[Signing] Canucks sign Akito Hirose

[BobbyClarke]

16 hours ago, Provost said:

Assuming they are smart in Chicago, they will be changing gears immediately to building the team, so I suspect a lot of signings and trades.  They won’t need help getting to the floor.

 

With Bedard and a relatively flat cap (even if they increase it by more than $1 million like I assume will happen), they are one of the few teams with cap space AND real dollars to spend.

 

I think they are a playoff team next season after adding quite a few bodies.

 

Leveraging Bedard’s ELC years before they have to start paying market value will be very important.

Same with us, we are a playoff team too after adding quite a few new bodies 

[Provost]

2 minutes ago, BobbyClarke said:

Same with us, we are a playoff team too after adding quite a few new bodies 

.... hahahaha

(I assume you are joking). 

We have no money to bring in anyone except league minimum players, so that is starkly different than Chicago.  With the addition of Bedard (and their other 1st round pick this year, and their four 2nd round picks, and their two 3rd round picks), they are also going to move from an above average prospect pool, to one of the very best... if not the very best in the league.

A bunch of high end prospects, including the best player outside of the NHL... and  more than $40 million in cap space gives a whole lot of options for improving your team.  Heck, they have multiple 1st and 2nd round picks for the next two years beyond this one that they can use for currency to trade for good players.

The Canucks have one of the worst prospect pools in the league, likely won't improve it significantly with a mid round pick, no cap space to add players, and no excess roster players with trade value to make hockey trades.  Trading Miller is probably the only practical way to retool the roster, but that opens up a hole at centre to help the defence and free up a little cap.

[Alflives]

42 minutes ago, Provost said:

.... hahahaha

(I assume you are joking). 

We have no money to bring in anyone except league minimum players, so that is starkly different than Chicago.  With the addition of Bedard (and their other 1st round pick this year, and their four 2nd round picks, and their two 3rd round picks), they are also going to move from an above average prospect pool, to one of the very best... if not the very best in the league.

A bunch of high end prospects, including the best player outside of the NHL... and  more than $40 million in cap space gives a whole lot of options for improving your team.  Heck, they have multiple 1st and 2nd round picks for the next two years beyond this one that they can use for currency to trade for good players.

The Canucks have one of the worst prospect pools in the league, likely won't improve it significantly with a mid round pick, no cap space to add players, and no excess roster players with trade value to make hockey trades.  Trading Miller is probably the only practical way to retool the roster, but that opens up a hole at centre to help the defence and free up a little cap.

We sign guys like Hirose, who are physically men, and that's very good way to retool the supporting cast. The guy is a player. Trading Miller would indicate a rebuild. We already traded Bo (another core piece) so moving Miller would be two core pieces out. We did turn Bo into Hronek though, which was a huge upgrade in a position of need. 

[mll]

On 5/18/2023 at 3:43 AM, Provost said:

Assuming they are smart in Chicago, they will be changing gears immediately to building the team, so I suspect a lot of signings and trades.  They won’t need help getting to the floor.

 

With Bedard and a relatively flat cap (even if they increase it by more than $1 million like I assume will happen), they are one of the few teams with cap space AND real dollars to spend.

 

I think they are a playoff team next season after adding quite a few bodies.

 

Leveraging Bedard’s ELC years before they have to start paying market value will be very important.

They are starting over because they tried to come out of their rebuild too quickly.  Davidson made it clear that they were going to do it right this time however long that takes.  Chicago looking to build a new dynasty and not just get into the playoffs and see what happens. 

 

Can't really see them winning a Cup in the next 3 years while Bedard is still on his ELC.  They are missing so many pieces and don't even have a starting goalie.  

 

Not enough quality UFAs available + UFA means a ~9 year age gap or more to Bedard.  Really don't see them trading picks/assets for players who will fall off a cliff when Bedard is still in his prime.  

 

Would expect them to increase their asking price for teams looking to dump cap on them - ie get more picks and of better quality to rebuild quicker.

 

[Provost]

16 hours ago, mll said:

They are starting over because they tried to come out of their rebuild too quickly.  Davidson made it clear that they were going to do it right this time however long that takes.  Chicago looking to build a new dynasty and not just get into the playoffs and see what happens. 

 

Can't really see them winning a Cup in the next 3 years while Bedard is still on his ELC.  They are missing so many pieces and don't even have a starting goalie.  

 

Not enough quality UFAs available + UFA means a ~9 year age gap or more to Bedard.  Really don't see them trading picks/assets for players who will fall off a cliff when Bedard is still in his prime.  

 

Would expect them to increase their asking price for teams looking to dump cap on them - ie get more picks and of better quality to rebuild quicker.

 

Rome wasn’t built in a day.  The Bedard win speeds up the process significantly.  The fact they have a metric shit ton of picks and cap space mean they have already done all the rebuild work.  Infinite rebuilds just don’t work like you think they do, guys graduate to market value RFAs too quickly.

 

I am confident they will start rebuilding their roster immediately.  It can be through the UFA market (including unqualified RFAs), trades with surplus draft capital they have, or hockey trades where they swap roster players.

 

They can still also fit in good players that other teams can’t afford who may not have a ton of term left, but are useful players.  A guy like Garland for a late pick or Boeser they could get for pennies on the dollar and vastly improve their club without incurring any long term cap constraints.  They can just simply let those guys walk at the end of their contracts as they will have prospects ready to fill in for cheaper.  With how many teams have cap problems currently… you could create an entire very decent forward group for effectively nothing.  Use your draft capital and cap space to sign a defence and goalie.
 

 It doesn’t make them a contender in a year… but it starts the process.  Continuing to purposefully tank wastes Bedards ELC years because you don’t become a contender immediately out of a rebuild… it is several iterations of adding players and getting the right mix.  Starting that process now leverages his ELC years.  Continuing to try to stockpile picks when you already have a bunch doesn’t advance your cause much at all.
 

The idea that all players on a roster need to be the same age is a fallacy.  What a team needs is a critical mass of young talent, and then have players around them with a pipeline of more prospects in the pipeline to replace expiring veteran contracts with cheap ELC ones so they can afford when raises are due to their young stars.

 

The Hawks already check all those boxes now.  They already have a bunch of really good prospects, they will add Bedard plus another 18 prospects in the first three rounds over the next three years.  That gives them about 7 years of almost guaranteee cheap ELC players inserting into the lineup each season.  Guys will graduate at different rates to the NHL.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Provost

[Gurn]

On 5/15/2023 at 12:29 AM, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

Or he's trying to be a 1-hit wonder, like Devo, Chris de Burgh, and Sir Mix-A-Lot?  

I just had a peek- and the UK loves them some Chris de Burgh- not like the Germans love David Hasselhoff, but still kind of weird.

3 top 10 singles.

#1 in 1975 with "A spaceman came traveling'

#1 in 1986 with " Lady in Red"

#3 in 1988 with 'Missing you"

 Albums placement is even more 'wtf"

he had albums 

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

[mll]

2 hours ago, Provost said:

Rome wasn’t built in a day.  The Bedard win speeds up the process significantly.  The fact they have a metric shit ton of picks and cap space mean they have already done all the rebuild work.  Infinite rebuilds just don’t work like you think they do, guys graduate to market value RFAs too quickly.

 

I am confident they will start rebuilding their roster immediately.  It can be through the UFA market, trades with surplus draft capital they have, or trades.
 

 It doesn’t make them a contender in a year… but it starts the process.  Continuing to purposefully tank wastes Bedards ELC years because you don’t become a contender immediately out of a rebuild… it is several iterations of adding players and getting the right mix.  Starting that process now leverages his ELC years.  Continuing to try to stockpile picks when you already have a bunch doesn’t advance your cause much at all.
 

The idea that all players on a roster need to be the age is a fallacy.  What a team needs is a critical mass of young talent, and then have players around them with a pipeline of more prospects in the pipeline to replace expiring veteran contracts with cheap ELC ones so they can afford when raises are due to their young stars.

 

The Hawks already check all those boxes now.  They already have a bunch of really good prospects, they will add Bedard plus another 18 prospects in the first three rounds over the next three years.  That gives them about 7 years of almost guaranteee cheap ELC players inserting into the lineup each season.  Guys will graduate at different rates to the NHL.

 

Maybe they do adjust plans as you think but Davidson was rather firm that they were going to stick to their plan no matter what.  Last time they thought they were ready to take that next step and even traded for Jones but it backfired.  The Jones trade was in 2021 with Chicago's 1st in 2021 and 2022 going to CBJ.  

 

Fwiw Yzerman and Nill made similar comments to Davidson when talking about their approach to building a contender.  It's draft and develop and the patience to do it. Yzerman explains that 1 player can make an impact but you don't built a contender with just 1 player and building a team takes years.   He explains that not all your picks are going to be McDavid/Matthews that can just step in.  He talks of 5 years for a pick to start making an impact.  Nill explained that the mistake is to deviate from your initial plan and that's where you risk losing even more time.  

 

This was NBC's recap from Davidson's presser announcing their rebuild. 

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/blackhawks/blackhawks-gm-kyle-davidson-planning-rebuild-not-retool

 

"We’re going to look at more of a rebuild here," Davidson said. "There are some things that we really need to fix that are going to take time. We're not going to put a timeline on it, whether it's three, five [years], I don’t have that answer right now. That will be determined as we proceed.

 

"But we really need to do this the right way and we're going to stick to the plan and take our time with it and make sure that when we get to where we want to go, then it was the result of a plan that was stuck to and not deviated from."

 

The most important part of that quote is that Davidson intends on sticking with the plan, no matter what. Over the last few years, it was hard to decipher what the real goal was because it seemingly differed from season to season.

That won't be the case under Davidson, and it's the right approach — and a refreshing perspective.

 

"We have to do this the right way," Davidson reaffirmed. "We need to rebuild the prospect pool, we need to rebuild our roster in general and that takes time, and it’s going to start in the front office with new processes, new philosophies and new perspectives."

 

And yes, Blackhawks chairman Rocky Wirtz and CEO Danny Wirtz are both on board with the plan.

"From our perspective, we have both patience and time to get this right," Danny Wirtz said. "To Kyle's point, we have to get this right. Often times when teams get a little impatient is when the plan tends to short-circuit a bit and then we lose more time. So, we're going to give him the time he needs. I know he's going to manage expectations as that plan becomes more secure.

"One of the advantages about our family being in this for four generations is we’ve seen some ups and downs in this franchise, so we do have patience on our side built in. We’re as anxious as anyone to see a winning team, but we just want to do it the right way."

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by mll

[Elias Pettersson]

2 hours ago, mll said:

 

Maybe they do adjust plans as you think but Davidson was rather firm that they were going to stick to their plan no matter what.  Last time they thought they were ready to take that next step and even traded for Jones but it backfired.  The Jones trade was in 2021 with Chicago's 1st in 2021 and 2022 going to CBJ.  

Man, I'm sure Chicago wants a mulligan on that trade.  Imagine if they had just kept the picks as well as Adam Boqvist.  Columbus used those picks to draft Cole Sillinger and David Jiricek.

 

Imagine if Chicago had Boqvist, Sillinger and Jiricek right now along with that extra $9.5 million in cap space from Jones contract.  Huge mistake from management, but then they also got lucky with the lottery balls, so win some and lose some...

[Boudrias]

21 hours ago, mll said:

 

Maybe they do adjust plans as you think but Davidson was rather firm that they were going to stick to their plan no matter what.  Last time they thought they were ready to take that next step and even traded for Jones but it backfired.  The Jones trade was in 2021 with Chicago's 1st in 2021 and 2022 going to CBJ.  

 

Fwiw Yzerman and Nill made similar comments to Davidson when talking about their approach to building a contender.  It's draft and develop and the patience to do it. Yzerman explains that 1 player can make an impact but you don't built a contender with just 1 player and building a team takes years.   He explains that not all your picks are going to be McDavid/Matthews that can just step in.  He talks of 5 years for a pick to start making an impact.  Nill explained that the mistake is to deviate from your initial plan and that's where you risk losing even more time.  

 

This was NBC's recap from Davidson's presser announcing their rebuild. 

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/blackhawks/blackhawks-gm-kyle-davidson-planning-rebuild-not-retool

 

"We’re going to look at more of a rebuild here," Davidson said. "There are some things that we really need to fix that are going to take time. We're not going to put a timeline on it, whether it's three, five [years], I don’t have that answer right now. That will be determined as we proceed.

 

"But we really need to do this the right way and we're going to stick to the plan and take our time with it and make sure that when we get to where we want to go, then it was the result of a plan that was stuck to and not deviated from."

 

The most important part of that quote is that Davidson intends on sticking with the plan, no matter what. Over the last few years, it was hard to decipher what the real goal was because it seemingly differed from season to season.

That won't be the case under Davidson, and it's the right approach — and a refreshing perspective.

 

"We have to do this the right way," Davidson reaffirmed. "We need to rebuild the prospect pool, we need to rebuild our roster in general and that takes time, and it’s going to start in the front office with new processes, new philosophies and new perspectives."

 

And yes, Blackhawks chairman Rocky Wirtz and CEO Danny Wirtz are both on board with the plan.

"From our perspective, we have both patience and time to get this right," Danny Wirtz said. "To Kyle's point, we have to get this right. Often times when teams get a little impatient is when the plan tends to short-circuit a bit and then we lose more time. So, we're going to give him the time he needs. I know he's going to manage expectations as that plan becomes more secure.

"One of the advantages about our family being in this for four generations is we’ve seen some ups and downs in this franchise, so we do have patience on our side built in. We’re as anxious as anyone to see a winning team, but we just want to do it the right way."

 

Unfortunately this is not the route Vancouver choose. Media and fans clamp onto a couple of strong players and think that this will create a team. Not saying that it won't just that the odds are much longer. Canuck depth is not deep enough and the d-core is still a mess. CAP constraints prevent or limit options. Quality of the vets needed to be moved are not great other than Miller. 

[Ghostsof1915]

23 hours ago, Gurn said:

I just had a peek- and the UK loves them some Chris de Burgh- not like the Germans love David Hasselhoff, but still kind of weird.

3 top 10 singles.

#1 in 1975 with "A spaceman came traveling'

#1 in 1986 with " Lady in Red"

#3 in 1988 with 'Missing you"

 Albums placement is even more 'wtf"

he had albums 

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Actually Chris De Burgh is basically an outlier in terms of music. He's basically a storyteller. Spanish Train album is a perfect example. It's folk, ragtime, mainstream, he just writes what he writes. In the 80's he went more pop-like. It's not just the UK, Europe and South America love him. I do find it funny he tries to sell himself as a rock artist. The guy has a net worth of $50 million. Not a bad career and sold 45 million albums world wide.

 

But anyways back to hockey....

[Gnarcore]

On 5/19/2023 at 9:46 AM, Gurn said:

I just had a peek- and the UK loves them some Chris de Burgh- not like the Germans love David Hasselhoff, but still kind of weird.

3 top 10 singles.

#1 in 1975 with "A spaceman came traveling'

#1 in 1986 with " Lady in Red"

#3 in 1988 with 'Missing you"

 Albums placement is even more 'wtf"

he had albums 

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

Devo also weren't one hit wonders to anyone who knows music. Your average schmo can only name one song but those in the know...know.  Random Devo fact: the singer Mark Mothersbaugh is one of the bigger names in movie music scores these days. 
 

 

Edited May 20, 2023 by Gnarcore

[Dr. Crossbar]

On 5/20/2023 at 1:22 PM, Gnarcore said:

Devo also weren't one hit wonders to anyone who knows music. Your average schmo can only name one song but those in the know...know.  Random Devo fact: the singer Mark Mothersbaugh is one of the bigger names in movie music scores these days. 
 

 

I saw Devo in '96 at Lollapalooza and they were absolutely amazing. They completely shifted how I thought about them. People have no clue about how good of a band they really are on many levels. Even today, they blow me away.

 

Will never forget Mark Mothersbaugh ripping off his jacket and diving into the crowd. They really are awesome! 

[Gnarcore]

On 5/21/2023 at 4:27 PM, Dr. Crossbar said:

I saw Devo in '96 at Lollapalooza and they were absolutely amazing. They completely shifted how I thought about them. People have no clue about how good of a band they really are on many levels. Even today, they blow me away.

 

Will never forget Mark Mothersbaugh ripping off his jacket and diving into the crowd. They really are awesome! 

They did a free show here during the Olympics. Still have my Vancouver Games light blue colored energy dome! 

[N4ZZY]

On 5/19/2023 at 12:56 PM, Elias Pettersson said:

they also got lucky with the lottery balls, so win some and lose some...

unless it's the Vancouver Canucks, who always seems to, when it comes to the lottery balls, lose.