Canucks management hosted their summer season tickets holders' meeting today. A few fans asked some tough questions but because there's no rebuttal, the answers got spun and we didn't really get any new info.
However, then Linden took aside two of the guys that asked a question and talked to them personally. One of them posts on HF, here's his recap:
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So on my way out Linden has a guy call me and another guy to stay behind. We went up on stage, waited for Linden to finish his autographs, and he came up and talked to us about our questions. He liked the questions, wasn't offended at all.
On Kassian: absolutely nobody around the league wanted him. They felt it was time to move on from him, and that three coaches couldn't get through to him here.
On the fired management: The new regime didn't inherit a cup contender, and these guys were partially responsible for that. Apparently they weren't very organized and didn't have much direction.
On Weisbrod: gave him credit for some of the Calgary rebuild, namely for Gaudreau and Monahan. Didn't feel it was fair to single him out for Calgary's draft record.
On Delorme: didn't answer my question about him fully, but stated that it's unfair to put all the blame solely on him. Stated that Eric Crawford had been the head of scouting recently, and thinks that the way the organization was run with the guys they let go hindered our draft performance.
On getting younger: fully willing to move veterans if younger players earn a spot. Feels McCann still has more to learn even at the junior level (cited being a leader, and playing at the WJC).
On possibly moving Higgins: appears nobody wants him. People don't want the contract.
Wish we had more one on one time, especially since I wanted to probe more, but I give him huge props for calling us up there to have a discussion. Definitely impressed with that.
Not really much there outside of him saying "nobody" wanted Kassian and "nobody" wants Higgins. The latter is supported by a report on Team1040 earlier in the summer that suggested the same thing. Pretty surprising... Higgins is a quality 3rd liner with good traditional and advanced stats in that role and his contract is fair if not cheap.
This post was edited by LuLer on Jul 9 2015 10:53pm