canucks? Stecher doesn't count, wasn't drafted. Neither does Tanev. And like, before that you've got to go back to what..? Edler? 

 

If Edler's the last drafted prospect who turned out to be more than a bottom pairing D that's pretty goddamn pathetic. You could also make the point that Bieksa was the last top 4RD we drafted and brought along ourselves. 

 

There's been no shortage of proposals that involve trying to poach top young D from other teams, Dobson was the hot ticket item over the summer it seemed. Before that it was Schneider from New York. Maybe, just maybe, we should be using our picks to draft our own players. Maybe, just maybe, we should be willing to draft more D high if we're fortunate enough to have D who's in our range who could be considered BPA. We should be using more 2nd round picks on D prospects. We should be holding on to our picks more going forward period. The best place to get the players folks gush over is the draft, there's no getting around that. We need to start bringing along D prospects ourselves, the only way to actually flip the script on how bad our drafting and developing of D is has to involve actually doing it. We were a goalie graveyard for years but we've done pretty well bringing along both Markstrom and Demko in recent years (despite Markstrom not being drafted by us). Even Schneider was great over in Jersey for a while. 

 

Now, drafting and developing may not impact the current roster and I'm aware our current D core is a source of much frustration. But like, even if we improve our D core there's no guarantee it'll result in our going deep. But drafting and placing more emphasis on actually developing our D prospects going forward (something I'm sure management has taken a hard look at since being pieced together) is a long term need regardless of what this current core does. We can't keep piecing our D together with UFA's and players acquired by trade. It costs more, both in terms of dollars/term and assets given up for said players. 

 

Obviously I'm a proponent of holding on to top picks and some folks aren't on the same page, but there's no denying that the 1st and 2nd rounds are where you're most likely to get NHL'ers. In order to replenish our prospect pool and add some top end talent to it we'll need to at least maintain more of a balance regarding moving and keep picks going forward. High end D prospects are valuable, we just saw Dallas trade a 1st for one in Lundqvist regardless of how folks ridiculed them for that move. Maybe we should place emphasis on drafting some, even if it perhaps means occasionally being more impacted by positional need than BPA. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Coconuts

[Goal:thecup]

3 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

This thread is mostly a ton in cheek rip off of the one @Odd. made but for real, maybe if this organization wasn't historically awful at drafting and developing it's own D we as a fanbase wouldn't be discussing acquiring D from other teams as often. I mean.. prior to having Hughes fall into our lap because of Arizona going off the board and Detroit whiffing you've pretty much got to go back to what.. Ben Hutton when it comes to D we've drafted who had any sort of longevity as Canucks? Stecher doesn't count, wasn't drafted. Neither does Tanev. And like, before that you've got to go back to what..? Edler? 

 

If Edler's the last drafted prospect who turned out to be more than a bottom pairing D that's pretty goddamn pathetic. You could also make the point that Bieksa was the last top 4RD we drafted and brought along ourselves. 

 

There's been no shortage of proposals that involve trying to poach top young D from other teams, Dobson was the hot ticket item over the summer it seemed. Before that it was Schneider from New York. Maybe, just maybe, we should be using our picks to draft our own players. Maybe, just maybe, we should be willing to draft more D high if we're fortunate enough to have D who's in our range who could be considered BPA. We should be using more 2nd round picks on D prospects. We should be holding on to our picks more going forward period. The best place to get the players folks gush over is the draft, there's no getting around that. We need to start bringing D prospects ourselves, the only way to actually flip the script on how bad our drafting and developing of D is has to involve actually doing it. We were a goalie graveyard for years but we've done pretty well bringing both Markstrom and Demko in recent years. Even Schneider was great over in Jersey for a while. 

 

Now, drafting and developing may not impact the current roster and I'm aware our current D core is a source of much frustration. But like, even if we improve our D core there's no guarantee it'll result in our going deep. But drafting and placing more emphasis on actually developing our D prospects going forward (something I'm sure management has taken a hard look at since being pieced together) is a long term need regardless of what this current core does. We can't keep piecing our D together with UFA's and players acquired by trade. It costs more, both in terms of dollars/term and assets given up for said players. 

 

Obviously I'm a proponent of holding on to top picks and some folks aren't on the same page, but there's no denying that the 1st and 2nd rounds are where you're most likely to get NHL'ers. In order to replenish our prospect pool and add some top end talent to it we'll need to at least maintain more of a balance regarding moving and keep picks going forward. High end D prospects are valuable, we just saw Dallas trade a 1st for one in Lundqvist regardless of how folks ridiculed them for that move. Maybe we should place emphasis on drafting some, even if it perhaps means occasionally being more impacted by positional need than BPA. 

Good post, but I gotta admit, I thought the title said, "We need to start drinking"

And then I thought, a little early, but WTH!

[Coconuts]

3 minutes ago, Goal:thecup said:

Good post, but I gotta admit, I thought the title said, "We need to start drinking"

And then I thought, a little early, but WTH!

[amplified0ne]

Well we did have what looked like a very good one in Bourdon, maybe the cup final would have been different we will never know.  Losing him set us back a lot.  But yeah Defense and Centre are critical as is Goaltending and we are thin at those positions aside from Goaltending.

 

I think its somewhat style of play moreso than who we have on defense.  Even Sbisa looked half decent in Las Vegas when he was there.  Less passive and more attacking style should help.

[iceman64]

57 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

This thread is mostly a ton in cheek rip off of the one @Odd. made but for real, maybe if this organization wasn't historically awful at drafting and developing it's own D we as a fanbase wouldn't be discussing acquiring D from other teams as often. I mean.. prior to having Hughes fall into our lap because of Arizona going off the board and Detroit whiffing you've pretty much got to go back to what.. Ben Hutton when it comes to D we've drafted who had any sort of longevity as Canucks? Stecher doesn't count, wasn't drafted. Neither does Tanev. And like, before that you've got to go back to what..? Edler? 

 

If Edler's the last drafted prospect who turned out to be more than a bottom pairing D that's pretty goddamn pathetic. You could also make the point that Bieksa was the last top 4RD we drafted and brought along ourselves. 

 

There's been no shortage of proposals that involve trying to poach top young D from other teams, Dobson was the hot ticket item over the summer it seemed. Before that it was Schneider from New York. Maybe, just maybe, we should be using our picks to draft our own players. Maybe, just maybe, we should be willing to draft more D high if we're fortunate enough to have D who's in our range who could be considered BPA. We should be using more 2nd round picks on D prospects. We should be holding on to our picks more going forward period. The best place to get the players folks gush over is the draft, there's no getting around that. We need to start bringing along D prospects ourselves, the only way to actually flip the script on how bad our drafting and developing of D is has to involve actually doing it. We were a goalie graveyard for years but we've done pretty well bringing along both Markstrom and Demko in recent years (despite Markstrom not being drafted by us). Even Schneider was great over in Jersey for a while. 

 

Now, drafting and developing may not impact the current roster and I'm aware our current D core is a source of much frustration. But like, even if we improve our D core there's no guarantee it'll result in our going deep. But drafting and placing more emphasis on actually developing our D prospects going forward (something I'm sure management has taken a hard look at since being pieced together) is a long term need regardless of what this current core does. We can't keep piecing our D together with UFA's and players acquired by trade. It costs more, both in terms of dollars/term and assets given up for said players. 

 

Obviously I'm a proponent of holding on to top picks and some folks aren't on the same page, but there's no denying that the 1st and 2nd rounds are where you're most likely to get NHL'ers. In order to replenish our prospect pool and add some top end talent to it we'll need to at least maintain more of a balance regarding moving and keep picks going forward. High end D prospects are valuable, we just saw Dallas trade a 1st for one in Lundqvist regardless of how folks ridiculed them for that move. Maybe we should place emphasis on drafting some, even if it perhaps means occasionally being more impacted by positional need than BPA. 

Coco.. don't know where to begin but were you on holidays before the draft when many of us were calling for that and huge discussions for and against? 

 I voted go all in for D starting last draft and finish with another and possibly one more depending on what position in the draft if there are quality prospects to be had or not. 

So it'll probably lean in that direction at least from now on but we still have trade bait BUT we HAVE to do that since the cap hasn't done anything yet.. we need ELC's to keep paying forwards top dollar (ish) to keep them. 

At the end of the day it will be quite the switch from old days of selling the farm for a depthless roster that never got a single cup. 

 You'd think after all those years people would stop demanding a one and done...

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by iceman64

[Elias Pettersson]

I agree.  Our drafting has been horrific for RHD since we entered the league.  Not sure why, it's a mystery I can't figure out as of right now.  So many teams have all these young RHD prospects and stud RHD's on their roster and we have none.  New Jersey has so many quality RHD's that Damon Severson might be on the 3rd pairing this year and Simon Nemec isn't even on the roster.  NY Rangers have Braden Schneider on the 3rd pairing and he won't be in their top 4 for several years, meanwhile we would trade for him and immediately partner him with Hughes.

 

I could go on and on.  Calgary has Chris Tanev on the 3rd pairing now, another guy we could partner with Hughes.  NY Islanders Have Dobson, Pulock and Mayfield.  I'd be happy with even one of those guys.  Even Detroit has a stud in Seider.  Los Angeles has more RHD prospects than they know what to do with.  It's incredible really when you think about it.

 

Even JR/PA this year wasted a 3rd round pick on another Elias Pettersson just for sh*ts and giggles.  Like there wasn't a RHD available at all in this year's draft that was worthy of a selection by a team with zero RHD prospects?

[Coconuts]

1 hour ago, amplified0ne said:

Well we did have what looked like a very good one in Bourdon, maybe the cup final would have been different we will never know.  Losing him set us back a lot.  But yeah Defense and Centre are critical as is Goaltending and we are thin at those positions aside from Goaltending.

 

I think its somewhat style of play moreso than who we have on defense.  Even Sbisa looked half decent in Las Vegas when he was there.  Less passive and more attacking style should help.

Bourdon was a tragedy, no doubt about it. And his having developed and hit his potential may have flipped the script for us during the late 2000's and early 2010's. We'll never know. 

 

Style of play and how players are utilized absolutely matter, as the philosophy of both the coaching staff and management. But there's still no getting around our need to place more emphasis on drafting D going forward. This organization has a tendency to focus too much on drafting forwards, there needs to be more balance. As it stands right now we don't have a single center prospect of none within the system imo, let alone one I'd say has top 6 upside. We have some interesting prospects, certainly, like every other franchise, but I view our prospect pool as being shallow. 

 

JT Miller for that 1st wound up being a stellar move, the move that brought in OEL is a bit more debatable but he's still a top 4D. But regardless of how positively one views those moves the impact moving 1st round picks has on a prospect pool is undeniable. Like I said in the OP, at the very least the balance of retaining picks vs moving them out needs to be more equal. Yes, be willing to part with picks if a no brainer deal comes along, but I'd prefer us to be stingy and reluctant when it comes to moving 1st and 2nd round picks. As a franchise you've always got to be restocking your pipeline and trying to draft that next wave of NHL talent, we've got to balance competing in the present with keeping an eye on the future if we are to have a sustainable competitive window. 

 

1 hour ago, iceman64 said:

Coco.. don't know where to begin but were you on holidays before the draft when many of us were calling for that and huge discussions for and against? 

 I voted go all in for D starting last draft and finish with another and possibly one more depending on what position in the draft if there are quality prospects to be had or not. 

So it'll probably lean in that direction at least from now on but we still have trade bait BUT we HAVE to do that since the cap hasn't done anything yet.. we need ELC's to keep paying forwards top dollar (ish) to keep them. 

At the end of the day it will be quite the switch from old days of selling the farm for a depthless roster that never got a single cup. 

 You'd think after all those years people would stop demanding a one and done...

 

I actually have a vacation home in the trades, rumours, and signings sub so there's a chance I probably saw a bit everything that went on there. Yes, this has been an ongoing point of conversation throughout threads but it's still worth making a topic exclusively about this singular talking point. 

 

Even with players getting bigger deals right off their ELC's ELC's still have value to a team, as does having team controlled RFA's. You're not gonna get a UFA on a bridge, you're unlikely to get a top end established NHL D from another team for less than a premium price. Teams don't typically move those players, they just don't. 

 

Totally agree that selling the farm ain't the way to go. I'm a fan of a more long-term approach than a selling the farm and trying to go all in approach. I think spending picks and prospects like candy in combination with not effectively drafting and developing your own prospects just leads to a talent gap similar to what we saw post-Gillis. That's a concern of mine. Yes we've got some great young talent in Pettersson, Hughes, Podz, and Hoglander but we don't have much in the way of top end prospects in the system anymore. Lekkerimaki was a nice addition, I'd have preferred a D at the draft but at least we kept our pick. 

 

52 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

I agree.  Our drafting has been horrific for RHD since we entered the league.  Not sure why, it's a mystery I can't figure out as of right now.  So many teams have all these young RHD prospects and stud RHD's on their roster and we have none.  New Jersey has so many quality RHD's that Damon Severson might be on the 3rd pairing this year and Simon Nemec isn't even on the roster.  NY Rangers have Braden Schneider on the 3rd pairing and he won't be in their top 4 for several years, meanwhile we would trade for him and immediately partner him with Hughes.

 

I could go on and on.  Calgary has Chris Tanev on the 3rd pairing now, another guy we could partner with Hughes.  NY Islanders Have Dobson, Pulock and Mayfield.  I'd be happy with even one of those guys.  Even Detroit has a stud in Seider.  Los Angeles has more RHD prospects than they know what to do with.  It's incredible really when you think about it.

 

Even JR/PA this year wasted a 3rd round pick on another Elias Pettersson just for sh*ts and giggles.  Like there wasn't a RHD available at all in this year's draft that was worthy of a selection by a team with zero RHD prospects?

It doesn't help that our past two management groups have moved out picks regularly, not being able to effectively address our in-house development has really hurt us too. Drafting prospects is important, but bringing those prospects along is just as important. And not just that, but allowing them to have legitimate opportunities to bump out vets at camp too. And not just top prospects either, if you can get a depth player out of a draft that's valuable too. This forum lost it's shit over our losing Gadjovich last year, the narrative has shifted a bit with his not having done much over in San Jose but he's played for the Sharks. He could have played for us. That's exactly what I'm talking about in terms to prospects who may not project as top players. 

 

We've had a real hard time with RD, but we don't draft enough of em. We saw it this past draft, teams are placing much more emphasis on drafting D with their higher picks. We saw how many D go in the first round? Gotta jump on that wagon. Only way to grab the kind of RD teams never move is to draft and develop our own. That's how you get guys like Dobson, Carlo, ect. 

 

I understand the BPA argument but sometimes leaning towards positional need might be the way to go. D and center's will always have value, wingers are much easier to find. You see a handful of wingers who could probably play top six roles walk to UFA pretty much every year. 

 

Bottom line is we need to rethink our philosophy regarding the draft, and our defense as a whole. It hasn't even been a full year with this management group yet but I hope they're more effective in how they approach areas such as drafting, scouting, development, and both minor league and pro league talent evaluation going forward. It'd be nice to see more players drafted by us go on to play important roles for us at the NHL level. Particularly on defense. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Coconuts

[Devron]

Yup just had this discussion in another thread. It is extremely difficult to get an impact defensemen though trade. We’d probably make our team worse to do so. We just aren’t in a position to do that. 
 

Best hope in the meantime is to maybe find a college FA or something to give us that time and development bump. Or swap a winger for a bit of a project defencemen.

 

We will just keep running the cycle of over paying in Free Agency. Severson may become available next summer but again will be be overpaid and who replaces Myers 

 

 

[Elias Pettersson]

11 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

Bourdon was a tragedy, no doubt about it. And his having developed and hit his potential may have flipped the script for us during the late 2000's and early 2010's. We'll never know. 

 

Style of play and how players are utilized absolutely matter, as the philosophy of both the coaching staff and management. But there's still no getting around our need to place more emphasis on drafting D going forward. This organization has a tendency to focus too much on drafting forwards, there needs to be more balance. As it stands right now we don't have a single center prospect of none within the system imo, let alone one I'd say has top 6 upside. We have some interesting prospects, certainly, like every other franchise, but I view our prospect pool as being shallow. 

 

JT Miller for that 1st wound up being a stellar move, the move that brought in OEL is a bit more debatable but he's still a top 4D. But regardless of how positively one views those moves the impact moving 1st round picks has on a prospect pool is undeniable. Like I said in the OP, at the very least the balance of retaining picks vs moving them out needs to be more equal. Yes, be willing to part with picks if a no brainer deal comes along, but I'd prefer us to be stingy and reluctant when it comes to moving 1st and 2nd round picks. As a franchise you've always got to be restocking your pipeline and trying to draft that next wave of NHL talent, we've got to balance competing in the present with keeping an eye on the future if we are to have a sustainable competitive window. 

 

I actually have a vacation home in the trades, rumours, and signings sub so there's a chance I probably saw a bit everything that went on there. Yes, this has been an ongoing point of conversation throughout threads but it's still worth making a topic exclusively about this singular talking point. 

 

Even with players getting bigger deals right off their ELC's ELC's still have value to a team, as does having team controlled RFA's. You're not gonna get a UFA on a bridge, you're unlikely to get a top end established NHL D from another team for less than a premium price. Teams don't typically move those players, they just don't. 

 

Totally agree that selling the farm ain't the way to go. I'm a fan of a more long-term approach than a selling the farm and trying to go all in approach. I think spending picks and prospects like candy in combination with not effectively drafting and developing your own prospects just leads to a talent gap similar to what we saw post-Gillis. That's a concern of mine. Yes we've got some great young talent in Pettersson, Hughes, Podz, and Hoglander but we don't have much in the way of top end prospects in the system anymore. Lekkerimaki was a nice addition, I'd have preferred a D at the draft but at least we kept our pick. 

 

It doesn't help that our past two management groups have moved out picks regularly, not being able to effectively address our in-house development has really hurt us too. Drafting prospects is important, but bringing those prospects along is just as important. And not just that, but allowing them to have legitimate opportunities to bump out vets at camp too. And not just top prospects either, if you can get a depth player out of a draft that's valuable too. This forum lost it's shit over our losing Gadjovich last year, the narrative has shifted a bit with his not having done much over in San Jose but he's played for the Sharks. He could have played for us. That's exactly what I'm talking about in terms to prospects who may not project as top players. 

 

We've had a real hard time with RD, but we don't draft enough of em. We saw it this past draft, teams are placing much more emphasis on drafting D with their higher picks. We saw how many D go in the first round? Gotta jump on that wagon. Only way to grab the kind of RD teams never move is to draft and develop our own. That's how you get guys like Dobson, Carlo, ect. 

 

I understand the BPA argument but sometimes leaning towards positional need might be the way to go. D and center's will always have value, wingers are much easier to find. You see a handful of wingers who could probably play top six roles walk to UFA pretty much every year. 

 

Bottom line is we need to rethink our philosophy regarding the draft, and our defense as a whole. It hasn't even been a full year with this management group yet but I hope they're more effective in how they approach areas such as drafting, scouting, development, and both minor league and pro league talent evaluation going forward. It'd be nice to see more players drafted by us go on to play important roles for us at the NHL level. Particularly on defense. 

Wingers are a dime a dozen.  You can pick them up every year in free agency.  How many quality RHD are available in free agency every year?  Hardly any.  And when they are available you have to overpay big time.

 

I get that guys like Cernak and Carlo don't grow on trees and you have to get lucky to draft them in the 2nd round.  But you won't get lucky at all if you don't even take a shot.  So instead of drafting everything but RHD why don't we start to accumulate a few more 2nd and 3rd round picks and start taking some shots at these guys.  Bieksa was a 5th round pick.  So we can even draft them in the later rounds.  But if we don't draft them at all then we have zero shots to develop them and get them into our lineup.

 

A perfect example is Benning trading a 2nd round pick for a supposed top 6 winger in Sven Baertschi.  A guy like Baertschi is a dime a dozen winger who didn't even pan out for us.  Meanwhile, Calgary took that 2nd round pick and drafted Rasmus Andersson, who is now one of their top 4 RHD.  So the moral of the story here is to keep that 2nd round pick and take the shot on the RHD.  

Edited October 3, 2022 by Elias Pettersson

[Chronic.Canuck]

18 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

I actually have a vacation home in the trades, rumours, and signings sub

That's some prime real estate!

 

I'll give you Raymond, Ballard & a 1st for it.

[lmm]

I think there is some cross-over in Vancouver between BPA and Most NHL Ready

Jake comes to mind as one who might have been Most NHL Ready

he wasn't, but he might have been

Lots of Most NHL Ready players don't pan out because they play junior as "men against boys" then fall down when the rest of the league grows up to their stature.

 

the other problem in Canuckville is the trading of second round picks

for some reason in Canuckville second round picks are considered disposable, useful for tossing away for a 3rd line grinder that might help you get into the playoff...

... "if you get in, you never know what will happen" that's worth a second round pick, right?

 

some day I'll look at all our second round picks and see how many were, traded and how many were used for defensemen

I know if you go all the way back to 1971, you'll find the Canucks picked 5'4" Bobby Lalonde ahead of Larry Robinson. That set the standard for a 1/2 century of Canuck drafting

Or go back 1 year further and see the Canucks took a Defenseman with the second overall pick. Or was he a center?

[Angry Goose]

Ill probably be dead before this team can draft and develop a stable of defenseman 

[kanucks25]

38 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

I get that guys like Cernak and Carlo don't grow on trees and you have to get lucky to draft them in the 2nd round.  But you won't get lucky at all if you don't even take a shot.  So instead of drafting everything but RHD why don't we start to accumulate a few more 2nd and 3rd round picks and start taking some shots at these guys.  Bieksa was a 5th round pick.  So we can even draft them in the later rounds.  But if we don't draft them at all then we have zero shots to develop them and get them into our lineup.

 

A perfect example is Benning trading a 2nd round pick for a supposed top 6 winger in Sven Baertschi.  A guy like Baertschi is a dime a dozen winger who didn't even pan out for us.  Meanwhile, Calgary took that 2nd round pick and drafted Rasmus Andersson, who is now one of their top 4 RHD.  So the moral of the story here is to keep that 2nd round pick and take the shot on the RHD.  

#agegap #7yearsofhell #overitnotoverit #salarycapdoesntmatterduringarebuild #whatsarebuild

Edited October 3, 2022 by kanucks25

[DrJockitch]

First round BPA no matter position. After that really should be looking at adding a lot of D.

‘Time to put more value on positional and organizational needs in the draft. Centres and right D’s have premium value in trade market, they should be the stress of drafting but under Benning and now Allvin they draft almost none.  Drafts full of wingers again and again. This year we at least drafted a few left D.  
most notable right D drafted in the last several years are Woo and Myrenberg and that isn’t close to good enough. 
We can draft a goalie every year or two when the organization needs two at any given time but we need 3 right D at all times minimum but can’t find room to draft any?

Benning was terrible and so far Allvin is mirroring him, drafting wingers and overpaying UFAs to fill PK and 4th line roles. 

[tas]

you draft and develop to address problems you have 5 years from now, not the ones you have today. 

[JM_]

why start now @Coconuts?

 

of course you are correct. It has been a weird part of Canucks history, at least recent history.

 

Should we have picked Bischell over JL? time will tell. 

 

I would be very surprised if next draft wasn't d heavy for us. 

[Coconuts]

1 hour ago, Devron said:

Yup just had this discussion in another thread. It is extremely difficult to get an impact defensemen though trade. We’d probably make our team worse to do so. We just aren’t in a position to do that. 
 

Best hope in the meantime is to maybe find a college FA or something to give us that time and development bump. Or swap a winger for a bit of a project defencemen.

 

We will just keep running the cycle of over paying in Free Agency. Severson may become available next summer but again will be be overpaid and who replaces Myers 

 

 

Absolutely, teams hold on to players like Hughes and Dobson. Occasionally you'll see high caliber young D prospects/NHL ready guys like Romanov or Lundqvist moved but you almost never see firmly established young top end D moved. Even acquiring prime aged guys via trade is difficult and costly. We have some pieces we could probably move but I'd argue we don't have the organizational depth to swing for the fences. 

 

Free prospects don't need to be drafted are absolutely important. We should be in on every quality D prospect we can be via that means. Projects are less interesting but sometimes giving players a change of scenery can benefit a team. 

 

We've no succession plan in place for our right side, it's a point @aGENT and I have been making all summer. And honestly, there's probably no shortcut. We have nothing in the system resembling a potential top 4RD. I thought Woo might be that guy once upon a time but his development looks to have stalled. 

 

1 hour ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Wingers are a dime a dozen.  You can pick them up every year in free agency.  How many quality RHD are available in free agency every year?  Hardly any.  And when they are available you have to overpay big time.

 

I get that guys like Cernak and Carlo don't grow on trees and you have to get lucky to draft them in the 2nd round.  But you won't get lucky at all if you don't even take a shot.  So instead of drafting everything but RHD why don't we start to accumulate a few more 2nd and 3rd round picks and start taking some shots at these guys.  Bieksa was a 5th round pick.  So we can even draft them in the later rounds.  But if we don't draft them at all then we have zero shots to develop them and get them into our lineup.

 

A perfect example is Benning trading a 2nd round pick for a supposed top 6 winger in Sven Baertschi.  A guy like Baertschi is a dime a dozen winger who didn't even pan out for us.  Meanwhile, Calgary took that 2nd round pick and drafted Rasmus Andersson, who is now one of their top 4 RHD.  So the moral of the story here is to keep that 2nd round pick and take the shot on the RHD.  

Exactly, and top guys going to UFA are unicorns. You almost never see guys like Pietrangelo becoming available. Teams lock those players down more often than not. 

 

Yup, gotta use your picks to have a chance of drafting such a player. Asset management is a bit of a buzz phrase but cutting bait and acquiring picks to use at the draft can be a good thing. Nothing ventured nothing gained. We need to be drafting more RD period, and D prospects period. 

 

Very good example, one could argue that if not for health reasons Baer may have done better but bottom line is it didn't work and it cost us a high pick. Trying to skip over years of prospect development doesn't always work. 

 

1 hour ago, Chronic.Canuck said:

That's some prime real estate!

 

I'll give you Raymond, Ballard & a 1st for it.

 

49 minutes ago, lmm said:

I think there is some cross-over in Vancouver between BPA and Most NHL Ready

Jake comes to mind as one who might have been Most NHL Ready

he wasn't, but he might have been

Lots of Most NHL Ready players don't pan out because they play junior as "men against boys" then fall down when the rest of the league grows up to their stature.

 

the other problem in Canuckville is the trading of second round picks

for some reason in Canuckville second round picks are considered disposable, useful for tossing away for a 3rd line grinder that might help you get into the playoff...

... "if you get in, you never know what will happen" that's worth a second round pick, right?

 

some day I'll look at all our second round picks and see how many were, traded and how many were used for defensemen

I know if you go all the way back to 1971, you'll find the Canucks picked 5'4" Bobby Lalonde ahead of Larry Robinson. That set the standard for a 1/2 century of Canuck drafting

Or go back 1 year further and see the Canucks took a Defenseman with the second overall pick. Or was he a center?

This may actually be where our likelihood of being a middle of the pack team might benefit us. Most players available at our draft spots are going to be more of your wait and see type prospects anyway. But yeah, NHL ready isn't always best for sure. Wouldn't be surprised if there was crossover between position and BPA either. 

 

Moving out 2nd round picks has absolutely hurt us, we've been far too cavalier with them in the past. We've gotta be more stingy with them.

 

 

47 minutes ago, Angry Goose said:

Ill probably be dead before this team can draft and develop a stable of defenseman 

I worry about you sometimes, geese usually only live 10-20 years.

 

27 minutes ago, DrJockitch said:

First round BPA no matter position. After that really should be looking at adding a lot of D.

‘Time to put more value on positional and organizational needs in the draft. Centres and right D’s have premium value in trade market, they should be the stress of drafting but under Benning and now Allvin they draft almost none.  Drafts full of wingers again and again. This year we at least drafted a few left D.  
most notable right D drafted in the last several years are Woo and Myrenberg and that isn’t close to good enough. 
We can draft a goalie every year or two when the organization needs two at any given time but we need 3 right D at all times minimum but can’t find room to draft any?

Benning was terrible and so far Allvin is mirroring him, drafting wingers and overpaying UFAs to fill PK and 4th line roles. 

I'm not as hellbent on BPA but I understand the argument. If two players are rated similarly I'm not against position being the deciding factor. Of course that varies on a draft to draft basis and what our scouts and management group think each year. I would like us to be using our 2nd round picks on D more often than not. 

 

I would absolutely prefer to place more emphasis on drafting D and centers, wingers are easier to acquire. We def need more tenders too. 

[Coconuts]

9 minutes ago, tas said:

you draft and develop to address problems you have 5 years from now, not the ones you have today. 

As it stands, with our current prospect pool and D core, D could very well still be an issue for us in five years. You don't lose by drafting quality D or center's, they will always be valuable. High end D are harder to acquire than high end forwards imo. 

 

5 minutes ago, JM_ said:

why start now @Coconuts?

 

of course you are correct. It has been a weird part of Canucks history, at least recent history.

 

Should we have picked Bischell over JL? time will tell. 

 

I would be very surprised if next draft wasn't d heavy for us. 

Because I'm procrastinating on an assignment mostly, and because I've been banging this drum since at least leading up to the trade deadline. 

 

Would be nice, hopefully we hold on to our picks. 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Coconuts

[tas]

8 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

As it stands, with our current prospect pool and D core, D could very well still be an issue for us in five years. You don't lose by drafting quality D or center's, they will always be valuable. High end D are harder to acquire than high end forwards imo. 

and ideally you have a good mix positionally in the pool, but that doesn't trump taking the best player. you don't pass on someone you think has more upside for the sake of hypothetical positional need. 

[aGENT]

4 hours ago, Coconuts said:

This thread is mostly a ton in cheek rip off of the one @Odd. made but for real, maybe if this organization wasn't historically awful at drafting and developing it's own D we as a fanbase wouldn't be discussing acquiring D from other teams as often. I mean.. prior to having Hughes fall into our lap because of Arizona going off the board and Detroit whiffing you've pretty much got to go back to what.. Ben Hutton when it comes to D we've drafted who had any sort of longevity as Canucks? Stecher doesn't count, wasn't drafted. Neither does Tanev. And like, before that you've got to go back to what..? Edler? 

 

If Edler's the last drafted prospect who turned out to be more than a bottom pairing D that's pretty goddamn pathetic. You could also make the point that Bieksa was the last top 4RD we drafted and brought along ourselves. 

 

There's been no shortage of proposals that involve trying to poach top young D from other teams, Dobson was the hot ticket item over the summer it seemed. Before that it was Schneider from New York. Maybe, just maybe, we should be using our picks to draft our own players. Maybe, just maybe, we should be willing to draft more D high if we're fortunate enough to have D who's in our range who could be considered BPA. We should be using more 2nd round picks on D prospects. We should be holding on to our picks more going forward period. The best place to get the players folks gush over is the draft, there's no getting around that. We need to start bringing along D prospects ourselves, the only way to actually flip the script on how bad our drafting and developing of D is has to involve actually doing it. We were a goalie graveyard for years but we've done pretty well bringing along both Markstrom and Demko in recent years (despite Markstrom not being drafted by us). Even Schneider was great over in Jersey for a while. 

 

Now, drafting and developing may not impact the current roster and I'm aware our current D core is a source of much frustration. But like, even if we improve our D core there's no guarantee it'll result in our going deep. But drafting and placing more emphasis on actually developing our D prospects going forward (something I'm sure management has taken a hard look at since being pieced together) is a long term need regardless of what this current core does. We can't keep piecing our D together with UFA's and players acquired by trade. It costs more, both in terms of dollars/term and assets given up for said players. 

 

Obviously I'm a proponent of holding on to top picks and some folks aren't on the same page, but there's no denying that the 1st and 2nd rounds are where you're most likely to get NHL'ers. In order to replenish our prospect pool and add some top end talent to it we'll need to at least maintain more of a balance regarding moving and keep picks going forward. High end D prospects are valuable, we just saw Dallas trade a 1st for one in Lundqvist regardless of how folks ridiculed them for that move. Maybe we should place emphasis on drafting some, even if it perhaps means occasionally being more impacted by positional need than BPA. 

Unfortunately, with the "win now" Miller signing, I fear it's already too late. Short of stumbling on a mid round McAvoy/K'andre Miller/Chabot type that can actually contribute at a high level in a year or two... we're likely stuck in that cycle of giving up futures for guys other teams wisely drafted. With Miller likely declining before any "wait and see" type D are actually ready. And of course, we'd have to actually draft one of those guys in the mid first to actually get one...

 

Maybe we'll luck out with trading for a guy like Hague or similar that a team can't afford to qualify or find an undrafted college/Euro "Tanev". The gargantuan management staff has to payoff eventually, right?