I'm pretty high on Gaunce but don't have much reason to be down on Horvat. Camps are good, but games mean more. Example, last year I went to open camp and thought Jensen was one of the most talented guys at the camp and then not 3 or 4 days later just stunk up the pre-season. I'll see how Horvat is during those pre-season games and form my opinion on where he is then. Don't agree that Gaunce is better than Horvat than offensively simply because I think Horvat will be a better player possession wise whereas Gaunce seems to put himself in the right place at the right time which usually is a good indication of high hockey IQ. Also excellent use of the term 'silent assassin' whoever said that.
I think the Chris Higgins to Dane Fox is pretty optimistic, I think he'll top out as a bottom 6'er who can shoot the puck...a really good player, but I think the difference is Higgins has top 6 capability.
Far as rebuild/retool, I think retool is the better way to go. Teams that rebuild are usually legitimately trying to succeed for a few years without much to show for it and have a bad year before they "tank" see: Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Calgary, Edmonton. We had one bad year and as enticing as it is to tank for McDavid/Eichel etc. it's not the right thing to do in our situation I think as we still have some good pieces to compete with top teams (doesn't mean we'll beat them, just hang with them). Sidenote here: I've spoken to a source re: Barzal and no, wasn't a Canucks fan growing up but would prefer to remain in Vancouver. And I'm sure Konecny would like it here with Bo (second cousin connection? Can't remember the last time I saw mine).
Overall good show! Will continue to watch and comment. One note is just the conversation could be more organic/natural a bit. Me nitpicking here, but it seems like you each get one or two paragraphs on each subject with little time to rebut, but that's understandable if you are running a shorter podcast than say like 4-hour shows on the radio.