The honey badger doesn't give a

[Coconuts]

He's got some of my favourite takes in this market, I love how candid he is when it comes to his former team. And yeah, I agree with him. Sure, it's just his personal take, but his take carries weight in these parts. 

 

 

 

[J-23]

Everything he said about this team over the last couple of years is facts.

 

This is the type of guy you need in management.

[Coconuts]

4 minutes ago, J-23 said:

Everything he said about this team over the last couple of years is facts.

 

This is the type of guy you need in management.

He's nobody's yes man, which is why I think I'd prefer him continuing to just do what he does. I'm not sure he'd fit in management if the expectation was to just tow the organizational line. Having a voice who's been on the inside on the outside is valuable in itself. 

 

Not that I'm saying the twins do, but I think they're still rather early into their management careers for them to be making waves. Tough to gauge their impact, they seem to be involved in a lot though. 

 

That being said, there's no way him being involved wouldn't positively impact the culture. 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Coconuts

[Provost]

Hansen is probably the best ex-Canuck analyst there is.  He seems to have a really good understanding of things beyond just a player’s perspective like you hear from guys like Bieksa and Kesler.

He should be an AGM of Abby 

 

 

 

[Coconuts]

3 minutes ago, Provost said:

Hansen is probably the best ex-Canuck analyst there is.  He seems to have a really good understanding of things beyond just a player’s perspective like you hear from guys like Bieksa and Kesler.

He should be an AGM of Abby 

 

 

 

He really knows this stuff, we're very fortunate that he's still invested in this hockey market. He's the same guy from the outside looking in that he was in the room. 

 

I could def see the pros to his being part of the organization. 

[chon derry]

Seeing him in a sharks uni was as sad as seeing linden In a 

Habs uni.      CANUCKS!

[jyu]

Love Hansen.

 

He understands what the fans are feeling.

 

I was disappointed that JR mentioned this notion of retool on the fly.

 

We have some good young players that if we do it right, it could be a short 3 year rebuild. 

 

Who better to emulate than the cup champs?

 

The Avs had drafted some good young players like Duchene, O'Reilly, Barrie, Landeskog, and finally Mac. Then, they made the playoffs and made it seem like they were close. But it turned out their young players haven't quite hit their strides so they started sucking. Moreover, there was something seriously wrong with in that locker room. Realizing that there was a problem early on, the Avs mgmt promptly sold off assets that they felt were not going to be part of their core for whatever reason, including O'Reilly (I personally was surprised by that). They also stayed patient and worked out a perfect trade partner in Ottawa for Duchene.

 

We have accumulated some good young players that could form the next core with Petey, Hughes, and Podz. I will include Horvat and Demko as well, they are a bit older but not by much.

 

We should have stayed patient and looked for a better trade partner that would pay a fair price for Miller up until the TDL.

 

I think Horvat should have been re-signed in the summer at a fair price, which I think is about 6.5-7 mil. But now it looks like he will be the one to be traded.

 

Not upgrading the defence would have been fine if the direction was to rebuild the team for the next 3 seasons around Petey and Hughes. 

 

That after hours interview made me realize that JR and his crew have no idea what they are doing.

 

[wai_lai416]

12 minutes ago, jyu said:

Love Hansen.

 

He understands what the fans are feeling.

 

I was disappointed that JR mentioned this notion of retool on the fly.

 

We have some good young players that if we do it right, it could be a short 3 year rebuild. 

 

Who better to emulate than the cup champs?

 

The Avs had drafted some good young players like Duchene, O'Reilly, Barrie, Landeskog, and finally Mac. Then, they made the playoffs and made it seem like they were close. But it turned out their young players haven't quite hit their strides so they started sucking. Moreover, there was something seriously wrong with in that locker room. Realizing that there was a problem early on, the Avs mgmt promptly sold off assets that they felt were not going to be part of their core for whatever reason, including O'Reilly (I personally was surprised by that). They also stayed patient and worked out a perfect trade partner in Ottawa for Duchene.

 

We have accumulated some good young players that could form the next core with Petey, Hughes, and Podz. I will include Horvat and Demko as well, they are a bit older but not by much.

 

We should have stayed patient and looked for a better trade partner that would pay a fair price for Miller up until the TDL.

 

I think Horvat should have been re-signed in the summer at a fair price, which I think is about 6.5-7 mil. But now it looks like he will be the one to be traded.

 

Not upgrading the defence would have been fine if the direction was to rebuild the team for the next 3 seasons around Petey and Hughes. 

 

That after hours interview made me realize that JR and his crew have no idea what they are doing.

 

let's not pretend we can emulate the avs.. they have a franchise caliber player in mackinnon landeskog and the hockey god landing on their side dropping 3 spots in the draft and took makar instead.. if they won the lottery? there's no way in hell they are taking makar #1 overall lol.. also trading duchene to ottawa who instantly turned into a rebuild and landing byram. 

 

that's a franchise built thru tanking and luck and numerous top 4 picks. they've literally been tanking for 8+ years before getting to where they are at. just like most of the perennial cup winners.. built thru proper rebuild and tanking.. we can be jealous of NYR but honestly they took shortcuts and don't have enough depth in their system or ELC to help absorb the cap hit to be a serious contender. 

[Elias Pettersson]

Does anyone really believe that JR can turn this around?  He came here with his pedigree and he was all talk about how he was going to take a few weeks to evaluate the team and then make some changes.  He's done nothing up to this point other than adding a whole bunch of AGM's to the team and hiring a GM with less experience than Benning.

 

His summer of 2022 was exactly the same as Benning's summer of 2021, adding long term deals and signing UFA's to overpaid contracts.  He even traded a 2nd round pick to get rid of a bad contract, something he said he would never do.

 

I think we were sold a bill of goods here.  JR is close to retirement.  He was never going to be a part of a rebuild.  He will walk away from all of this with his legacy intact, and we will be left with the ruins of a promising team.

 

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  Shame on all of us for believing that this management group was going to be any different than the last one...

[ktcy2]

I literally hate this new management group. They are all talk and no substance. Useless 

[Dazzle]

1 hour ago, wai_lai416 said:

let's not pretend we can emulate the avs.. they have a franchise caliber player in mackinnon landeskog and the hockey god landing on their side dropping 3 spots in the draft and took makar instead.. if they won the lottery? there's no way in hell they are taking makar #1 overall lol.. also trading duchene to ottawa who instantly turned into a rebuild and landing byram. 

 

that's a franchise built thru tanking and luck and numerous top 4 picks. they've literally been tanking for 8+ years before getting to where they are at. just like most of the perennial cup winners.. built thru proper rebuild and tanking.. we can be jealous of NYR but honestly they took shortcuts and don't have enough depth in their system or ELC to help absorb the cap hit to be a serious contender. 

This is an important observation. It's funny because Rachel Doerrie received a lot of props from many Canuck fans for her praise on Sakic as a GM, even though she never mentioned the tanking process. The reality is that few, if any, teams are able to bounce back with a superstar player.

[Dazzle]

29 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Does anyone really believe that JR can turn this around?  He came here with his pedigree and he was all talk about how he was going to take a few weeks to evaluate the team and then make some changes.  He's done nothing up to this point other than adding a whole bunch of AGM's to the team and hiring a GM with less experience than Benning.

 

His summer of 2022 was exactly the same as Benning's summer of 2021, adding long term deals and signing UFA's to overpaid contracts.  He even traded a 2nd round pick to get rid of a bad contract, something he said he would never do.

 

I think we were sold a bill of goods here.  JR is close to retirement.  He was never going to be a part of a rebuild.  He will walk away from all of this with his legacy intact, and we will be left with the ruins of a promising team.

 

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  Shame on all of us for believing that this management group was going to be any different than the last one...

I'm honestly glad that many fans are waking up to this reality. People put wayyyy too much stock on the sound bites, and many people were willing to take anybody else but Benning. People were making excuses for this GM who was doing basically NOTHING, whether that be at the trade deadline, or free agency. How did anyone lead themselves to believe we'd be a better team? There was way too much credit on last season's late heroics on the new hiring, but little attention on the fact that the team had largely been unchanged, despite new management.

 

Now we see that this team is spent to the cap, ala Benning, all because they were too scared to make a splash by trading Miller.

 

It should be mentioned that Granato has now overseen two consecutive franchises that have crashed at the start - Seattle and Vancouver. I'm not so sure she is the right person anymore in management. That is on Allvin. Doerrie too. Both are now questionable choices.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Dazzle

[jyu]

47 minutes ago, wai_lai416 said:

let's not pretend we can emulate the avs.. they have a franchise caliber player in mackinnon landeskog and the hockey god landing on their side dropping 3 spots in the draft and took makar instead.. if they won the lottery? there's no way in hell they are taking makar #1 overall lol.. also trading duchene to ottawa who instantly turned into a rebuild and landing byram. 

 

that's a franchise built thru tanking and luck and numerous top 4 picks. they've literally been tanking for 8+ years before getting to where they are at. just like most of the perennial cup winners.. built thru proper rebuild and tanking.. we can be jealous of NYR but honestly they took shortcuts and don't have enough depth in their system or ELC to help absorb the cap hit to be a serious contender. 

Let's be honest. We've been in a rebuild since 2014? or 2016? I guess the team was good enough for 100+ points in 2015 so maybe it's 2016.

 

Aside from making the playoffs in 2020 due to COVID shortening the season, we've missed the playoffs every season since then. So, I'd say we've been rebuilding for 7 seasons. It's not too different from the Avs. Avs tanked for like 9 seasons (2009 to 2017)? or maybe 11 seasons (2009 to 2019)?

 

They did have more luck than we did for sure, getting Mac and Makar. Maybe it's our turn to get lucky. You never know, that's why you gotta keep on buying those lottery tickets. One day it could be you.

 

Rebuild for the next 3 years. All it's going to take is for us to get a top 3 pick in this draft. Bedard would be great but the other two guys seem like no jokes either. And two more years of high draft picks to find our #1 RHD.

 

Trade Horvat (only because Miller is probably untradeable) for younger pieces (F, D, picks, or any combination) like the Avs did with O'Reilly.

 

Trade Kuzmenko for a pick or maybe re-sign him. I like this skilled Russian -- I think he will give us some good entertainment along with Petey, Podz, and Hughes during the rebuilding years but not being good enough to make us exit the rebuild prematurely.

 

Wait for Boeser, Pearson, and Myers contract to come off the books. In fact, Myers might be tradeable next season given scarcity of RHDs. Same with Pearson. Doubt Boeser is going anywhere, either he turns it around or we just let him walk after his contract is up.

 

Then go for it in around 2025. Petey and Hughes would be 26, 27. Podz would be 24. Demko will be 30, elite goalies perform well into 30's he might still be part of the core. Bedard will only be 21 and we will have a very long cup window to come

 

 

[Dazzle]

2 minutes ago, jyu said:

Let's be honest. We've been in a rebuild since 2014? or 2016? I guess the team was good enough for 100+ points in 2015 so maybe it's 2016.

 

Aside from making the playoffs in 2020 due to COVID shortening the season, we've missed the playoffs every season since then. So, I'd say we've been rebuilding for 7 seasons. It's not too different from the Avs. Avs tanked for like 9 seasons (2009 to 2017)? or maybe 11 seasons (2009 to 2019)?

 

They did have more luck than we did for sure, getting Mac and Makar. Maybe it's our turn to get lucky. You never know, that's why you gotta keep on buying those lottery tickets. One day it could be you.

 

Rebuild for the next 3 years. All it's going to take is for us to get a top 3 pick in this draft. Bedard would be great but the other two guys seem like no jokes either. And two more years of high draft picks to find our #1 RHD.

 

Trade Horvat (only because Miller is probably untradeable) for younger pieces (F, D, picks, or any combination) like the Avs did with O'Reilly.

 

Trade Kuzmenko for a pick or maybe re-sign him. I like this skilled Russian -- I think he will give us some good entertainment along with Petey, Podz, and Hughes during the rebuilding years but not being good enough to make us exit the rebuild prematurely.

 

Wait for Boeser, Pearson, and Myers contract to come off the books. In fact, Myers might be tradeable next season given scarcity of RHDs. Same with Pearson. Doubt Boeser is going anywhere, either he turns it around or we just let him walk after his contract is up.

 

Then go for it in around 2025. Petey and Hughes would be 26, 27. Podz would be 24. Demko will be 30, elite goalies perform well into 30's he might still be part of the core. Bedard will only be 21 and we will have a very long cup window to come

 

 

The thing is, we could've had a mixture of young and experienced players, without spending to the cap. Many Canuck fans had called for Miller to be traded while his stock was his highest, and we did the most Canuck thing ever. We loved him too much to let him go for any assets.

[jyu]

30 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Does anyone really believe that JR can turn this around?  He came here with his pedigree and he was all talk about how he was going to take a few weeks to evaluate the team and then make some changes.  He's done nothing up to this point other than adding a whole bunch of AGM's to the team and hiring a GM with less experience than Benning.

 

His summer of 2022 was exactly the same as Benning's summer of 2021, adding long term deals and signing UFA's to overpaid contracts.  He even traded a 2nd round pick to get rid of a bad contract, something he said he would never do.

 

I think we were sold a bill of goods here.  JR is close to retirement.  He was never going to be a part of a rebuild.  He will walk away from all of this with his legacy intact, and we will be left with the ruins of a promising team.

 

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  Shame on all of us for believing that this management group was going to be any different than the last one...

I had my doubts about JR but then he sounded intelligent in his interviews.

 

It looked like he was going to play hardball with Miller and he made it seem like we will be a no brainer to re-sign Horvat.

 

Well, he did the exact opposite of what he said.

 

So, now I don't know what to think. I do like Allvin signing Lazar, Aman, Joshua, Kuzmenko. I don't mind Mikheyev, the guy brings skill and speed that was missing on this team. 

 

I just don't understand the Miller signing. Like, couldn't they have waited to see how the season would progress? I remember him saying that we have until the TDL to sign him and that there was no rush: it was either re-sign him by TDL or trade him. 

 

I bet if he stuck to his words and did not jump the gun to re-sign Miller, Miller would already have 10 points and and we would be 5-0-2.

 

 

[jyu]

8 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

The thing is, we could've had a mixture of young and experienced players, without spending to the cap. Many Canuck fans had called for Miller to be traded while his stock was his highest, and we did the most Canuck thing ever. We loved him too much to let him go for any assets.

Miller is our Matt Duchene. Talented and skilled player for sure but it feels like he's stunting growth of younger core players. 

 

[Elias Pettersson]

8 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

I'm honestly glad that many fans are waking up to this reality. People put wayyyy too much stock on the sound bites, and many people were willing to take anybody else but Benning. People were making excuses for this GM who was doing basically NOTHING, whether that be at the trade deadline, or free agency. How did anyone lead themselves to believe we'd be a better team? There was way too much credit on last season's late heroics on the new hiring, but little attention on the fact that the team had largely been unchanged, despite new management.

 

Now we see that this team is spent to the cap, ala Benning, all because they were too scared to make a splash by trading Miller.

 

It should be mentioned that Granato has now overseen two consecutive franchises that have crashed at the start - Seattle and Vancouver. I'm not so sure she is the right person anymore in management. That is on Allvin. Doerrie too. Both are now questionable choices.

With all of the hype around JR people seem to forget that this new management group has less experience than the last one.

 

We have the most diverse management group in all of hockey.  JR said that was a priority for him.  In making it a priority perhaps he forgot to make sure that some of these people were actually qualified for the job.  Rachel Doerrie has already been fired.  Who is going to be next?  Granato?  Hank?  Daniel?  Steamer?  Allvin?

 

At the end of the day this fanbase was screaming for change.  Well, they got exactly what they wanted.  Some were so happy to see Benning and Green get fired they couldn't contain themselves.  We constantly got daily reminders of how bad they were.  Are we any better today than we were a year ago? 

 

As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for...

[Elias Pettersson]

18 minutes ago, jyu said:

I had my doubts about JR but then he sounded intelligent in his interviews.

 

It looked like he was going to play hardball with Miller and he made it seem like we will be a no brainer to re-sign Horvat.

 

Well, he did the exact opposite of what he said.

 

So, now I don't know what to think. I do like Allvin signing Lazar, Aman, Joshua, Kuzmenko. I don't mind Mikheyev, the guy brings skill and speed that was missing on this team. 

 

I just don't understand the Miller signing. Like, couldn't they have waited to see how the season would progress? I remember him saying that we have until the TDL to sign him and that there was no rush: it was either re-sign him by TDL or trade him. 

 

I bet if he stuck to his words and did not jump the gun to re-sign Miller, Miller would already have 10 points and and we would be 5-0-2.

 

 

I highly doubt if Miller was still not re-signed he would be any better than he is right now.  You are assuming he is coasting now after getting that fat contract.  I believe the stress of the contract as well as having a kid in the summer stunted his ability to have a good summer of working out and getting into top shape.  I think he is out of shape for the most part and is slowly getting back into rhythm, similar to Petey last year.  Miller was actually our best player last night and we still lost and got badly outshot, so Miller is definitely not the sole cause of our problems.

 

As for all of the other signings, they seem to look good on paper, but we are 0-5-2 so in reality they haven't helped much and at the end of the day, Allvin did not fix the biggest issue with this team, which is the defence.

[Coconuts]

I was encouraged by this management group but they've had me scratching my head a bit for a while. Coming in Rutherford would talk about wanting to get younger in trades, the importance of picks, that sort of thing. I was like "yeah, right on, this guy gets it" and then the trade deadline came and went. We didn't sell, we weren't able to get a deal we liked apparently. Yeah, a setback I thought, there's always the draft. Draft comes and goes, there's rumblings of a NYI-VAN trade but it never materializes. No trades, no assets incoming, no assets moving out, no additional picks. Okay, the hell? Free agency comes, we sign a bunch of support players, possibly overpay Mikeyev (haven't seen enough yet), we don't find a way to beef up our D despite it being a glaring weakness. Hmm..

 

There's back and forth over Miller all summer but we don't actually hear from him much, there's back and forth over Horvat, same deal. Then bam, Miller deal comes out of nowhere and I'm like "ahhhh shit, here we go". There still haven't been any improvements to what's an obvious weakness, we're stumbling through the preseason but it's the preseason so I don't really worry about it. Then we move out Dickinson and a 2nd and I'm scratching my head a bit, why the hell are we giving up 2nd round picks to get rid of short term headaches? That doesn't line up. Stillman ain't worth that, Dickinson's deal could have been ridden out. Game one, bam. Edmonton does what they typically do, alright, that's Canucks hockey let's see how they bounce back. Bam. Then again, and again, and again, and again. The first few are head scratchers, it looks like we should have been able to bring some one or two of those home. Then it starts to get funny, and then it gets funnier, and now here we are. 

 

I remember folks being convinced we'd be better last year before we fell on our faces out the gate, it was historically bad and the fanbase was stunned. It was Green's fault we'd say, and to an extent it was, he'd gotten stale, but he was the scapegoat. Bruce comes in, we get a coaching bump, team seemingly defies the odds and starts to heat up. These are the real Canucks people begin to say, and that continues down the stretch and throughout the summer. Yeah, right, I'm not convinced and round and round we go. Now we come into this season and folks think we'll build on what they saw in that second half, those were the real Canucks after all, Bruce there it is! Haha, right. Problem is, that first half team was made up of the same group of guys, they absolutely were the team we all watched last autumn. Truth is usually somewhere in the middle, they were both of those teams and we're seeing it again from the same core. Except this time our defense is arguably worse than it was last season, and it's injured right out the gate. 

 

I'm not expecting another heater second half run, I'm not expecting us to lose every game this season, but I am expecting us to miss the playoffs by a sizeable margin and management hasn't done enough. We were arguably a fringe playoff team to begin with, this won't be our only losing stretch this season, it's quite the hole and we're still missing Hughes. Could get uglier, could get deeper. Probably does, that'd be Canuck luck. Could have built around the young players, could have shipped guys out for assets even if the trade was more even than a win. Could have done lots of things I'm sure, and yet here we are. No, it was never going to be a single season turnaround to unravel the Benning era managements mess, but JR and co seemingly haven't done themselves any favours. This team looks lost, even last game against Carolina it seemed closer than it was, Carolina didn't ever seem in danger of losing their lead. Demko actually played well, score should have been much worse. 

 

If this management wants folks to be confident in their abilities they've got a tall task ahead of them now, hopefully they've got the nerve to make the hard call and pull the plug. They certainly haven't made their own job easier. 

Edited October 26, 2022 by Coconuts

[Elias Pettersson]

43 minutes ago, Coconuts said:

I was encouraged by this management group but they've had me scratching my head a bit for a while. Coming in Rutherford would talk about wanting to get younger in trades, the importance of picks, that sort of thing. I was like "yeah, right on, this guy gets it" and then the trade deadline came and went. We didn't sell, we weren't able to get a deal we liked apparently. Yeah, a setback I thought, there's always the draft. Draft comes and goes, there's rumblings of a NYI-VAN trade but it never materializes. No trades, no assets incoming, no assets moving out, no additional picks. Okay, the hell? Free agency comes, we sign a bunch of support players, possibly overpay Mikeyev (haven't seen enough yet), we don't find a way to beef up our D despite it being a glaring weakness. Hmm..

 

There's back and forth over Miller all summer but we don't actually hear from him much, there's back and forth over Horvat, same deal. Then bam, Miller deal comes out of nowhere and I'm like "ahhhh shit, here we go". There still haven't been any improvements to what's an obvious weakness, we're stumbling through the preseason but it's the preseason so I don't really worry about it. Then we move out Dickinson and a 2nd and I'm scratching my head a bit, why the hell are we giving up 2nd round picks to get rid of short term headaches? That doesn't line up. Stillman ain't worth that, Dickinson's deal could have been ridden out. Game one, bam. Edmonton does what they typically do, alright, that's Canucks hockey let's see how they bounce back. Bam. Then again, and again, and again, and again. The first few are head scratchers, it looks like we should have been able to bring some one or two of those home. Then it starts to get funny, and then it gets funnier, and now here we are. 

 

I remember folks being convinced we'd be better last year before we fell on our faces out the gate, it was historically bad and the fanbase was stunned. It was Green's fault we'd say, and to an extent it was, he'd gotten stale, but he was the scapegoat. Bruce comes in, we get a coaching bump, team seemingly defies the odds and starts to heat up. These are the real Canucks people begin to say, and that continues down the stretch and throughout the summer. Yeah, right, I'm not convinced and round and round we go. Now we come into this season and folks think we'll build on what they saw in that second half, those were the real Canucks after all, Bruce there it is! Haha, right. Problem is, that first half team was made up of the same group of guys, they absolutely were the team we all watched last autumn. Truth is usually somewhere in the middle, they were both of those teams and we're seeing it again from the same core. Except this time our defense is arguably worse than it was last season, and it's injured right out the gate. 

 

I'm not expecting another heater second half run, I'm not expecting us to lose every game this season, but I am expecting us to miss the playoffs by a sizeable margin and management hasn't done enough. We were arguably a fringe playoff team to begin with, this won't be our only losing stretch this season, it's quite the hole and we're still missing Hughes. Could get uglier, could get deeper. Probably does, that'd be Canuck luck. Could have built around the young players, could have shipped guys out for assets even if the trade was more even than a win. Could have done lots of things I'm sure, and yet here we are. No, it was never going to be a single season turnaround to unravel the Benning era managements mess, but JR and co seemingly haven't done themselves any favours. This team looks lost, even last game against Carolina it seemed closer than it was, Carolina didn't ever seem in danger of losing their lead. Demko actually played well, score should have been much worse. 

 

If this management wants folks to be confident in their abilities they've got a tall task ahead of them now, hopefully they've got the nerve to make the hard call and pull the plug. They certainly haven't made their own job easier. 

Amen brother.  JR better get his sh*t together and start being "trader Jim" again.  If he sits on his ass and does nothing or simply tries the quick fix band aid solution, then he should just retire and let someone else run this team...