Canucks Biggest Draft Booms and Busts since 2000

[vadim sharifijanov]

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.

they said the same thing about kassian, albeit that being a much more serious situation, and maybe both are true. but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t another way to get through to him.

apparently grabner had a bad camp and they tried to sneak him down to the farm. but florida also had a deeper fourth line than us.

here was their opening day roster:

booth weiss frolik
stillman olesz dvorak
matthias reasoner higgins
hordi santo bernier

with reinprecht in the press box (i’m making up the lines based on TOI)

meanwhile, we began the year with

sedin sedin sammy
raymond kesler hansen
torres manny schaefer
glass bolduc desbiens

with rypien and tambo swapping in over the next few games (bolduc got sent down after the first game i think)

hordi aside, our bottom four was way worse than theirs. three of their lowest five guys all became fulltime members of our team in future years—higgins, matthias, santo—and two came right from our last year’s team and both played above grabner.

all to say, i’d prefer a lazy uninspired grabner learning on the job instead of desbiens and peter schaefer’s corpse, so i doubt we’d have waived him. and if we keep him around all year, i sure would like grabner, who scored 35 goals that season, slotting onto our decimated second line in the finals than tambo. would have been nice to have him killing penalties in the playoffs and taking a little load off kesler and burrows too.

 

[Hit the post]

apparently grabner had a bad camp and they tried to sneak him down to the farm. but florida also had a deeper fourth line than us.

here was their opening day roster:

booth weiss frolik
stillman olesz dvorak
matthias reasoner higgins
hordi santo bernier

with reinprecht in the press box (i’m making up the lines based on TOI)

I'm going my memory but I could've sworn they decided to keep Darcy "Useless" Hordichuk on the roster over Grabner.

 

[RobertKron]

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.

IIRC, he also benefited hugely from being on a terrible team that kept him in the lineup. I believe he was pretty ineffective, even after the trade and waiving, for much of the first part of the season before putting it together. There’s no way that happens in Vancouver.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I'm going my memory but I could've sworn they decided to keep Darcy "Useless" Hordichuk on the roster over Grabner.

well if you want to carry a fighter then you keep hordi, not grabner.

but i think the way one should look at it his competition isn’t hordi because they do different things.

so either his competition is frolik, olesz, and matthias, fellow young guys breaking in, or it’s the other bottom six wingers: bernier and one of higgy or dvorak.

whereas tambo is exactly his competition here, as were desbiens and old schaefer. arguably glass too but i think he really served a different purpose.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

IIRC, he also benefited hugely from being on a terrible team that kept him in the lineup. I believe he was pretty ineffective, even after the trade and waiving, for much of the first part of the season before putting it together. There’s no way that happens in Vancouver.

our fourth line was a human garbage pile all year, except the brief period between getting lappy and higgins at the deadline and losing manny.

for speed alone i can’t imagine he doesn’t stick when it’s all year it’s a revolving door of desbiens, schaefer, tambo, oreskovich, and volpatti opposite glass.

or another way of looking at it, before grabner got going in the second half (25 goals, 40 pts in 39 games), he scored nine goals in 37 games on thirteen and a half minutes of ice time. hansen in fourteen and a half minutes scored nine goals all year.

 

[Hit the post]

well if you want to carry a fighter then you keep hordi, not grabner.

but i think the way one should look at it his competition isn’t hordi because they do different things.

The thing is, at that point in Hordichuk's career, he wasn't that great a fighter. Look at how he was for the Canucks just prior to playing for the Panthers in that role.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

The thing is, at that point in Hordichuk's career, he wasn't that great a fighter. Look at how he was for the Canucks just prior to playing for the Panthers in that role.

oh yeah i don’t disagree at all. but obviously grabner’s not going to make anyone’s roster in the five minutes a night and getting punhed in the face role.

it just doesn’t make sense to say see how bad grabner is, they waived him for hordi. they waived him for all those other wingers whose roles he actually could have played if he: frolik, higgy, olesz, matthias, dvorak.

 

[Hit the post]

oh yeah i don’t disagree at all. but obviously grabner’s not going to make anyone’s roster in the five minutes a night and getting punhed in the face role.

it just doesn’t make sense to say see how bad grabner is, they waived him for hordi. they waived him for all those other wingers whose roles he actually could have played if he: frolik, higgy, olesz, matthias, dvorak.

The thing is, the Panthers were a horrible team that season. imho, you make room for a guy like Grabner (unless he's showing you nothing). But I'll admit, I didn't follow the Panthers all that closely (heck, why should I have ).

 

[Kryten]

The thing is, the Panthers were a horrible team that season. imho, you make room for a guy like Grabner (unless he's showing you nothing). But I'll admit, I didn't follow the Panthers all that closely (heck, why should I have ).

This does sound like something the Panthers fan would say

 

[Hit the post]

This does sound like something the Panthers fan would say

Should I take that as a compliment or insult?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

But I'll admit, I didn't follow the Panthers all that closely (heck, why should I have ).

same reason i wish i’d never watched the canucks, 2013 to 2015. ugh, booth, matthias, santo, gary, and i love you higgy but...

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

My assumption was at the time from the Canucks end, was that Grabner had become expendable at the emergence of Raymond. They were very similar players and Raymond was just more developed at that point. And he had much better hockey sense, meaning even if he wasn't cutting it offensively, you throw him on the third line and are still head above water at least. Grabner became a casualty of the roles AV wanted. He wasn't known to be as good as he became defensively, but in his limited 09-10 time you could tell there was something there. It was less picking anyone player (Hordichuk, Hansen, we didn't have Torres then but Glass) and more Grabner was this extra puzzle piece that didn't really belong. He would be wasted on the 4th line, couldn't quite be on the 3rd reliably, and 2nd at the time was out of the question.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

I remember for a brief period of time, I got to watch a line of Raymond-Kesler-Grabner. The speed was just unbelievable, I could be mistaken but I seem to remember they have at least 1 breakaway per game. And I thought Grabner played pretty good for his age/experience level. Too bad that didn't last, but I think AV wanted the Kesler line to match up with the other team's top line, and Grabner wasn't cut out for that at the time. If we got Malhotra a year earlier, maybe that Raymond-Kesler-Grabner line could be a thing.

 

[Hit the post]

I remember for a brief period of time, I got to watch a line of Raymond-Kesler-Grabner. The speed was just unbelievable, I could be mistaken but I seem to remember they have at least 1 breakaway per game. And I thought Grabner played pretty good for his age/experience level. Too bad that didn't last, but I think AV wanted the Kesler line to match up with the other team's top line, and Grabner wasn't cut out for that at the time. If we got Malhotra a year earlier, maybe that Raymond-Kesler-Grabner line could be a thing.

That's what makes Grabner effective on the PK; his incredible speed. His problem was that on the Canucks, we already had elite PKers like Burrows and Kelser. And other forwards fairly good as well so there was no need to use him in that role. Wonder if Virtanen could develop in that role to that same level?

 

[sandwichbird2023]

That's what makes Grabner effective on the PK; his incredible speed. His problem was that on the Canucks, we already had elite PKers like Burrows and Kelser. And other forwards fairly good as well so there was no need to use him in that role. Wonder if Virtanen could develop in that role to that same level?

You can never have too many PK options. There should be at least 6 forwards capable of PK dressed for every game.
My guess is Virtanen would not develop into that role. While he does have the speed and some size, his positioning and stick work is lacking. Green has been working with him for several years now and he made a bit of improvements, but I doubt it will ever be enough to make him an average PK'er.