Aquilini was livid that Canucks picked Juolevi over Tkachuk

[Ghostsof1915]

On 5/25/2023 at 12:54 AM, iinatcc said:

Feels more like that is a Calgary problem 

The Jets (ok Trouba wanted out of Canada) but seemed to have kept their American born players quite well. And this is in Winnipeg 

Nate Schmidt seems to be ok with Winnipeg.

Maybe the Loons in the lake make him feel at home. Wooooooop!

[Kevin Biestra]

3 hours ago, McBackup said:

It stands out because it happened to us, so people here hyperfixate on it. Everytime Tkachuk blows his nose you get a groundswell of people crying that "ThE cAnUCks cOulD hAvE hAd TkAcHuK!"

 

There is also a LOT of revisionist history around that draft. Tkachuk was considered by most to be the next best pick, however it wasn't the equivalent of Canucks passing on Connor McDavid for a guy projected to go 70th overall like people make it out to be. Juolevi was an extremely highly touted prospect. He was generally considered the best defense prospect in the draft and could have easily gone to the Oilers at 4. Tkachuk was usually ranked higher, but it wasn't this obvious gulf of difference as people claim. There was legitimate concern that he was benefitting from being on the Marner-Dvorak line rather than being the play driver itself. He was considered to be in the next tier after the "clear" 1-2-3 of Matthews, Laine and Puljujarvi. 

 

What threw a wrench into everything was Dubois. The Canucks really liked Dubois, and there was rampant speculation that they were going to either take him or flip the pick to Montreal for Subban so they could take him. However Columbus took Dubois instead of Puljujarvi who was ranked ahead of both him and Tkachuk, and everything after that went topsy turvy.

 

Obviously we know now how wrong the rankings and projections were, but that comes back to hindsight being 20-20. Which comes back to my point about every team having gaffes, like Quinn being clearly ahead of Kotkaniemi and Hayton. Conversely, Hischier and Patrick were the clear 1 and 2 above the next 3 players taken, with Pettersson even being considered a reach at 5. But I bet if you asked Philly whether they'd rather have Patrick or Heiskanen/Makar/Pettersson we know their answer.

 

If you want to flip it, you know what was even more of an obvious mistake than Juolevi over Tkachuk? The Flames taking Mason McDonald over Demko, when Demko was universally considered the best goalie prospect. But we don't hear about that because we got Demko. I guarantee you if we took McDonald, people would cry like they do about Tkachuk.

 

Happens to everyone, but posting on a Canucks messageboard in Canuckland we're going to focus on when it happened to us. It gets very annoying hearing about it constantly. I think the only other thing brought up constantly thats more annoying are the people crying for a jersey change. At least the people whining about Tkachuk are technically correct. 

 

It's not like there is so much discussion about so many topics on here that it bothers me when something comes up that has come up before.  I actually welcome when somebody goes on about how dumb the Cam Neely trade was because it's an opportunity to talk about how good Barry Pederson actually was, especially his stats in Boston.  What would make the trade dumb is how much the Canucks might have known about his shoulder problems but as it was they bet on Pederson as opposed to how the Canucks bailed on Willie Mitchell after a concussion.  And then we bet on Ferland and made the wrong bet again.  Anyway, Barry Pederson was en route to the Hall of Fame in Boston.  Cam Neely's development was stalled in Vancouver.  It really wasn't that bad of a trade at the time and Pederson still ended up being a very good Canuck.  A trade that is completely lopsided is Markus Naslund for Alek Stojanov...in our favor.  We got a borderline Hall of Famer, Pittsburgh got a guy that could run the clock in practice if the staff was late.

 

Matt Tkachuk is the most obvious choice at any position past the first three that I can remember...going all the way back to about 1990.  Now I might be forgetting some drafts...but setting Jagr and the uncertainty about whether he would come to the NHL aside, the first four picks in 1990 were basically a tie.  Didn't matter who picked who...only big difference was Mike Ricci had a higher floor, lower ceiling and more intangibles in personality...and big surprise that he was the guy that won the Cup...and also the guy who at least hit the ground jogging and scored more than 15 points in his rookie year.  When the first three went Nolan / Nedved / Primeau, anybody picking anything but Mike Ricci at #4 would have been smacked upside the head.  Unless they wanted to take risks on Jagr not coming to town at all.  What Benning did with Juolevi was not that far off from if the Flyers in 1990 said no to Ricci and picked...I don't know, John Slaney.

 

And the Canucks should go back to the flying skate.

 

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Kevin Biestra