[PGT] Vancouver Canucks at St. Louis Blues | Feb. 23, 2023

[Ray_Cathode]

9 hours ago, jyu said:

All's good. Apologies if I came off as critical.

 

I don't mean to bash OEL too much. He apparently played through an injury. If he isn't able to recover 100%, I think it's best he stay on the IR for himself and the team. If he is back to 100% and is able to skate to the puck like he did before, he could be a good player. Until then, he is a liability.

 

Beauvillier is exactly the type of player we needed. A glue guy who is responsible at both ends of the ice. We need one more of him on Miller's line. Ilya Mikheyev is another glue guy. Next season we have the option of trying out Beau with Miller-Garland and Mik with EP-Kuz or vice versa. That seem like a well balanced top 6.

 

With Tocchet, I see hard working team so far. It could just be a coaching bump and young guys playing hard to earn their spots on the team. But I hope it's something deeper.

 

Regarding the gap between bottom 6 NHL and top 6 being miniscule, that's probably due to having a poor NHL bottom 6 depth and strong top 6 AHL depth. All of our bottom 6 guys (Joshua, Aman, Dries, Lazar, Podkolzin, Studnicka) were in the AHL only a short time ago. In general, you want the gap between the bottom 6 in the NHL and the top 6 in the AHL to be as small as possible. But not in the way we have it where we have far too many marginal replacement level AHL caliber players in the bottom 6.

 

True. Every team will be scary when they fix their problems. I guess I was speaking more of the upside the team has with high end talents, 100 point producing Selke caliber 1C (Pettersson), puck possession dman (Hughes), and offensively skilled #2C with size (Miller). Then on wing we have Kuz and Garland with skill and Mik and Beau with puck management and retrieval to go along with motor.

 

Fixing bottom 6 is easy. You can always overpay your way out of your problem and get a Beagle for 3 mil and etc. But that's not prudent and we don't have the cap to do that.  So I lied, it's hard. Hopefully the bottom 6 will sort itself out from internal competition with Hogs, Podz, Aman, Joshua, Karlsson, Lazar, Studnicka, etc all competing for the same job. Some of them will emerge and maybe we could sign a free agent 3C if one is available at a decent price in the next two seasons or so.

 

Draisaitl? You don't think it would be like adding McDavid?

 

Unlike McDavid, Bedard isn't coming to team bare of veteran talents. If Bedard were to come here, I would expect this team to return to the playoffs next season assuming that our defence is addressed to some level.

 

Being an old fart, I lost the realization that Inwas writing a book. Thanks for taking the time to reply in detail. Lots of good points to think on. Seeing Pettersson’s growth, and not knowing for sure the extent of Bedard’s impact, I relied on history for my comparison rather than projection. But man, Bedard looks like a potential generational game changer. Pettersson, from his statements, appears to be determined to get bigger and stronger. That is scary in a good way. His last end to end rush was very McDavidesque, with the difference than our guy shoots harder! 
 

Two other things: I want to see a full season of a healthy Mikheyev, I can’t see Kuzmenko’s play going through a sophomore jinx. I love how much he enjoys the game, and even more, the way he responded to being briefly benched. Another guy whose play has matured under Colliton, is Klimovich- he now plays hard on both sides of the puck. There is a lot more structure in Abby, many players have blossomed under him. Sadly, that may have cost us Pederson, when we demoted him. DiGuiseppi, who was showing strong play, had to be sent down to avoid losing him on waivers had he played another game. 
 

Looks like we will have to be careful with Wolanin, as well. 

[DrJockitch]

We may be gutting the team we may not.
‘I still think things aren’t moving because JR is looking for shortcut trades not pics. 
We aren’t tanking and at end of the day with Demko coming back we are likely drafting something like 10 and 15 which is an incredibly poor return on the suffering of this season and waisting a year of Pettey’s prime.  This will put us into the drafting more wingers area or second third choice of right D. 
Maybe in the 2030s after Pettey retires we will finally decide to rebuild the team properly but probably not. 

[jyu]

6 hours ago, spook007 said:

Agree..... but.....

 

Then if the bottom team is 20pts behind you could turn it around, but yes it almost forces the bottom teams to down tools... somehow. 

I think the Avs were 20 points below us in 2017. 3 teams jumped ahead of them and they ended up getting the 4th overall pick, which got them Makar. I would love to see the Avs final draft ranking -- I have a feeling that they didn't have Makar at #1.

 

With the current lottery system, even in the worst case where two teams jump ahead of the last place team, they would still end up with the 3rd overall pick. I don't think anyone should be complaining that they got the short end of the stick for picking 3rd overall. If they can't find a good player at #3, that's on them and not the lottery system.

 

[spook007]

16 minutes ago, jyu said:

I think the Avs were 20 points below us in 2017. 3 teams jumped ahead of them and they ended up getting the 4th overall pick, which got them Makar. I would love to see the Avs final draft ranking -- I have a feeling that they didn't have Makar at #1.

 

With the current lottery system, even in the worst case where two teams jump ahead of the last place team, they would still end up with the 3rd overall pick. I don't think anyone should be complaining that they got the short end of the stick for picking 3rd overall. If they can't find a good player at #3, that's on them and not the lottery system.

 

Fair enough and I agree, but there is little doubt, who will go 1st OA this year. 
 

Any one finish bottom of the pile and not getting Bedard, will be very disappointed.

 

At least they will have a bigger chance of winning him as is, but I do get your point...

 

I'm a cynic and do believe the draft is rigged in order to keep the league more on par, and until the day Canucks actually moves ahead in the draft instead of dropping down as is the norm, I will continue to think so....

 

Now the NHL can change my mind this year though....
 

[EdgarM]

10 hours ago, wai_lai416 said:

lol even if it is the secret recipe.. not everyone can do it.. how many norris defenceman are around?? like 3-4 legitimate one? in the last 14 years there have been 12 different norris trophy winner? and 10 of them played in at least 1 SCF and all but 1 of them won a cup?

Does the defenseman need to be a Norris winner or be just a Norris CALIBER defenseman? Its no secret that you need offense from your defenseman in the playoffs and I think that is something that plays a more important role then whether the player won a trophy or not. 

Ray Bourque was a Norris Trophy winner but it took him 23 years to win a cup and he had to leave his own team to do so. So was it him or his team that was the reason he won a cup?

Your theory is like you need a "Goalie" to win a cup, well of course you do. I think what you are saying is that a Norris winning defenseman are rare, as are PMD. If you change your theory of Norris winner to PMD then how many of them have won a cup? I am betting its more like 100% of cup winners had one.

I don't know if Hughes will ever win a Norris trophy in his career but I do know he is PMD that we have been looking for, for a very long time. If we can find him a good quality partner, I think we are sitting pretty good moving forward. 

[lmm]

3 hours ago, EdgarM said:

Does the defenseman need to be a Norris winner or be just a Norris CALIBER defenseman? Its no secret that you need offense from your defenseman in the playoffs and I think that is something that plays a more important role then whether the player won a trophy or not. 

Ray Bourque was a Norris Trophy winner but it took him 23 years to win a cup and he had to leave his own team to do so. So was it him or his team that was the reason he won a cup?

Your theory is like you need a "Goalie" to win a cup, well of course you do. I think what you are saying is that a Norris winning defenseman are rare, as are PMD. If you change your theory of Norris winner to PMD then how many of them have won a cup? I am betting its more like 100% of cup winners had one.

I don't know if Hughes will ever win a Norris trophy in his career but I do know he is PMD that we have been looking for, for a very long time. If we can find him a good quality partner, I think we are sitting pretty good moving forward. 

I don't think you want to put too much stock in there being only one answer

the Canucks went to the finals with a deep defense then had many injuries and a suspension too decimate their corps

Chicago won one of there cups with 3 defensemen playing 80% of the minutes

Boston won with one dominant defenseman

 

4 of the last 11 Norris winners have cups

but farther back almost every Norris winner has a cup or 3

now that the Norris is a scoring title, I think it is less important to winning a Stanley

[wai_lai416]

2 hours ago, lmm said:

I don't think you want to put too much stock in there being only one answer

the Canucks went to the finals with a deep defense then had many injuries and a suspension too decimate their corps

Chicago won one of there cups with 3 defensemen playing 80% of the minutes

Boston won with one dominant defenseman

 

4 of the last 11 Norris winners have cups

but farther back almost every Norris winner has a cup or 3

now that the Norris is a scoring title, I think it is less important to winning a Stanley

is the norris a scoring title? there have been 3 norris winner that were the scoring leaders for defenceman that year. and none of them are recent. all the norris trophy winners of recent indeed scores a lot but i don't think you can point and say any one of them are below average defensively.. i personally think they are all above average defensively and exceptional offensively.. otherwise tyson barrie should have won in 2020-2021 when he topped defenceman scoring.. or finish top 3 top 5.. but he didnt even get 1 single vote for norris..

 

i think the Norris trophy evolved that it no longer goes to the exceptional big hulking defenceman with exceptional defensive ability and average goal scoring to exceptional offensive ability with above average defence. so i think it's still very important to winning a cup till that trend is broken.

[Ray_Cathode]

Bains from Karlsson and DiGuiseppi in Abby game is 1-1.

 

[lmm]

19 hours ago, wai_lai416 said:

is the norris a scoring title? there have been 3 norris winner that were the scoring leaders for defenceman that year. and none of them are recent. all the norris trophy winners of recent indeed scores a lot but i don't think you can point and say any one of them are below average defensively.. i personally think they are all above average defensively and exceptional offensively.. otherwise tyson barrie should have won in 2020-2021 when he topped defenceman scoring.. or finish top 3 top 5.. but he didnt even get 1 single vote for norris..

 

i think the Norris trophy evolved that it no longer goes to the exceptional big hulking defenceman with exceptional defensive ability and average goal scoring to exceptional offensive ability with above average defence. so i think it's still very important to winning a cup till that trend is broken.

I would agree with you on Giordano, but disagree with Karlson, Subban and Burns

I kind of feel like some of these guys end up with a really good defensive partner, and that inflates their +/- enough to make them look better than they are 

but to your point Hedman and Fox are better than good defensively

Chara was a dominant player

[wai_lai416]

35 minutes ago, lmm said:

I would agree with you on Giordano, but disagree with Karlson, Subban and Burns

I kind of feel like some of these guys end up with a really good defensive partner, and that inflates their +/- enough to make them look better than they are 

but to your point Hedman and Fox are better than good defensively

Chara was a dominant player

i agree with you on karlsson subban and burns not that great defensively but when i say recent i'm prolly referring to the last 5 years when scoring seem to have taken off with the defenceman with the likes of makar hughes fox etc. i still think you need at the very least a norris caliber defenceman one that will be in the top 4-5 voting each year at the very least to win a cup. maybe carolina will break the trend as they dont really have a norris caliber defenceman on the team.. but the favorites again most of them have that defenceman on the team whether it's vegas colorado in the west, tampa boston and rangers in the east.. only exception is carolina and i dont think jersey is a contender yet. toronto and oilers will never win a cup with their defence.. they can win a round or 2 but they'll eventually be shutdown.

[lmm]

12 minutes ago, wai_lai416 said:

i agree with you on karlsson subban and burns not that great defensively but when i say recent i'm prolly referring to the last 5 years when scoring seem to have taken off with the defenceman with the likes of makar hughes fox etc. i still think you need at the very least a norris caliber defenceman one that will be in the top 4-5 voting each year at the very least to win a cup. maybe carolina will break the trend as they dont really have a norris caliber defenceman on the team.. but the favorites again most of them have that defenceman on the team whether it's vegas colorado in the west, tampa boston and rangers in the east.. only exception is carolina and i dont think jersey is a contender yet. toronto and oilers will never win a cup with their defence.. they can win a round or 2 but they'll eventually be shutdown.

I totally agree with you

as I've said before, I think the NHL in a poser league

lots of teams look good in the reg season, but its the teams with big strong , and hopefully a Norris calibre defense that win the cups most often

Avs were a bit of an anomaly last year

I'm a bit surprised their defense didn't get blown out in the playoffs

and I would never feel comfortable if the Canucks were to depend on a D that small