Is our core five good enough to win?

[Beefcake]

The top 5 core players are individually ok but together on the same team they are not the right mix. 

[5nothincanucksohno]

EP, Hughes, and Demko as three of five yes but I think they need upgrades over Miller and Horvat. Namely a defensively sound leader on the backend and another scoring winner with pace.

[Spoosh]

I say yes.

 

What makes all this difficult is Miller and the amount he counts against the cap. 
we should be building around Pettersson, Hughes, Horvat and Demko in my opinion.

 

Having Miller here is good but it makes it hard to keep Bo and Kuzmenko around. Guys we should definitely keep arould for as long as we can.

Moving other contracts can free up space to keep these guys but it will still limit our chances to build around the core so I still think keeping Miller around is the biggest issue. Not his on-ice performance but it makes many other moves way too hard to manouver.

 

Moving Pearson, Myers, OEL, Boeser, Poolman is a start. Keeping Miller was a strange and bad idea when they signed and even more so now when you see Petey, Bo, Mikheyev and Kuzy and what they bring right now. Miller would be scoring more too (like Bo) if this was his contract year.

[PunjabiCanucks]

We are missing a 3c, a #1 RHD, a second pairing that can PK and play PP but costs less then 10M combined.

 

If miller stays currently is he a winger and we have too many of those

[Miss Korea Bob.Loblaw]

I say no.  A core of five players should still be able to win when one of them goes down.  We can't even score goals when Pettersson is injured.  Our performances when he's out are material enough to get players traded and staff fired.  Good enough to win?  They are not even good enough to compete.

[beni]

The core is great individually, but this team doesn't work. 

[Ghostsof1915]

2 hours ago, PunjabiCanucks said:

We are missing a 3c, a #1 RHD, a second pairing that can PK and play PP but costs less then 10M combined.

 

If miller stays currently is he a winger and we have too many of those

We're missing a defence that can defend.

Schenn and Bear are fine. Hughes is offensively gifted, but he struggles with bigger and faster teams.

The mix isn't right.

Petey is the one I'd build around.

[Viper007]

1 hour ago, Bob.Loblaw said:

I say no.  A core of five players should still be able to win when one of them goes down.  We can't even score goals when Pettersson is injured.  Our performances when he's out are material enough to get players traded and staff fired.  Good enough to win?  They are not even good enough to compete.

Neither can Colorado.  MacKinnon is out, and the only reason they're winning is Rantanen.

[Hairy Kneel]

If we had Gravy Graves and Hamilton yes

[DownUndaCanuck]

8 hours ago, iceman64 said:

I disagree with the Demko bit, it wasn't like he was playing that badly, he could only stand on his head so long, same with Loungo, it's totally unreasonable to ask that when a goalie plays "good" should be enough, if not it's time to focus on team D for the whole roster. 

 Why hasn't this been done yet? Idk but the D systems we're using aren't doing us any favours! 

 Keeping it simple and quick works, not slow and complicated. We get burned so often because of it. 

 Until this changes it doesn't matter whose on the backend, we will still lose games because of it... 

I think if we had the balls to trade a forward for defenceman in the off-season we'd be a playoff team easily. There was ceetainly a deal around Boeser for Marino to be made, we just didn't make it and NJD swooped in.

 

Tack an elite top-5 defenceman onto that group and you've got a contender.

[spook007]

6 hours ago, Angry Goose said:

Cup? No-you would need an elite supporting cast to do that.  

 

Can they re jig the roster to make it a (decent) playoff team? Possible

 

Yep... exactly my answer. 
 

As fun as they can be to watch, the D will not get it done.

 

Yet, if they can keep EP, Miller, Bo, Kuz, Mika, Demko, QH, OEL (by default), and find money to sign a couple og decent defensive d's and a shut down C, then I'd say yes, but a massive clear out is needed to find the cap space for those players...

 

Can getting rid of Myers, Poolman, Boeser, Garland, Pearson create enough cap space for the above? If so yes, otherwise no...

[DrJockitch]

No, not with what is around them but this also has to be put on the core as well. 
Can’t blame one Chaos Giraffe for everything. 
The team doesn’t buy in to the coach and players get rewarded for it. JTM went on scoring tear last year by abandoning defence in a contract year. Big contract, comes in out of shape, is worst player on ice for first month of season and has to be moved to wing because can’t pull it together enough to play C and keeps costing us games.  
Bo is following his example this year. Contract year, go to the net hard consistently but don’t back check consistently.  It is not in his nature to abandon D completely like JT but the effort hasn’t been as consistent as usual. 
Demko was having terrible year before injury.  Who knows what is coming back. I understand there are concerns about his durability. 
I don’t see a core 5, I see a core 2 at this point. The rest fit somewhere between could and should be moved to rebuild the team around Pettey and Q. Get a big mean SOB that can skate on right D and 2 or 3 more on wing. Build a team that creates room for EP and Quinn not a collection of smurfs on the wing. 
And for goodness sakes, draft some right D and don’t trade them for more wingers. 
Unfortunately ownership sees a team that just needs a good right D or some foolishness like that and we are stuck in the squishy middle again in one of the great draft years. 

Edited December 26, 2022 by DrJockitch

[Gawdzukes]

14 hours ago, -Vintage Canuck- said:

It doesn’t matter who your core players are when the roster is poorly constructed. You need a very good supporting cast that can support these core players. Start by fixing the defence, see if Demko can rebound after his injury and make a decision on Horvat sooner than later. We have longs way to go before we’re able to compete for the cup.

This is exactly how I see it. Questions like the core aren't really the issue, well they are but only in as far as it relates to fixing the defence. We spend far to much time worrying about things except the important obvious stuff that's staring us in the face. Just like this year, we so obviously needed defence but we went out and got a bunch of wingers.

[McIlhargey the Lesser]

15 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

I think they're very good pieces - a top 2 way center in Bo, a top skilled center in Petey who is also solid defensively, Miller who is basically a PPG winger, Hughes who is one of the best puck moving defencemen and skaters in the league and Demko who was arguably the 4th best goalie last year and has been dreadful/injured this year.

 

All that squad really needs is a top all around defenceman to be taken seriously, instead of OEL. A rich-man's Edler or someone like Hedman is what we're lacking.

 

Then of course it's the supporting cast too who aren't quite good enough, but that being said - it's only really on defence, because up front we have fantastic depth. 

 

So long story short - we're lacking a true top defenceman who can shut down opponent's stars...and then some defensive depth too.

 

I know we're a .500 team but we're arguably two players away from being a contender IMO. Throw a Hedman and then a guy like Pesce/Slavin into our lineup and we're a contender hands down. This team can out-score any team but with a proper defence, our goalies would look better and if we could keep teams to under 3 goals a game we'd be tops in the league.

This.

And better defensive systems, or effort, not sure which.

[CanuckleHorse]

I would love to see a player like Tuch added while moving Boeser and possibly another contract maybe Pearson would probably have to add some younger C prospect with them.

[kloubek]

Well, they aren't going to do it on their own. But I do think that's an adequate core from a talent perspective.

 

I believe we *generally* have the required supporting cast on the forward lines. As others have said, we need a true defensive stud added to the blueline, and we have too much invested in players who aren't playing up to their contracts back there as well. We're probably stuck with OEL's contract, but Myers will be off the books after next year, and I think that 6m cap along with the cap going up will allow enough of a blueline retool that while it may not be this team's biggest strength, it should no longer be a liability.

 

This team's success also hinges on Demko rediscovering his game. This team playing a cohesive defensive game hasn't been it's strong suit, and while revamping the D should help, unless something else changes (coach?) I expect we'll continue to rely on our goaltending to bail us out of games.

[nopROBlemo]

15 hours ago, Alflives said:

Nice to have 7 core players, but even Cup winners move on from the extra bodies.  So I’m saying five guys stay.  All others, regardless of their contribution, or support pieces.  

For example does Colorado win their Cup without stealing (in a super lopsided trade) Kadri from the LOSER Leafs?  Imagine if Dumbass doesn’t sign Pyjama Boy to that crazy contract and keeps Kadri instead.  Then the Avs don’t get a sucker stupido to steal from (getting Kadri) and don’t win that Cup.

We need to find stupid GMs, like Dumbass, to steal from.  And that will build out our support group.  

First we need to find a GM that is smarter than Dobass. 

We haven't had much luck with that lately. 

I like this this thread, you started it with a positive opening post and are letting others expess their opinion openly. 

You are one of my favorite posters here. 

[EddieVedder]

17 hours ago, iceman64 said:

Tanev? That would have been a mistake, a younger version of Tanev? You bet! However at his age and injury history, I'd have been pissed off if Benning had re-upped him. 

 Both Tanev and Edler were simply aged out and so did their bodies with probably the worst injury record between the 2 of them is something I hope I never see again with our team. 

 Anyway, Merry Xmas Mr Alien...

Tanev was under 30 years old when we let him go.  How was that aged out? He was still in his prime. 

[Alflives]

3 minutes ago, EddieVedder said:

Tanev was under 30 years old when we let him go.  How was that aged out? He was still in his prime. 

And Benning traded for a replacement for Tanev who cost more, hand a longer term, and was older.  Then moved that guy out (thank God) but then traded for an even older guy, with more term, who costs even more!  We went from a fabulous supporting player in Tanev (4.5 per) to OEL (7.2 per).

This is why our supporting group is bad.  But our core is good, so JR/Allvin just need to fix Benning’s messed up supporting group and we will win.  

[Gawdzukes]

8 hours ago, Viper007 said:

Neither can Colorado.  MacKinnon is out, and the only reason they're winning is Rantanen.

Lol, did you just say Colorado can't win with one of their core out, and say one of their core is out, but they're winning because of one of their core? 

 

  

7 hours ago, spook007 said:

Can getting rid of Myers, Poolman, Boeser, Garland, Pearson create enough cap space for the above? If so yes, otherwise no...

This what always has me shaking my head on CDC. No body ever wants to trade anyone good they just want to trade these cap anchors. I've been waiting 4 years just to trade Pearson let alone 5 of these in one single period. That's why we gotta stop signings like Miller. We simply don't have the cap.

Edited December 26, 2022 by Gawdzukes