They have to make the playoffs. There is no way around it.... So much pressure right now for the following reasons:


J.T Miller was acquired for a first round pick. Hell he is already a bargain right now, but if we make the playoffs he is an absolute steal.

Now a 2nd round pick ( with a good prospect) was traded to get Toffoli. To win that trade they have to resign Toffoli.

Likely you will see at least one of Sutter, Beagle, and Roussel moved next year (or maybe even at the deadline) due to cap problems. That will cost even more picks and prospects.

Loui is too costly to move so they will look to shed cap elsewhere. Space has to be created to negotiate for a slough of young players destined to get large raises.

Vancouver has to get Markstrom, Toffoli, Tanev and Stecher under contract in the near future. I don't know how they are going to keep all of them. Someone is going to walk or be traded regardless of how many other shit contracts you dump. It is not a good situation.

Like it or not this team is backed into a corner and has to make the playoffs this year to show they are competitive. Players will be more likely to resign if they make the playoffs. The offers on the market will be very enticing and the Canucks will not be able to match dollar for dollar, so you have to sell competitiveness.

The following year you are looking at resigning Hughes and Petey. It is going to be a nightmare to manage all of this and odds are someone significant will have to go because there is too many boat anchor contracts and Luongo's recapture penalty at over 3 million for the next three years is already crippling us.

And to top it all of you have the threat of the expansion draft. Further moves will have to be made to reduce the impact of the poaching that is going to happen.

This post was edited by Killingyouall on Feb 18 2020 08:35pm

The fundamental problem the Canucks have ahead of them is that the roster's odds of getting better in the next few years are very slim. We're unlikely to retain more than one of Toffoli, Tanev and Markstrom. Boeser will surely recover, but Demko simply isn't as good as Markstrom and we have no one in the system who can either fill in or projects to be at least as good as Tanev. The only ways out of this pickle are to either dump Eriksson - highly unlikely now with the 2nd rounder and Madden gone - or to deal Sutter + someone else for cap relief in the offseason, transactions that will cost the roster and possibly net assets going out. I'm assuming Beagle is untradeable and Ferland will be buried in LTIR.

Worse, our organizational depth is shallow right now (granted this comes with Hughes and Gaudette's graduation). Doubt MacEwan and Gadjovich will get much better to deserve NHL spots in the future (the latter has time but idk). Podkozlin, Hoglander and Rafferty are the only prospects who could be impactful NHL'ers in the next ~2 seasons. We might be OK up front but the situation in the blue line is very bad with Tanev's pending departure and Edler getting old; even Rafferty surprising wouldn't make up for the big fat holes that will open up. Pettersson's and Hughes' payday will crush the cap structure, and that's where the bad contracts will probably force us to give up good players. We will have to pray that the top prospects live up to expectations very soon, as well as Juolevi magically becoming a player worth a shit.

I will give Benning credit for hitting more often than not with 1st rounders, luckily the wild misses in Virtanen and Juolevi conspired to get us Pettersson and Hughes so that's OK in the end. But unfortunately the Miller trade and the Horvat contract are far outweighed by all the crap contracts and assets given away for nothing over time. Even the Pearson trade came from the fact Benning grossly overpaid for Gudbranson. The roster will get worse as soon as next season if Benning can't get rid of at least one of the bad contracts, and it will be unmanageable once Pettersson and Hughes get paid. If we have two seasons of being a Top 15 team that will have been lucky.

Edler will probably sign another cheap short year contract if he plans to still play and not retire, as he proved that being in vancouver is very important to him.

Tanev is great to keep for sure, but I think Benning should either trade him now or just let him go. Edler and stecher pairing wasn't too bad, stecher was literally tanev 2.0 with better offense last season when he had more role. This season he seems lost on 3rd pairing playing with benn/ahlers etc. but I don't blame him for that.

If tryamkin, Rafferty, juolevi, woo, Rathbone can become a depth dmen or best case scenario a 4d, it would make it a lot easier. Finding another franchise dmen through FA is next to impossible anyway.

The fans wanted Benning to sell, and when he actually did, it didn't end up turning out so well. The most notable sale where most fans were quite happy with were selling burrows and Hansen. Neither of them are working out currently for the Canucks, when at the time it looked real good. Benning overpaid for gudbranson no doubt, but he turned it into a pearson. That's what it is, no need to dwell in the past believing gudbranson is still anchoring the team. McCaan was a locker room cancer and didn't fit the team culture anyway. Mccaan was whatever in Florida and turned out decent with the pens. Had we kept Mccaan, I highly doubt he would be the player today. What matters is that horvat finally has 1 winger in pearson and is much better suited than Mccaan could have been. Hopefully the other winger horvat needed is toffoli.

I don't think you need to panic right now, by the time Petey and Hughes needs to be signed, the shitty contracts are in their last year and/or expiring. Including lu's penalty.

This post was edited by Secksii on Feb 18 2020 11:27pm

well I'm the pessimist and you're the optimist I guess. A lot of my grim outlook hinges on losing Tanev and Markstrom without filling the gap, so the upcoming offseason will really set the tone for the future.

I'm more of accepting what it is, rather than being either optimistic or pessimistic and worrying about shit that you have no control over.

Funny thing is the initial moves that are deemed great ends up being bad, then the ones that are super questionable end up working out lol. Like Vanek for motte, holy hell motte is so fucking good, I know a lot of ppl care more about goals and assists, but damn I appreciate motte type of players.

When's the last time a 4th liner got a huge ovation? He got one tonight bailing out markstrom, his work ethic and playing his heart out is like a huge buff to the entire team. I don't think it's much of a coincidence that canucks go on win streaks with him in the lineup, and then go on losing streak when he's out with an injury lol. The huge hit he took to make the play resulting in a goal is

This post was edited by Secksii on Feb 19 2020 11:57pm

I do love me some Motte. Hope he can stay healthy.

Man a lot of missed goals from eriksson tonight, coulda been a hat trick. He gave up his goals for that 1 elite hit he made tonight.

Toffoli looking good, he had a good goal chance as well. Too bad it didn't go in.

Shitty the Canucks came out with only 1 point after outplaying the wild, but it could've been a lot worse if edler didn't make that save with a minute left in the 3rd.

Toffolimoron sucks. Fuxk him and his awful shoot out attempt. Cucks suck


Shit goalie too. Nice job letting up a goal 1 minute in the game, get ready for the offseason boys

This post was edited by NewEnglandPatriots on Feb 20 2020 08:14am

Do you even watch hockey?

Yeah Canucks suck. Go Bs