[PGT] Vancouver Canucks at Detroit Red Wings | Feb. 11, 2023

[Canuck You]

Hahahahaahahaha!

 

 

[Canuck You]

[Canuck You]

[ToTellTheTruth]

That was a bit of a surprise.

 

When looking at the schedule this was the game I thought they had the best chance of winning of the four road games. But 1 win and three losses has not changed the team's circumstances.

 

Trade rumours are picking up, 17 scouts at that game and Detroit isn't the team that is jettisoning players.

[IBatch]

10 hours ago, jyu said:

Fortunately, the management is forced to do it the "right" way, which I guess is to tank and draft new core players.

 

The previous core we had in place, including Horvat was not a bad one. Horvat, Petey, Miller, Boeser, Hughes, and Demko are the type of guys that step up their game in the playoffs. We lost to Vegas in 2020 but that was before Petey and Hughes have come into their own. Horvat and Miller have also improved their game since then, although Miller somehow developed a temper problem while improving his offensive game. Boeser obviously plateaued and needs to be replaced whether we keep him on the team or not.

 

I honestly believe that without COVID and without some of the radical roster decisions made since 2020, we wouldn't be where we are now. We would all be excited for the playoffs.

 

But that core is no longer affordable so we had no choice but to trade away a key piece in Horvat. Boeser also needs to be replaced as he has stalled, unlike Petey and Hughes, who have improved their games by leaps and bounds.

 

I point to the sudden erosion of key support personnel that were in charge of defending for the mess that we have at hand. We went from

 

Sutter, Beagle, Roussel, Pearson, Tanev, Edler, Stecher, Benn/Fantenberg, Eriksson

 

to

 

Lazar, Aman/Dries, Joshua, older Pearson, Schenn, OEL, Bear, Dermott/Stillman.

 

We used to have guys that spent years honing their skills at defending the lead as well killing penalties. The bottom, well, nothing needs to be said. 

 

The roster composition was totally broken. Coupled with flat cap, the management has no choice but to ship out core and go on a rebuild or retool or whatever. 

 

They need to find balance in the roster again while drafting two additional players to round out the core. I hope we can draft a good RD and a play driving forward, preferably a center but if it's an elite winger like Mitchkov, hat would do as well.

 

Now that we are committed to rebuilding, I'm looking forward to the 2023 draft lottery, the draft itself, and off season. 

 

 

 

 

 

And where are Edler, Tanev, Stecher, Fanteberg, Sutter, Roussel and Benn now?   Tanev in the infirmary - Stetcher is still playing on close to league min deals - the rest out to or about to be out to pasture.   That entire group needed to be moved out aside from Tanev.  

[jyu]

8 minutes ago, IBatch said:

And where are Edler, Tanev, Stecher, Fanteberg, Sutter, Roussel and Benn now?   Tanev in the infirmary - Stetcher is still playing on close to league min deals - the rest out to or about to be out to pasture.   That entire group needed to be moved out aside from Tanev.  

Entire group needed to be replaced over time not in a matter of a year.
 

Covid really did away this team coupled with loose cap management. 

[Gawdzukes]

6 hours ago, R3aL said:

Listen to his postgame interview. He says they need to hit another level of fitness he’s gonna work on it with them cause it’s not good enough.

 

and Bruce made a comment about it to at one point 

Greener had problems too. Mentally and physically weak.

[Boudrias]

4 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

Obviously this was a dreadful game from the out-set, the combination of bad defending and AHL goaltending sums it up. This time we couldn't score our way out of our problems. Petey forces 2 goals for but the rest of the team is non-existent. Didn't look like it score-wise but this was one of our most embarassing games.

 

2 goals on 2 shots against to start the game.

 

That defending by Bear was atrocious to start the game, he handcuffs Quinn then coughs it up, then doesn't cover his man who snipes an easy goal against a goalie who may as well not be there. I think his little burst is over - Bear started his tenure with us so strongly but now I can see why he fell off in Carolina - he's just not consistently good and gets caught a bit slow sometimes. He's not quite a puck mover, not quite a tough defensive guy, just in the middle. When he was good for us he was great (IMO our 2nd best defenceman at times this year) but we're seeing the cracks now. I hope we have a long hard think about whether we extend him or not and it'll depend a lot on what else we can do to sort this defence out.

 

Then next batter up is OEL who gets his feet stuck in mud and doesn't move quick enough, same can be said for Myers. Even Burroughs was just fishing out there, bad positioning at times which lead to the goals against.

 

We have to be one of the easiest teams to score goals against. When you look at the teams below us, their personnel on D are so much worse. They have a bunch of AHLers playing whereas we have "bonified" NHLers with tonnes of experience and ironically are all former first round picks, yet our guys are just toast. They're either too old and well past their prime or just not good enough.

 

Tocchet's systems don't change a thing when you just suck at your job. I think we've averaged over 4GAA with Rick now which is even worse than with Bruce so I hope that whole coaching chatter can be put to bed, it hasn't changed our defence at all.

 

6th overall pick right now, I hope we keep sliding and it's kind of fun but sad to see the fans cheering for a loss. Half a season is alright but 2-3 years of cheering for losses can weigh on a franchise so hopefully this is a quick nose-dive, collect our pearl(s) at this upcoming draft and scoot back to the top.

Amazing how you are passing judgement on Tocchet when he has coached maybe 10 games. This is no nose dive to the bottom and a quick return to contention. Quick? 2011 was 12 years ago. What we see happening now should have happened under Linden but did not. IMHO rebuilding will take a number of years. 

[IBatch]

54 minutes ago, jyu said:

Entire group needed to be replaced over time not in a matter of a year.
 

Covid really did away this team coupled with loose cap management. 

Agree on both those points.   JB "competitive" meant spending to the cap...when really we needed a GM who kept some cap on the side for when we actually needed to make the playoffs.   Like this year and last year.    Now the group still needs playoffs, but instead is back to rebuilding in a way.   Things might have worked out for us if that OJ pick was Hughes Seabrook.    Never drafting RHD's was also not great.   One thing JB was decent at was staggering his cap, so when one was done, and another player was due for a raise the money was there.    In reality we didn't get many team friendly deals, and agree with Hansen - why pay that much for guys who've never done anything in the post season?   Part of that for sure is systemic. 

 

But JB also set the table and made his own bed.   And wasn't willing or patient enough to let the cap shed.   Losing Tanev was a massive loss.    And we had the cap but instead went after OEL.    Garland is fine.   His cap hit doesn't hurt us, we'd need someone else to fill that spot anyways.   OEL is starting to look a lot like LE 2.0 though.   At the very least why couldn't he target a RHD? 

[Gawdzukes]

37 minutes ago, IBatch said:

Agree on both those points.   JB "competitive" meant spending to the cap...when really we needed a GM who kept some cap on the side for when we actually needed to make the playoffs.   Like this year and last year.    Now the group still needs playoffs, but instead is back to rebuilding in a way.   Things might have worked out for us if that OJ pick was Hughes Seabrook.    Never drafting RHD's was also not great.   One thing JB was decent at was staggering his cap, so when one was done, and another player was due for a raise the money was there.    In reality we didn't get many team friendly deals, and agree with Hansen - why pay that much for guys who've never done anything in the post season?   Part of that for sure is systemic. 

 

But JB also set the table and made his own bed.   And wasn't willing or patient enough to let the cap shed.   Losing Tanev was a massive loss.    And we had the cap but instead went after OEL.    Garland is fine.   His cap hit doesn't hurt us, we'd need someone else to fill that spot anyways.   OEL is starting to look a lot like LE 2.0 though.   At the very least why couldn't he target a RHD? 

Yeah that was JB's mistake. Spent to the cap every year when we weren't ready. As you said money needs to be set aside and pieces added when you are close to get you over the top. JB just kept assuming his team would be perfect and not need any tweaks. We've been cash strapped for 5 years now due to incompetent spending.

 

Agreed on OEL too. Completely braindead move. We needed a RD as you say not a redundant LD to not play PP for $7mil+/. Even Garland is unnecessary. We have Mikeyhev, to play in the top 6. We could drop Garland and not miss a beat. He's borderline useless. Like so many JB moves he acquired a piece without having a set spot for him in the line-up so he's just a $5mil cap hit that doesn't hit, play good d, or PK.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Gawdzukes

[Oldmanpower]

The process that led us to the position we’re in is easy to see. The way out of this current mess is not. If Demko can get back to his previous self we have solved a bit of our problems. The real issue is Meyers and Oel playing better and earning the money we pay them or getting rid of them and the cap hit that comes with them. Which leads to replacing those two players with who? And how long and how much money it’s going to take to do this. By the time we accomplish this task how old are Peterson and Hughes? 

[jyu]

1 hour ago, IBatch said:

Agree on both those points.   JB "competitive" meant spending to the cap...when really we needed a GM who kept some cap on the side for when we actually needed to make the playoffs.   Like this year and last year.    Now the group still needs playoffs, but instead is back to rebuilding in a way.   Things might have worked out for us if that OJ pick was Hughes Seabrook.    Never drafting RHD's was also not great.   One thing JB was decent at was staggering his cap, so when one was done, and another player was due for a raise the money was there.    In reality we didn't get many team friendly deals, and agree with Hansen - why pay that much for guys who've never done anything in the post season?   Part of that for sure is systemic. 

 

But JB also set the table and made his own bed.   And wasn't willing or patient enough to let the cap shed.   Losing Tanev was a massive loss.    And we had the cap but instead went after OEL.    Garland is fine.   His cap hit doesn't hurt us, we'd need someone else to fill that spot anyways.   OEL is starting to look a lot like LE 2.0 though.   At the very least why couldn't he target a RHD? 

I think 2020 playoffs and covid impacted JB’s thought process significantly. 
 

I don’t doubt that he wanted to improve the team to build on 2020 run but with covid cap crunch, he had to get “creative” and it backfired.
 

OEL to replace Edler… well the two players are polar opposites other than they are both Swedish and shoots left. With Hughes in the lineup, re-signing Edler while looking for a proper replacement and saving the cap would have served the team better. 
 

Letting Tanev walk with no succession plan was also questionable. They tried to sell Schmidt as a replacement. While Schmidt is a good player, he brought different skills to Tanev and was not able to complement Hughes like Tanev. I agree with the sentiment that Tanev is injury prone but we should have re-signed him and look for a replacement over time instead of bringing in new player only to have poor chemistry and shipping them out. 
 

Well at least the current management know our RD needs upgrades. Let’s see what they can do. 

[CanucksJay]

1 hour ago, Oldmanpower said:

The process that led us to the position we’re in is easy to see. The way out of this current mess is not. If Demko can get back to his previous self we have solved a bit of our problems. The real issue is Meyers and Oel playing better and earning the money we pay them or getting rid of them and the cap hit that comes with them. Which leads to replacing those two players with who? And how long and how much money it’s going to take to do this. By the time we accomplish this task how old are Peterson and Hughes? 

Agreed. The question is, how quickly we can upgrade on Myers and OEL even if we can manage to get rid of them... Hope would be 1 of the first rounders this year is a d man and  plays in d+2.

Myers is done after next year and once we are in our competitive window, we could potentially use a future draft like a 2025 1st to get rid of oel. Key would be to load up on as many picks this year and next year... 

Getting rid of Myers isn't the problem. 

The problem is OEL. 

If he plays like a 5m player, we could just eat the remaining 2+m and chalk it up like a dead cap. 

If he plays like a 2M player though, that's a different story. Wasting 5m+ for the next 4 years sounds terrible. 

 

I'm really hoping he plays at leaat like a 5m guy until his contract runs out. 

 

 

[IBatch]

3 hours ago, Gawdzukes said:

Yeah that was JB's mistake. Spent to the cap every year when we weren't ready. As you said money needs to be set aside and pieces added when you are close to get you over the top. JB just kept assuming his team would be perfect and not need any tweaks. We've been cash strapped for 5 years now due to incompetent spending.

 

Agreed on OEL too. Completely braindead move. We needed a RD as you say not a redundant LD to not play PP for $7mil+/. Even Garland is unnecessary. We have Mikeyhev, to play in the top 6. We could drop Garland and not miss a beat. He's borderline useless. Like so many JB moves he acquired a piece without having a set spot for him in the line-up so he's just a $5mil cap hit that doesn't hit, play good d, or PK.

Ilya M had a very solid debut with us.   So did Garland ... last season 49 EV points, drew a ton of penalties all for just under 5... that's elite production BTW and plus 18.   A point for every 100k and some.    And he was in Bruce's doghouse a bit ... That carried over to this year, and he was also snake bitten to start the year .. was it 18 games without a game, scored an absolute beauty and called back for goalie interference lol.   Didn't interfere part of the snake bite.    He also drew a lot of penalties for us last year. 

 

Just like Brock and now Kuzmenko, finding it awfully tough to find the back of the net with Aman and Dries or whomever.     Garlands getting the assignments again...wouldn't say useless but get he's not doing it like he did with Green (only him and Miller really did it with Green last year) ... thankfully scoring a couple goals and getting his points now that he's out of the dog house.   And his 200 foot game isn't terrible.    Back to Mikeheyev, the intangibles of course is adding for Podz and i'm sure it didn't hurt as far as signing Kuzmo this summer either.  

 

And yes i'd rather have Ilya M too.  We've still got a glut of wingers.   Pearson should be back next year.   Nathan B is getting a good tryout in the top six.    With Horvat gone i have to think this idea we have 3 centers is gone.   Back to two top lines and a responsible third line.   Kuzmo can't score with Dries and Aman, same way Garland struggled, same way Brock did too go figure.  

 

Think they always planned to trade Garland or Brock or maybe both.   And  now maybe NB.    Funny thing though, once they get their turn(s) things usually work out better for them.    With have redundancies for sure on the wings.  

[-Vintage Canuck-]

 

[BlakeQuinnAndEggs]

Kuzmenko is in Tocchets doghouse lol

[Maginator]

14 minutes ago, -Vintage Canuck- said:

 

If one of Boeser or Garland is getting traded this is a good opportunity for Tocchet to adjust Kuzmenko's game.

 

Proceed with caution though. Too much tweaking and Kuz could very well lose his confidence and find himself in a bottom six role on an expensive contract.

[R3aL]

5 hours ago, Gawdzukes said:

Greener had problems too. Mentally and physically weak.

Ya he would skate them super hard in the summer. We just need better if we are too become a competitive playoff team. 

[Hogs & Podz]

17 minutes ago, Maginator said:

If one of Boeser or Garland is getting traded this is a good opportunity for Tocchet to adjust Kuzmenko's game.

 

Proceed with caution though. Too much tweaking and Kuz could very well lose his confidence and find himself in a bottom six role on an expensive contract.

My exact thoughts.  Because we're not in the playoff race, I can see why Tocchet is experimenting with Kuzy to see if he can get him to become more responsible defensively but... Just like green, he might focus to much on Kuzys weaknesses while stunting his offensive flare and creativity.  God... I don't want another Green clone.

 

Was his offensive generation outweighing is defensive shortcomings?

[billabong]

kuz hasn’t been very good under tocchet While everyone else’s play I’d say has improved 

 

I think this is the classic new coach break down the player and rebuild them the way you want them to play