DownUndaCanuck Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 I get the idea of Hronek and Hughes playing together, and they probably will for the rest of the season, but we've got a chance now to have two top pairings. We sort of had this with Hughes-Schenn and OEL-Myers last year and that really tailed off quite quickly. Top playoff teams have one star defenceman and two top pairings. If you look at a lot of contending teams, their 2nd pairing is better than our first. Obviously we've got some work to do though to make that happen. Realistically we'd need to find a top shutdown LD to play with Hronek to really unleash him (he could easily rival Hughes as our best defender in a little while in that case). We'd also have to find someone relatively stable to play with Hughes. I don't think they have to be particularly young, I wouldn't mind a veteran playing alongside them. The easy move would be to just play OEL with Hronek and Myers with Hughes, but boy does the quality drop off there. In the ideal world, we'd shift Myers, keep OEL (too hard to move anyway) and plant him on the bottom pairing alongside Dermott/Burroughs/whoever, then try and find a top-4 LD and RD. UFA is the easy route - we could easily sign Graves for 5M, Livingstone to an ELC and everything fits cap-wise, but of course there'll be a lot of competition there, it won't be easy and Livingstone isn't exactly a guarantee 20+ minute guy. Even harder would be trading Boeser for a top-4 defenceman, but if that hasn't happened already, I doubt it'll ever happen. These AHLers have played pretty well under Tocchet, I wonder if we'd try to split up our offensive defencemen with these guys? For example, Wolanin with Hronek and Hughes with Burroughs or Bear? Certainly not ideal but it's the easy way out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-DLC- Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canucks Curse Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 29 minutes ago, -DLC- said: tbh if that is the plan, I think that could potentially be the best, its easier to acquire 2nd pairing D than 1st pairing, but even then other top 4 right shot d man could be tough to get, what do people think of a Gavrikov-Bear pairing as a 2nd pair??? might not be too bad..or a Graves- Bear pairing...and we could always trade our 2023 1st which is slowly dropping to mushy middling mid 1st Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canucks Curse Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 8 minutes ago, Canucks Curse said: tbh if that is the plan, I think that could potentially be the best, its easier to acquire 2nd pairing D than 1st pairing, but even then other top 4 right shot d man could be tough to get, what do people think of a Gavrikov-Bear pairing as a 2nd pair??? might not be too bad..or a Graves- Bear pairing...and we could always trade our 2023 1st which is slowly dropping to mushy middling mid 1st FYI Gavrikov playing 1st PK minutes on LA, c'mon Millstein !!!!! 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 4 minutes ago, Canucks Curse said: FYI Gavrikov playing 1st PK minutes on LA, c'mon Millstein !!!!! Buyout OEL and allocate that 7 mil in cap savings (next season) to getting Gravikov? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Putgolzin Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 7 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said: Top playoff teams have one star defenceman and two top pairings. If you look at a lot of contending teams, their 2nd pairing is better than our first. If one thinks of our new top pairing as Hughes - Hronek (which I don't think it will be for long, but let's say for now) - Is there a team that has a second pairing that good? Are there many teams that even have a first pairing that good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 2 minutes ago, Putgolzin said: If one thinks of our new top pairing as Hughes - Hronek (which I don't think it will be for long, but let's say for now) - Is there a team that has a second pairing that good? Are there many teams that even have a first pairing that good? Hughes, insert AHL guy is a top 10 pairing in the league. That’s how phenomenal Hughes is. Insert Hronek (a legitimate top pairing D) with Hughes and that’s top three in the league for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownUndaCanuck Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 I think Gavrikov is going to command some big bucks this off-season, didn't he say he's going to test free agency despite his trade to the Kings? I guess he'd consider staying if they go on a really deep run - he'd be stupid not to stay with that relatively young squad who is on the up. He doesn't produce a heck of a lot of offence anymore but he's on their top pairing with Doughty eating big minutes all over the ice. He's probably worth around 5-6M but someone will easily pay him 7M and that's maybe fair for a top pairing defenceman, you just don't see it often unless someone's dropping 50+ points. Not sure how the Kings can keep him anyway, they really need to sign or acquire a goalie, plus they have Anderson's extension kicking in and not many guys off the books next year - certainly not 7M worth. I'd rather take Graves at 5M than Gavrikov at 7M, mainly because of how expensive this team already is. You just know though - Canucks' luck - is that if we sign either, they end up becoming the next Myers/OEL-like contract. Right now though both of them are top shutdown LDs in their prime at 27 years old and would fit so perfectly in this squad next to Hronek. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 8 minutes ago, DownUndaCanuck said: I think Gavrikov is going to command some big bucks this off-season, didn't he say he's going to test free agency despite his trade to the Kings? I guess he'd consider staying if they go on a really deep run - he'd be stupid not to stay with that relatively young squad who is on the up. He doesn't produce a heck of a lot of offence anymore but he's on their top pairing with Doughty eating big minutes all over the ice. He's probably worth around 5-6M but someone will easily pay him 7M and that's maybe fair for a top pairing defenceman, you just don't see it often unless someone's dropping 50+ points. Not sure how the Kings can keep him anyway, they really need to sign or acquire a goalie, plus they have Anderson's extension kicking in and not many guys off the books next year - certainly not 7M worth. I'd rather take Graves at 5M than Gavrikov at 7M, mainly because of how expensive this team already is. You just know though - Canucks' luck - is that if we sign either, they end up becoming the next Myers/OEL-like contract. Right now though both of them are top shutdown LDs in their prime at 27 years old and would fit so perfectly in this squad next to Hronek. D who don’t produce points but play the heavy minutes in a top four role don’t get big dollars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coho8888 Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 2 minutes ago, Alflives said: D who don’t produce points but play the heavy minutes in a top four role don’t get big dollars. true that. 6 to 7 million $$ defensemen usually provide a lot more offense than Gavrikov has provided over his career. Tanev is a good comparable to Gavrikov. To me 5 million is as much as I'd be paying. 4.5 with term would be a fair deal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownUndaCanuck Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 1 hour ago, coho8888 said: true that. 6 to 7 million $$ defensemen usually provide a lot more offense than Gavrikov has provided over his career. Tanev is a good comparable to Gavrikov. To me 5 million is as much as I'd be paying. 4.5 with term would be a fair deal. I agree, he should warrant 5M but some silly team will pay the man. If we even have a glimmer of hope of signing Gavrikov to a 5M deal (say for 4-5 years) we should be all over it and make it our top priority. Gavrikov, Hronek and Hughes make up arguably a top-5 defensive trio in the league and for a very affordable 17M. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 3 minutes ago, DownUndaCanuck said: I agree, he should warrant 5M but some silly team will pay the man. If we even have a glimmer of hope of signing Gavrikov to a 5M deal (say for 4-5 years) we should be all over it and make it our top priority. Gavrikov, Hronek and Hughes make up arguably a top-5 defensive trio in the league and for a very affordable 17M. Yup. And clear cap buying out OEL and trading Myers. It’s the summer to make our D one of the tops in the league. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownUndaCanuck Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 8 minutes ago, Alflives said: Yup. And clear cap buying out OEL and trading Myers. It’s the summer to make our D one of the tops in the league. You know it Alf, I've got a bit of optimism following the big Hronek trade that they want to try and improve the defence but they can't just kick their heels up and stop there thinking that's enough. We've still got massive changes needed on the blueline. It'll be interesting to use the rest of the regular season to play with our pieces and see how the D performs, shame it'll be without OEL so we won't be able to experiment too much, but Allvin should get a good idea of what we need this off-season and IMO it'll be a sturdy strong defensive LD. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Googlie Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 I must admit I'm enjoying Frankie Corrado's analyses ... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rizzuto&hatoum Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/teams/0050332019.html 2018-19 St Petersburg teammates - kuzy, Gavrikov and Podz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smashian Kassian Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 5 hours ago, Googlie said: I must admit I'm enjoying Frankie Corrado's analyses ... I've seen Frankie alot on TSN's CHL coverage, he's really good, clearly settling into the media job. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cripplereh Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Getting Gravrikov would cost 5.5 ish Trading BB,Myers,Rathbone helps BB 1.5 retained Myers .5 mill retained one of plus Rathbone and maybe a 5th 2024 should get a good 3C.We would have money for Gravrikov. Hope one of Johansson or Livingstone if signed can play with QH we are set Buyouts Pearson or Poolman if they are healthy enough to play. I would wait till next year to then buyout OEL as the cap hit would be better. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownUndaCanuck Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Liked what I saw from Hronek in the last game, a very easy starting game although the D went down to 5 guys, but he was very steady. Nothing flashy. I think management and our coaches have some options with what we do with Hronek. 1) We could get him a stable LD like Graves, Gavrikov or someone via a trade and let him roam around more and try to develop his offensive game more. He's a great two-way guy but could explode offensively if he's got a safety net behind him. The concern might be that he racks up points and asks for a massive extension. 2) We could play him with Hughes and he becomes the safety net, his numbers take a beating, likely resigns to a 4-5M deal, but we have a real top pairing comparable around the league as one of the best. Obviously this leaves our bottom-4 quite weak. 3) We play Hronek with OEL next year as a second pairing, almost a shutdown-type pairing a bit the way Myers and OEL were used last year. Hronek gets a bit of freedom to roam offensively but for the most part his job is to shutdown opposing team's top lines, giving Hughes a lot more freedom offensively. Play Hughes with whoever you want (he'll probably just get lumped with an AHLer or some other team's scrap 7th defenceman for the 3rd time in a row anyway...), he'll rack up a point per game playing less defence against top units and more time feasting on lower lines. 2 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diamonds Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 4 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said: Liked what I saw from Hronek in the last game, a very easy starting game although the D went down to 5 guys, but he was very steady. Nothing flashy. I think management and our coaches have some options with what we do with Hronek. 1) We could get him a stable LD like Graves, Gavrikov or someone via a trade and let him roam around more and try to develop his offensive game more. He's a great two-way guy but could explode offensively if he's got a safety net behind him. The concern might be that he racks up points and asks for a massive extension. 2) We could play him with Hughes and he becomes the safety net, his numbers take a beating, likely resigns to a 4-5M deal, but we have a real top pairing comparable around the league as one of the best. Obviously this leaves our bottom-4 quite weak. 3) We play Hronek with OEL next year as a second pairing, almost a shutdown-type pairing a bit the way Myers and OEL were used last year. Hronek gets a bit of freedom to roam offensively but for the most part his job is to shutdown opposing team's top lines, giving Hughes a lot more freedom offensively. Play Hughes with whoever you want (he'll probably just get lumped with an AHLer or some other team's scrap 7th defenceman for the 3rd time in a row anyway...), he'll rack up a point per game playing less defence against top units and more time feasting on lower lines. I definitely appreciated Hronek's game against SJ. As you said, just a steady presence with nice quick passes and not being out of position. It's too bad OEL isn't healthy right now to see if he and Hronek might have chemistry. If they did, if would allow management to go hard after Mayfield to partner with Hughes. It would make a really well balanced top 4. Then when you want more offense put Hronek with Hughes and create a true shutdown pairing with OEL and Mayfield. Mayfield might only have 3 or 4 good years left, but since management says they want to start competing next season he could make a lot of sense and would give really good options as a counterpart to Hronek. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 1 minute ago, Diamonds said: I definitely appreciated Hronek's game against SJ. As you said, just a steady presence with nice quick passes and not being out of position. It's too bad OEL isn't healthy right now to see if he and Hronek might have chemistry. If they did, if would allow management to go hard after Mayfield to partner with Hughes. It would make a really well balanced top 4. Then when you want more offense put Hronek with Hughes and create a true shutdown pairing with OEL and Mayfield. Mayfield might only have 3 or 4 good years left, but since management says they want to start competing next season he could make a lot of sense and would give really good options as a counterpart to Hronek. Yup. Hronek is really good. Skilled, smart, high compete. He’s an ideal 2D for us. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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