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Jim Rutherford Interview with Pittsburgh beat writer

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4 hours ago, Bell said:

Sounds like a guy who is getting paid handsomely has mailed it in.

Where does it say that? 

 

Just because he said he shoulda retired, doesn't mean he doesn't take his current Canucks top job seriously. Those 2 things are not contradictory. If he has mailed it in, he wouldn't be doing all these interviews with different media outlets you have seen in the past year. You think all these interviews with the interviewers hammering him with tough questions doesn't stress him out? Why does he do it? So he can get his direction out to the fanbase. 

 

Hes been on the job for 1 year, give it some time. Some moves are crap (like not trading and ended up signing Miller), but it's what he does right that counts. 

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13 minutes ago, Roberts said:

this management is good at stating the obvious in a long interview format. we never learn anything new

They speak like politicians, giving up very little. The last Alvin interview springs to mind. 

 

They've done a good job at not having things leak, but at the same time there's no clear direction or plan. Nobody really seem to know what they're up to, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. 

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4 hours ago, ilduce39 said:

I like that he’s being patient and tuning out the noise - in this climate pushing anything through would be way too costly.

“In Vancouver, we have a CFL football team, but we don’t have NFL or Major League Baseball like you do in Pittsburgh,” Rutherford said. “And a big thing here — and I totally understand it — is the frustration of having a franchise for as long as they have, getting to the (Stanley Cup) Finals a few times but not winning the Cup. And then of course, even worse than that, is a number of years without being a playoff team."

 

I actually don't like that they're aware of fans' frustration.  It doesn't help or make things better going forward.  

 

The best rational way to deal with the current situation does not involve letting past failures impair your present-day decisions. 

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1 hour ago, ilduce39 said:

No idea what you’re on about.  I wanted Miller gone but I wouldn’t call re-signing him a reactionary move. 
 

In any case I was referring to making a move based on the losing season just for the sake of making a move.  To distract media and fans to give them something to talk about.  As of yet he hasn’t done that.

Arguably it was a reactionary move to a one off 99point season. 

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5 hours ago, D.B Cooper said:

Pretty sure this article was from last summer.   
Why are we crying about it now?   

From this Monday - see the intro to the article where they refer to the upcoming game at Pittsburgh this Tuesday. 

It's not new themes although he is now responsible for some of those bad contracts and can't put solely the blame on past management.  

 

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3 hours ago, Alflives said:

Clearly the direction is the same as our owner has always wanted.  We build around a core five.  Bo is one of those five.  He will be extended.  It’s what our owner wants.  We, as fans, may not agree with the owner’s direction, but that’s where we are going.  Management will try to build a better supporting group (that costs less than the current one) so they can afford a bump in cap allocation to the core five (Bo + Petey coming up for new contracts) 

So really the direction (plan) is clear.  

Core Five?  Horvat/Miller/Hughes/Demko/Pettersson?  That's a somewhat old core to rebuild with...  or are we really going to try and contend during the next five seasons with this team?  And how exactly are we going to afford paying Bo and Petey after Miller's extension?  Nothing short of a full-blown rebuild will work.

 

2 hours ago, ilduce39 said:

I think stay the course simply meant no knee jerk reactions - they’ll wait until they think they have the best offers on the table, rather than do something just to take the heat off.

The primary objective of the Canucks organization should be to undo the damage that Benning brought onto the franchise.  That means getting rid of Myers and OEL as soon as possible, and acquiring as many picks as possible to help accelerate the rebuild.  But by re-signing Miller (which I didn't expect to be this bad in hindsight), we have committed to winning with what we have.  The two problems here are that we are NOT winning with this team, and we are about to lose Horvat to free agency.

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Surprised he's been so patient, he was a wrecking ball in Pittsburgh making bad trades left, right and center. Have to give him credit for a solid team in Carolina, but with the Pens they all got lucky - Crosby and Malkin basically made any coach or manager look good for the last decade and then some. 

 

Now at the end of his career he's finally being challenged and so far, no good. 

 

Sounds like they want to sort the cap hell out before they can move forward which I appreciate, but don't see it happening. Not going to be easy to wipe the slate clean when you've got so many mega cap hits on the team under performing, that could take many years. Probably would be wise to just rebuild during the OEL years and then start fresh with a bunch of good picks and prospects. Even if ownership won't allow a full rebuild, he should try and do a stealth one - acquire picks/prospects or young players in "hockey trades" while those big cap hits are ticking down, then once they're almost up it's time to build a team.

 

Not sure if JR will even be around though once OEL's deal ends...

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5 hours ago, Westcoasting said:

Yeah I concur… heard so much about so many teams in cap hell and everyone who can’t make trades I really wonder if this is going to be a couple year project to be a playoff team, let alone be considered a contender. I’ve been to three games this year and it is so painful I already know I’m not going to any next year!!

Honest question @Westcoasting, if Canucks made a whole sale of players and started a rebuild around Petey and Hughes only, with lots of draft picks, and prospects coming on to the team instead, would you still be attending games? more/less?

 

Reason for question, is the ongoing debate about rebuilding. I know a few good posters, has said they would prefer tear down instead of putting a few plasters on an already dead horse, and I have come to the same conclusion, but in the end it's about the fans attending the games, I think. You vote with your cash, like in any business.

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18 minutes ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

Surprised he's been so patient, he was a wrecking ball in Pittsburgh making bad trades left, right and center. Have to give him credit for a solid team in Carolina, but with the Pens they all got lucky - Crosby and Malkin basically made any coach or manager look good for the last decade and then some. 

 

Now at the end of his career he's finally being challenged and so far, no good. 

 

Sounds like they want to sort the cap hell out before they can move forward which I appreciate, but don't see it happening. Not going to be easy to wipe the slate clean when you've got so many mega cap hits on the team under performing, that could take many years. Probably would be wise to just rebuild during the OEL years and then start fresh with a bunch of good picks and prospects. Even if ownership won't allow a full rebuild, he should try and do a stealth one - acquire picks/prospects or young players in "hockey trades" while those big cap hits are ticking down, then once they're almost up it's time to build a team.

 

Not sure if JR will even be around though once OEL's deal ends...

I actually thought that was a funny one, but don't know, how much you can rely on it. The Miller deal together with the Mika deal, doesn't scream reduce the over all cap of the team....

(I like the Mika deal).

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4 hours ago, Alflives said:

Clearly the direction is the same as our owner has always wanted.  We build around a core five.  Bo is one of those five.  He will be extended.  It’s what our owner wants.  We, as fans, may not agree with the owner’s direction, but that’s where we are going.  Management will try to build a better supporting group (that costs less than the current one) so they can afford a bump in cap allocation to the core five (Bo + Petey coming up for new contracts) 

So really the direction (plan) is clear.  

That's what it looks like unfortunately...

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I was disappointed in the interview. For me the key points are as follows.

 

1. JR now says that his main objective is to "improve the team". There is no mention of trying to build a cup contender.

 

2. Probably the strongest statement is "But I think the opportunity is going to be there at some point in time that we can put a pretty good team together here.”

 

That's it. : A "pretty good" team.  "at some point in time".

 

3. He has been clear all along that he has no interest in rebuilding, so we should give up on that fantasy.

 

4. This is his strategy: “We have a lot of good players here. We certainly show signs of that at different times with this group. We haven’t totally come together as a team, which would give us a chance to be more consistent. We’re working and looking at what we can do better.”

 

So basically he wants to go with core they have and improve it around the margins. 

 

 

5. This is basically the Benning/Aqualini strategy that failed miserably for the previous 7 years.

 

6. The best hope is simply that JR and Allvin are better at execution than Benning. Actually,  I think that is true, but probably all they will do is achieve the apparent Aquilini strategy: -- try to be good enough to squeak into the playoffs and, hey, in the playoffs anything can happen. 

 

The chance of winning a Cup with this strategy is pretty much zero. 

 

7. To win a Cup you need high value players who provide significant value relative to their cap hit. Where do you get those players? The draft. The most valuable Canucks on the team right now are Petey, Hughes, and Horvat -- all high draft picks made by the Canucks.  It is hard to get impact players at reasonable cap hits any other way.

 

8. But JR, like Benning, seems to have no interest in acquiring draft picks. He wants to improve the team by making "hockey trades". But that is very hard to do as other GMs are not eager to give away surplus value in trade. In Pittsburgh JR was lucky enough to have Benning on the other end of crucially important trade (Sutter for Bonino)  but there aren't many GMs like Benning out there anymore.

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18 minutes ago, JamesB said:

I was disappointed in the interview. For me the key points are as follows.

 

1. JR now says that his main objective is to "improve the team". There is no mention of trying to build a cup contender.

 

2. Probably the strongest statement is "But I think the opportunity is going to be there at some point in time that we can put a pretty good team together here.”

 

That's it. : A "pretty good" team.  "at some point in time".

 

3. He has been clear all along that he has no interest in rebuilding, so we should give up on that fantasy.

 

4. This is his strategy: “We have a lot of good players here. We certainly show signs of that at different times with this group. We haven’t totally come together as a team, which would give us a chance to be more consistent. We’re working and looking at what we can do better.”

 

So basically he wants to go with core they have and improve it around the margins. 

 

 

5. This is basically the Benning/Aqualini strategy that failed miserably for the previous 7 years.

 

6. The best hope is simply that JR and Allvin are better at execution than Benning. Actually,  I think that is true, but probably all they will do is achieve the apparent Aquilini strategy: -- try to be good enough to squeak into the playoffs and, hey, in the playoffs anything can happen. 

 

The chance of winning a Cup with this strategy is pretty much zero. 

 

7. To win a Cup you need high value players who provide significant value relative to their cap hit. Where do you get those players? The draft. The most valuable Canucks on the team right now are Petey, Hughes, and Horvat -- all high draft picks made by the Canucks.  It is hard to get impact players at reasonable cap hits any other way.

 

8. But JR, like Benning, seems to have no interest in acquiring draft picks. He wants to improve the team by making "hockey trades". But that is very hard to do as other GMs are not eager to give away surplus value in trade. In Pittsburgh JR was lucky enough to have Benning on the other end of crucially important trade (Sutter for Bonino)  but there aren't many GMs like Benning out there anymore.

Pretty much sums it up... Good call James

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56 minutes ago, spook007 said:

I actually thought that was a funny one, but don't know, how much you can rely on it. The Miller deal together with the Mika deal, doesn't scream reduce the over all cap of the team....

(I like the Mika deal).

Absolutely, I thought after the Dermott deal and a few minor moves here and there Allvin and co. would be hell-bent on saving cap and then they splash 8M on a center-turned-winger, and the biggest surprise was the Mikheyev deal. He is one of our best players and top-line winger, no doubt about it, but we just spent 5M we didn't have. I was a bit disappointed, especially considering we already have 6.5M in Brock, 5M in Garland, a freebie granted to us that off-season in Kuzmenko and then (I suppose to everyone's surprise though) Miller becomes a winger. Before signing Mikheyev I thought we should have at least moved one of Boeser or Garland. You just can't have so much cap space tied up on wingers. Then we just have Petey and Bo down the middle, with a bunch of fringe-AHLers filling the 3C and 4C role. Lazar has been a great signing, sure, but they could have just re-signed Lammikko so really there's no benefit or drop off there (if anything Lazar is producing next to zero offence so you could argue, our 4th line's a lot worse than the prime trio of Lammy-Motte-Highmore last year).

 

Biggest disappointment is lack of upgrading this defence obviously but they had the cap space last off-season, they just splashed a good 13M on 3 wingers.

 

That is not a team who is trying to rebuild or retool, that is a team who is trying to win now and of course it hasn't worked out - we have ignored our D completely.

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2 minutes ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

Absolutely, I thought after the Dermott deal and a few minor moves here and there Allvin and co. would be hell-bent on saving cap and then they splash 8M on a center-turned-winger, and the biggest surprise was the Mikheyev deal. He is one of our best players and top-line winger, no doubt about it, but we just spent 5M we didn't have. I was a bit disappointed, especially considering we already have 6.5M in Brock, 5M in Garland, a freebie granted to us that off-season in Kuzmenko and then (I suppose to everyone's surprise though) Miller becomes a winger. Before signing Mikheyev I thought we should have at least moved one of Boeser or Garland. You just can't have so much cap space tied up on wingers. Then we just have Petey and Bo down the middle, with a bunch of fringe-AHLers filling the 3C and 4C role. Lazar has been a great signing, sure, but they could have just re-signed Lammikko so really there's no benefit or drop off there (if anything Lazar is producing next to zero offence so you could argue, our 4th line's a lot worse than the prime trio of Lammy-Motte-Highmore last year).

 

Biggest disappointment is lack of upgrading this defence obviously but they had the cap space last off-season, they just splashed a good 13M on 3 wingers.

 

That is not a team who is trying to rebuild or retool, that is a team who is trying to win now and of course it hasn't worked out - we have ignored our D completely.

I wouldn't be so annoyed about money spent on any kind of player or to the cap limit, if we were a play off team, but we are clearly not...

EP is improving and so QH, so there is hope, but the 1000+ pages written about trading anyone of real value (high earner) or him/her/the dog and anyone with a heart beat can firmly be laid to rest now...

As James said, the future is to stick with, what we got now and supplement the core with cheaper players, so we have money to pay them... Hopefully they find dance partners for Boeser and Garland, as OEL is going nowhere this century, etc etc etc...

 

Or maybe its a smoke screen to up the value of Horvat.......:ph34r:

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1 hour ago, spook007 said:

Honest question @Westcoasting, if Canucks made a whole sale of players and started a rebuild around Petey and Hughes only, with lots of draft picks, and prospects coming on to the team instead, would you still be attending games? more/less?

 

Reason for question, is the ongoing debate about rebuilding. I know a few good posters, has said they would prefer tear down instead of putting a few plasters on an already dead horse, and I have come to the same conclusion, but in the end it's about the fans attending the games, I think. You vote with your cash, like in any business.

Interested to see if the "true" fans will continue to attend ?  Cause it seems obvious where some of the apathetic longtimers, had put their $.  The roster as a group, is mediocre despite the pieces and good chance, JR will double down around Miller instead of getting younger & (re)building around EP.  One more year left, on EPs' deal.

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2 minutes ago, ShawnAntoski said:

Interested to see if the "true" fans will continue to attend ?  Cause it seems obvious where some of the apathetic longtimers,  had put their $.  The roster as a group, is mediocre despite the pieces and good chance, JR will double down around Miller instead of getting younger & (re)building around EP.

That's what it sounds like...

 

And yes you vote with your cash... there will always be someone keeping their tickets, as they always have... If folks would continue to come during a rebuild, it would be easier to convince the owners to get it going....

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8 minutes ago, spook007 said:

That's what it sounds like...

 

And yes you vote with your cash... there will always be someone keeping their tickets, as they always have... If folks would continue to come during a rebuild, it would be easier to convince the owners to get it going....

Imo, if they would just give the fanbased a lot more credit, a rebuild will be supported vs  the ever retooling to the middle strategy, that is causing some/most of the longtimers to become apathetic.  I can only speak for my circle of friends and others we know.  

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28 minutes ago, spook007 said:

I wouldn't be so annoyed about money spent on any kind of player or to the cap limit, if we were a play off team, but we are clearly not...

EP is improving and so QH, so there is hope, but the 1000+ pages written about trading anyone of real value (high earner) or him/her/the dog and anyone with a heart beat can firmly be laid to rest now...

As James said, the future is to stick with, what we got now and supplement the core with cheaper players, so we have money to pay them... Hopefully they find dance partners for Boeser and Garland, as OEL is going nowhere this century, etc etc etc...

 

Or maybe its a smoke screen to up the value of Horvat.......:ph34r:

Absolutely, would have looked like a great move if we made the playoffs, 3 scoring lines sounds great, but problem is we only have 2 defensive pairs able to defend. Instead of spending 8M on Miller and 5M on Mikheyev, IMO we should have waited until the next season to decide on what to do with Miller and Bo. 

 

As for the 5M in cap space we had...I know there weren't many decent UFA defencemen this off-season but we could have signed one of these guys:

 

1) Schultz - I know he's 32 but he's having a heck of a year with Seattle, 21 points in 37 games, RD, local boy, playing 18-20 minutes. Was signed to a 3M deal.

2) Ruuta - I know, older too at 33, but he's playing 20 minutes-ish a night in Pittsburgh, 7 points in 39 games, +7, a big strong RD and making just 2.7M

3) Zadorov - younger, big strong guy, decent points and +/-, re-signed in Calgary but was looking around free agency, he can certainly play on the right and can play 20+ minutes, got a 3.7M deal

 

I know none of these guys are great but they're so much cheaper than a 5M winger and would have filled a massive hole this team has. If we want to win now you can't just go looking for young guys, an older veteran RD who can still play 20 minutes would have been so perfect for this team. Instead we load up on wingers, score plenty of goals but get thrashed defensively - no surprises there.

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