The Forsling trade was horribly questionable. Young Dman with tons of upside and performing internationally, flipped for a career AHLer because Weisbrod saw him play once and decided he was the guy.

Highmore is a damn animal, 4th line looked great in this tough road trip.

Who woulda thought highmore>gaudette?

horvat in covid protocol,

welp, i guess just 1 win from this tough road trip isn't too bad. Was hoping they somehow manage to beat the preds, but now it's even harder.

He was a solid pickup in my hockey pool.

I am upset about that too.

Maybe Petey has turned the corner and can get on a streak to make up for Horvat's offense.

Obviously the two way play can not be replicated but everyone has to step up and do what they can.

Lolol ofc canucks win when you least expect it. Just Canuck things.

5-3-1 in the toughest stretch of the season. got blasted by the top teams but can clearly fuck with everyone else. too bad the early season hole was really, really deep.

Going 2-3 on this road trip to hell is quite impressive, i was hoping they get at least 2 wins from it and they somehow delivered. Even the losses against Tampa and Florida wasn't 1 sided and gave them a tough time. They're cup contending teams that are simply better, and still found a way to win despite being outplayed. The Canucks only got clapped by Carolina, if Green was still coaching, they woulda got clapped by every single NHL team except maybe Arizona. It sucks the hole got deep to start the season, but Pacific is so bad the entire division was on a losing streak to help the Canucks dig out from the deep hole, especially the Oilers lol. Despite their hot start and the Canucks historically bad start, they're below the Canucks in standings even though they have 4 games in hand. That's how much they are struggling

Top players have played better under Boudreau which has been the main difference.

Most believed we were a bubble team before the season started, assuming our top players would play as expected.

But the difference between us and true contenders is clear, we just lack the quality depth.

If you break down the cap structure, we simply don't have a roster that outplays what it costs which is what you need to separate yourself. We have a couple players underpaid by a few million but also a couple players overpaid by a few million.

That's what shortcuts get you.

I don't know how we're going to go from where we are, to actually having cheap quality depth in our bottom 6 and bottom-4 D. Very little in the system.

Let's hope the new management team can pull off some shrewd moves, kind of like how Gillis rounded out the roster he inherited from Nonis. Other than that stud #1 RD that like 3/4 of the league is still looking for, we have most of the major pieces in place.

This post was edited by LuLer on Jan 20 2022 12:29am

idk how we move forward honestly. Myers has actually shown glimpses to be a driver rather than a passanger under BB, but he doesn't really provide cap value even at his best. The OEL contract is a huge boat anchor. And contracts like Pearson/Dickinison/Poolman have negative value plus term. Without ELC's it's really hard to make the team any better.

We still have a great core in place. But no matter how we move the pieces it doesn't change the fact filling out depth will be cap-wise extremely difficult. It's not right to either blow up or go all in. We need the front office to have learned plenty from Burnaby Joe and somehow make value-added trades.

Hoping Jr and the new GM takes the Florida approach, just read the article on the athletics.

Florida had promising young core, but couldn't do much because the core was too young and also held back by some players taking up too much cap space, especially on the backline like the current canucks. They built around barkov, huberdeau, ekblad. They shed 17m in capspace to get rid of 3 dman that barely moved a needle, Matheson, Yandle, Stralman. They also walked away from retaining Hoffman (GP69 29g 59pts) and dadonov (GP69 25 g 47pts) and let them go to UFA as their 3rd and 4th best scorers on the team. Biggest difference btwn the two team is Florida kept 1st and 2nds so they could use it to dump cap or acquire more players that can immediately help the team like Reinhart. While the Canucks have much more promising core to build around, horvat, Hughes, Petey, Boeser, Demko, oel, garland can also add pods/hogs. Perhaps they can get a huge haul with JT Miller if they decide to go down that road.

They need the shed capspace by getting rid of players that barely provide much value on ice while taking up huge cap. Myers does provide a lot for the team and is playing at fair value atm but shedding his cap and finding another RHD for less while doing something similar he does would be more ideal. It's players like Hamonic, poolman that they need to get rid of, they don't provide as much and min league players like burroughs/Schenn are doing just as good without taking up like 5m in cap. Panthers got rid of almost all deadweight contracts and weaponized it by targeting a bunch of promising players with upside for cheap. Some worked, some have not. They didn't retain Hoffman nor dadonov and replaced them with Duclair, verhaegae, Bennett, wennberg etc. Florida gambled on Anthony Duclair ($1.7 million, one year), Carter Verhaeghe ($1-million for two years) and Vinny Hinostroza ($1-million for one year). Hinotroza didn't work out, but other 2 have so they extended ones that worked. Basically taking a gamble on bunch of players and see who works and who doesn't.The Canucks need to trade players like Dickinson that hasn't fit the team, Pearson has been good but there should be players cheaper than him and younger able to replace him, etc.

Canucks may be stuck with OEL but at least he is currently providing excellent defensive side of things and allowing Hughes to do his thing and putting myers on 1st pairing duties instead of sheltering 3rd pair. Instead of being completely washed up and just taking up cap doing fuck all. Florida is stuck with bobrovsky who bounced back recently, but otherwise has been terrible. They are halfway in his contract, still got 5yrs to go and is 32. They still managed to be the team they are now with him eating that much cap.

Florida core also established themselves and reached their potential, like barkov went from great player to elite 1c, huberdeau pretty much the same, ekblad went from solid 1st pair dman to definite 1d etc. Can Petey reach his potential eventually? Or he forever donzos? Will boeser finally healthy? Or will canucks decide to trade him too? Can Hughes go even further than currently?

This post was edited by Secksii on Jan 20 2022 09:01pm