Canucks Biggest Draft Booms and Busts since 2000

F A N

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Having him and not Ballard might have gotten us a cup. Too many variables but that devastating loss of life leaves so many what ifs

Ya. Losing Bourdon was certainly a huge blow. But that 2010-2011 was very much a fluke. The Canucks made the Ballard trade because Gillis didn't want to take a chance at not adding a top 4 Dman. Mitchell's health was a big question mark and ended up not taking Gillis' 1 year offer. Had the Canucks still had Bourdon at the time would Gillis have chosen to not make the Ballard trade and bank of re-signing Mitchell or signing Hamhuis? That's hard to say. That summer, most Canucks fans thought Bieksa was the odd man out. Then Salo got injured in the summer and the Canucks managed to keep both Bieksa and Salo.
 

Balls Mahoney

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That defense was like trying to fly an airplane held together by duct tape.

I'm not salty about the Ballard trade. It made logical sense at the time. He threw a couple sweet hip checks, it was so-so. Add him to the Aaron Miller, Keith Carney, Eric Weinrich pile. Don't think he was really that bad.

One of Sami Salo's nuts during playoff time had more character than entire teams Benning put together.
 
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Balls Mahoney

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Was reading about Goldobin signing in the KHL and past Canucks busts in the Trade forum.

I'm still salty Sergei Shirokov and Kirill Koltsov never got fair shakes in this organization. Shirokov seemed like a legit homegrown answer to our winger scoring woes after Naslund. And having a legit offensive defenseman to compliment Ehrhoff and being another option on the blueline both would have been potentially franchise altering moves.
 

Hit the post

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Was reading about Goldobin signing in the KHL and past Canucks busts in the Trade forum.

I'm still salty Sergei Shirokov and Kirill Koltsov never got fair shakes in this organization. Shirokov seemed like a legit homegrown answer to our winger scoring woes after Naslund. And having a legit offensive defenseman to compliment Ehrhoff and being another option on the blueline both would have been potentially franchise altering moves.
A ****-show in Manitoba during that time I think [eg., making Smyl the head coach there; where he had no real experience in that role]. Think he (Kiril) just said, **** this and went home (and never came back). Shirokov had the misfortune of trying to crack a playoff team.
 
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Balls Mahoney

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A ****-show in Manitoba during that time I think [eg., making Smyl the head coach there; where he had no real experience in that role]. Think he (Kiril) just said, **** this and went home (and never came back). Shirokov had the misfortune of trying to crack a playoff team.

One of my biggest complaints for decades now is player development has always been an after thought. Scouting is one thing but our prospects seem to just get lost in the minor leagues with this being a constant theme for generations now. It seemed like Gillis was just beginning to make this a primary focus with Utica which our current fearless leader has since let languish and fall apart. But I don't understand why we cannot get a functioning modern player development system in this organization.
 
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F A N

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A ****-show in Manitoba during that time I think [eg., making Smyl the head coach there; where he had no real experience in that role]. Think he (Kiril) just said, **** this and went home (and never came back). Shirokov had the misfortune of trying to crack a playoff team.

Koltsov should have been lured back but it wasn't in vogue back then and the Canucks had a pretty good defense. To be fair, when Koltsov was here we were at the end of the dead puck era. As for Shirokov, AV disliked small skilled players on the bottom 6. That's why guys like Glass, Hordichuk, Oreskovich saw regular time ahead of guys like Shirokov and Grabner. Grabner actually became a real solid 3rd line player at the NHL.
 

tradervik

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Koltsov should have been lured back but it wasn't in vogue back then and the Canucks had a pretty good defense. To be fair, when Koltsov was here we were at the end of the dead puck era. As for Shirokov, AV disliked small skilled players on the bottom 6. That's why guys like Glass, Hordichuk, Oreskovich saw regular time ahead of guys like Shirokov and Grabner. Grabner actually became a real solid 3rd line player at the NHL.

I have a distinct memory of a game where Shirokov skated by the bench and appeared to wave off a line change. After that, he didn't play another shift.
 

Hit the post

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I have a distinct memory of a game where Shirokov skated by the bench and appeared to wave off a line change. After that, he didn't play another shift.
He also had the misfortune of bad timing. Not a great time to be trying to break into the lineup on a team that was finishing top 5 in the standings. Unless he was a defenseman (where we'd generally have a ton of injuries on the parent club).
 
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vadim sharifijanov

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Gillis still offered Mitchell a one year deal after the 2009/10 season but Mitchell was looking for more insurance (longer term deal). We didn't have that luxory to take that risk imho.

Gillis decided to go with Hamhuis (UFA) & Ballard (acquired in that infamous Grabner trade) - in the off-season. He hit a ground rule triple with Hamhuis but took a Reggie Jackson swing (and a miss) on Ballard.

At least that's how I remembered it.

i meant a crazy crystal ball/hindsight move of trading hodgson at the deadline to replace mitchell, who was out for the year.

imagine: you use cody, one of the best prospects in the world, to overpay for a cost controlled 2/3 dman in his prime. someone like, say, trevor daley from dallas?

so we go into the playoffs with

sedin sedin samuelsson
demitra kesler burrows
raymond wellwood bernier
hansen johnson/rypien grabner/glass

ehrhoff [cost controlled 2/3 dman]
edler salo
SOB bieksa

could have beaten chicago with that right? and then that’s the cup right?

and then in the summer, you still have that guy you got for hodgson so no ballard trade. your 2011 playoff roster is

sedin sedin burrows
raymond kesler samuelsson/higgins
torres lapierre hansen
glass rando grabner, assuming we cap dump bernier with SOB in the summer

hamhuis bieksa
edler ehrhoff
[cost controlled 2/3 dman] salo

....

....

sigh
 
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Kryten

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Ya. Losing Bourdon was certainly a huge blow. But that 2010-2011 was very much a fluke. The Canucks made the Ballard trade because Gillis didn't want to take a chance at not adding a top 4 Dman. Mitchell's health was a big question mark and ended up not taking Gillis' 1 year offer. Had the Canucks still had Bourdon at the time would Gillis have chosen to not make the Ballard trade and bank of re-signing Mitchell or signing Hamhuis? That's hard to say. That summer, most Canucks fans thought Bieksa was the odd man out. Then Salo got injured in the summer and the Canucks managed to keep both Bieksa and Salo.
The fluke was getting Ehrhoff for literally nothing. We had two President trophies with him. Things went downhill when he went after his retirement contract with Buffalo. He likely has a great career and more money if he stayed here but at least he got paid millions to sit at home
 

sandwichbird2023

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High ankle sprain, and it was post-draft.

Bourdon was likeable and no doubt would have become a lineup regular, but as @MS has chronicled here before, the numbers never really supported him being drafted that high [side note – he and best friend Kris Letang had identical GP, G, A, P numbers in their draft year, eerie... but note Letang didn't go until the 62nd spot]. So if we put emotions aside, it's not unfair to question either the draft selection or the likely longer-term impact even without the Kopitar misstep. When Bourdon "almost made the team out of camp" as an 18-year old, it was basically because he threw some big hits in preseason. I'm not an analytics expert, but I don't believe there were a ton of indicators that he was likely to become a big star or anything.
I don't remember the scouting report on Bourdon (although I do remember one scout or GM saying that we drafted a physical Brent Sopel with that pick, which at 10th overall isn't bad value if you look at the historical stats of that range), but if his stat-line was the same as Letang, then he is definitely worthy to be picked 10th overall. Letang is a legit star in the NHL, a key player for the cup winning Penguins teams. Even though Bourdon shouldn't have been picked before Kopitar, based on his stats, size and play style, its hard to say he isn't worthy of the 10th overall spot.
 

ChilliBilly

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I don't remember the scouting report on Bourdon (although I do remember one scout or GM saying that we drafted a physical Brent Sopel with that pick, which at 10th overall isn't bad value if you look at the historical stats of that range), but if his stat-line was the same as Letang, then he is definitely worthy to be picked 10th overall. Letang is a legit star in the NHL, a key player for the cup winning Penguins teams. Even though Bourdon shouldn't have been picked before Kopitar, based on his stats, size and play style, its hard to say he isn't worthy of the 10th overall spot.

Letang was quoted as saying that Bourdon was a better player than him ... I actually think if he was around and we had the same team we would have beat the Bruins ... he would have had 6 years under his belt and been in his prime ...
 

VanJack

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No disrespect to Bourdon, who's career was tragically cut short before he really made his mark on the NHL. But if the Canucks had drafted the guy who went 11th in 2005--Anze Kopitar--they'd have won the Cup for sure in 2011.
 

Jyrki21

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I don't remember the scouting report on Bourdon (although I do remember one scout or GM saying that we drafted a physical Brent Sopel with that pick, which at 10th overall isn't bad value if you look at the historical stats of that range), but if his stat-line was the same as Letang, then he is definitely worthy to be picked 10th overall. Letang is a legit star in the NHL, a key player for the cup winning Penguins teams. Even though Bourdon shouldn't have been picked before Kopitar, based on his stats, size and play style, its hard to say he isn't worthy of the 10th overall spot.
Well if anyone knew how Letang was going to turn out in 2005, he would obviously have been drafted much higher — he's proven to be one of the best players of the draft. (Letang had a considerably better +/- for whatever that is worth, although Bourdon was more physical and put up a more PIMs). Bourdon was certainly ranked around where he was taken, don't get me wrong, but I think with more modern analysis methods (where scoring production is weighted more heavily, including for defensemen) the list might not have shaken down identically today.

@MS has, I think, discussed this a bit before – I don't claim to be any sort of expert – just that it isn't certain he would have been everything we'd dreamed of on the blueline, particularly having more data about these things today. One thing I do remember when he was taken was that Pierre McGuire shouted out "I LOVE THIS PICK!" which probably should have given us all pause. :laugh:

edit: Looking back, I think MS's point was more about how he'd tracked post-draft, but same point – the evidence wasn't weighted heavily in favor of his becoming a big star.
 
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vadim sharifijanov

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i wasn't nearly as high on bourdon as chillibilly is. but no matter how good bourdon might realistically have been—i thought when we drafted him that his ceiling was jovo but he had a pretty low floor too—how good would he have had to be to have been the right pick at #10?

reminds me of a conversation i had with my brother maybe fifteen years ago. kevin garnett was still in minnesota and had just won the MVP after finishing second the year before and i say, well what if garnett had gone to college and he and duncan were in the same draft class and san antonio took kg? it was something a lot of people were saying at the time, that maybe duncan and kg were equal talents but duncan just had the right situation. (kg had just gone 2, 1 in MVP voting, duncan was 1, 2 in those years but duncan had two chips and finals MVPs.)

and so my brother said to me, you almost can't possibly have a better career than tim duncan. timmy at the time had played seven years and was first team all-NBA every year, seven all-defence teams (five of them were first team), two regular season MVPs, two runners up, a third place, and never finished below fifth in those seven years.

could kg have done that? i guess it's possible but he would have had to do virtually everything exactly right because that's what duncan did.

i feel the same way about kopitar vs bourdon. at that #10 pick you could not imagine a better pick than kopitar. number one center from the day he entered the league, two cups, always within earshot of a point/game while being a top two-way force, two selkes, two cups. at 1,000 games and counting there is no defending the bourdon pick unless you think he was going to be... idk brian leetch? and even then...
 
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ChilliBilly

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i wasn't nearly as high on bourdon as chillibilly is. but no matter how good bourdon might realistically have been—i thought when we drafted him that his ceiling was jovo but he had a pretty low floor too—how good would he have had to be to have been the right pick at #10?

reminds me of a conversation i had with my brother maybe fifteen years ago. kevin garnett was still in minnesota and had just won the MVP after finishing second the year before and i say, well what if garnett had gone to college and he and duncan were in the same draft class and san antonio took kg? it was something a lot of people were saying at the time, that maybe duncan and kg were equal talents but duncan just had the right situation. (kg had just gone 2, 1 in MVP voting, duncan was 1, 2 in those years but duncan had two chips and finals MVPs.)

and so my brother said to me, you almost can't possibly have a better career than tim duncan. timmy at the time had played seven years and was first team all-NBA every year, seven all-defence teams (five of them were first team), two regular season MVPs, two runners up, a third place, and never finished below fifth in those seven years.

could kg have done that? i guess it's possible but he would have had to do virtually everything exactly right because that's what duncan did.

i feel the same way about kopitar vs bourdon. at that #10 pick you could not imagine a better pick than kopitar. number one center from the day he entered the league, two cups, always within earshot of a point/game while being a top two-way force, two selkes, two cups. at 1,000 games and counting there is no defending the bourdon pick unless you think he was going to be... idk brian leetch? and even then...

Just note i was indifferent on Bourdon and preferred kopitar. My point was he would have been just what we needed in 2011 ... a tough steady defenseman at just the right age. The person who has repeatedly said he would have won awards is Letang, who i think was his best friend.
 
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vadim sharifijanov

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Just note i was indifferent on Bourdon and preferred kopitar. My point was he would have been just what we needed in 2011 ... a tough steady defenseman at just the right age. The person who has repeatedly said he would have won awards is Letang, who i think was his best friend.

sure, anything to obviate the need for the disastrous ballard trade

and ftr i liked ballard but that trade just did not work out
 

sandwichbird2023

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Well if anyone knew how Letang was going to turn out in 2005, he would obviously have been drafted much higher — he's proven to be one of the best players of the draft. (Letang had a considerably better +/- for whatever that is worth, although Bourdon was more physical and put up a more PIMs). Bourdon was certainly ranked around where he was taken, don't get me wrong, but I think with more modern analysis methods (where scoring production is weighted more heavily, including for defensemen) the list might not have shaken down identically today.

@MS has, I think, discussed this a bit before – I don't claim to be any sort of expert – just that it isn't certain he would have been everything we'd dreamed of on the blueline, particularly having more data about these things today. One thing I do remember when he was taken was that Pierre McGuire shouted out "I LOVE THIS PICK!" which probably should have given us all pause. :laugh:

edit: Looking back, I think MS's point was more about how he'd tracked post-draft, but same point – the evidence wasn't weighted heavily in favor of his becoming a big star.
Even if he wasn't tracking well post draft (maybe the ankle sprain was the issue?), he should've developed into a 2nd pairing D based on his ability and physical package. Maybe a poor man's Jovo? But even that isn't bad value for a 10th overall pick. Historically the #10 pick hasn't churn out as many good players as you'd expect. A 2nd pairing D is definitely not a bust in that spot.
Don't get me wrong though, that pick should've been Kopitar. But I wouldn't consider Bourdon a bust at that spot.
 
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MS

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He also had the misfortune of bad timing. Not a great time to be trying to break into the lineup on a team that was finishing top 5 in the standings. Unless he was a defenseman (where we'd generally have a ton of injuries on the parent club).

Yeah, he probably would have received a longer look on a bad team, but what top-9 winger on the 10-11 Canucks was he going to play ahead of?

Like, he wasn’t much younger than Jeff Tambellini and Tambellini was a far better player who had trouble getting any icetime for that team.
 
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MS

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Well if anyone knew how Letang was going to turn out in 2005, he would obviously have been drafted much higher — he's proven to be one of the best players of the draft. (Letang had a considerably better +/- for whatever that is worth, although Bourdon was more physical and put up a more PIMs). Bourdon was certainly ranked around where he was taken, don't get me wrong, but I think with more modern analysis methods (where scoring production is weighted more heavily, including for defensemen) the list might not have shaken down identically today.

@MS has, I think, discussed this a bit before – I don't claim to be any sort of expert – just that it isn't certain he would have been everything we'd dreamed of on the blueline, particularly having more data about these things today. One thing I do remember when he was taken was that Pierre McGuire shouted out "I LOVE THIS PICK!" which probably should have given us all pause. :laugh:

edit: Looking back, I think MS's point was more about how he'd tracked post-draft, but same point – the evidence wasn't weighted heavily in favor of his becoming a big star.

Defenders who score 29 points in 70 games in the CHL in their draft year don't go top-10 anymore in 2020. If he was the exact same player arriving this year, he'd probably go in the early 2nd round.

And yeah, his post-draft development didn't go well either. The signature moment of that 'great first camp' you referenced earlier was him getting turnstiled by a young Ovechkin and making a diving desperation play to get himself out of what was actually a very poorly played situation. But somehow people loved it and thought it meant he'd be a star.

In terms of the type of player Bourdon was and his tracking to the point in his career when the accident happened, he was eerily similar to Luca Sbisa aged 18-21.

As I've said a few times, the fact that his death is the biggest tragedy in franchise history and that he was such a likable guy isn't mutually exclusive to the fact that he was the worst draft pick in franchise history.
 
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MS

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One of my biggest complaints for decades now is player development has always been an after thought. Scouting is one thing but our prospects seem to just get lost in the minor leagues with this being a constant theme for generations now. It seemed like Gillis was just beginning to make this a primary focus with Utica which our current fearless leader has since let languish and fall apart. But I don't understand why we cannot get a functioning modern player development system in this organization.

Our player development in the 2000s was absolutely exceptional. Our drafting was terrible but pretty much every player that showed anything overachieved and became an impact player. There is almost nobody taken between circa 1999 and 2007 who 'disappointed' relative to early promise. It's either home runs or total busts who never had a chance.

The turning point was when we lost the Manitoba Moose and Craig Heizinger who did an amazing job running that team. Player development fell off a cliff after that.
 

F A N

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Defenders who score 29 points in 70 games in the CHL in their draft year don't go top-10 anymore in 2020. If he was the exact same player arriving this year, he'd probably go in the early 2nd round.

And yeah, his post-draft development didn't go well either. The signature moment of that 'great first camp' you referenced earlier was him getting turnstiled by a young Ovechkin and making a diving desperation play to get himself out of what was actually a very poorly played situation. But somehow people loved it and thought it meant he'd be a star.

In terms of the type of player Bourdon was and his tracking to the point in his career when the accident happened, he was eerily similar to Luca Sbisa aged 18-21.

As I've said a few times, the fact that his death is the biggest tragedy in franchise history and that he was such a likable guy isn't mutually exclusive to the fact that he was the worst draft pick in franchise history.

I think you're being too harsh on Bourdon. That pick was only bad because Kopitar was surprisingly available and the Canucks didn't take him. That one decision deprived the Canucks of that big #1 playmaking C Canucks fans have craved since the franchise's inception. But take away the fact that Kopitar was available to be selected and it really came down to Staal vs Bourdon as BPA at the time.

Bourdon I think was like Virtanan on D. He was over 6'2" and close to 200lbs. He skated very well for a Dman in that era, played a physical game, and had a hard slap shot (that he could one-time). Basically, the guy had great tools with what would be considered today as questionable hockey IQ. Still the tools would be too intriguing for a team to not draft him in the teens I think. Personally, I did believe Bourdon could learn to play a more simpler game and be a very effective top 4 Dman for years.
 
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vanuck

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Yeah, he probably would have received a longer look on a bad team, but what top-9 winger on the 10-11 Canucks was he going to play ahead of?

Like, he wasn’t much younger than Jeff Tambellini and Tambellini was a far better player who had trouble getting any icetime for that team.

I always thought that Grabner would've been a nice piece to have on our 4th line. Considering he turned out to be a decent middle 6 winger, that would've made for some added scoring depth that could play up the lineup when injuries hit unlike guys such as Glass or Desbiens.

Tambellini was a useful depth winger in his lone season here but I do have a hard time believing Grabner would've been worse considering Tambo only ever topped out as a 4th liner. I would've liked Wellwood back that season too or Morrison if we could've signed them for cheap, as I thought their top 9 or bust thinking might lead to a lack of scoring depth. But I don't disagree with the need to acquire Ballard in the first place: defence was absolutely an area of need, we just happened to target the wrong guy.
 

Hit the post

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I always thought that Grabner would've been a nice piece to have on our 4th line. Considering he turned out to be a decent middle 6 winger, that would've made for some added scoring depth that could play up the lineup when injuries hit unlike guys such as Glass or Desbiens.
Guy needed to be traded a couple times (and waived at least once) to get it thru his head that you can't just coast on your skills to make it in this league. He "learned his lesson" on the Islanders forming a decent one-two punch with Neilson (sp?) on their PK unit.
 

Balls Mahoney

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Grabner was an alright player but never viewed him as much more than middle six tweener. Obviously kudos to him for eeking out a career but really don't see him as much more than a poor man's Mason Raymond.
 

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