Constructing Vancouver's Defence

Lupuls Grit

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Oct 12, 2018
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Mods, perhaps this is better under an existing thread, though I think it deserves its own discussion.

Interesting times ahead with the Vancouver defence corps. While there have been some highs this season and the team appears to have taken a step forward, we need to focus on improving for the next few years. With that in mind, I'm really interested in hearing opinions on how Benning ought to construct the D, considering salary cap implications, expansion draft, etc. Here are the players who may be in the mix for next season:

The Current Crop

Alex Edler
Chris Tanev (UFA)
Jordie Benn
Troy Stecher (RFA)
Quinn Hughes
Tyler Myers
Oscar Fantenberg (UFA)

The Utica Possibilities

Sautner
Brisebois
Rafferty
Juolevi (yeah, I know...)
Woo/Teves/Eliot/Chatfield

Outside Help

Tryamkin
Tyson Barrie
Other

Many of you know the salary cap much better than I do. As much as I love Tanev, I'm really debating how he fits going forward considering his injury history. If healthy, we may be able to actually get something good back for him at the deadline. So, based on that, and without fulling thinking out the cap, perhaps something like this:

Hughes - Tryamkin
Edler - Barrie
Benn - Myers

Extra: Rafferty/Brisebois

I expect Stecher will be moved and Erikson will either retire/move to Europe or be bought out. A big part of this plan is for Tryamkin to be able to play the Tanev role as excellent PKer and shut down defender. Curious about your thoughts.
 

Nucker101

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I’ve been a big Tanev fan for years but I also wonder about how well he’s going to age. He’s had a lot of injuries, he blocks a lot of shots, and takes a lot of hits.

I read an article a couple of years ago that was pretty well researched, it showed that defensive dmen tend to age worse than offensive dmen. I’ll try to find the article(hopefully I bookmarked it in my laptop).

It’s tough trading him away though since the rest of the dcore is very shaky defensively and Hughes-Tanev has been a pretty solid pairing.
 
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Lupuls Grit

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I’ve been a big Tanev fan for years but I also wonder about how well he’s going to age. He’s had a lot of injuries, he blocks a lot of shots, and takes a lot of hits.

I read an article a couple of years ago that was pretty well researched, it showed that defensive dmen tend to age worse than offensive dmen. I’ll try to find the article(hopefully I bookmarked it in my laptop).

It’s tough trading him away though since the rest of the dcore is very shaky defensively and Hughes-Tanev has been a pretty solid pairing.
I love watching him play when he's healthy. Such a warrior. Absolutely fearless. He'd be hard to replace but who would be more valuable going forward? Tanev signed to a 3 year extension? Stecher? Tryamkin? These decisions are hard and why owners pay big bucks to the GM. With Benning's track record, we should be in excellent ha... ok, never mind! Maybe he'll read this thread for ideas! LOL!
 

4Twenty

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Dec 18, 2018
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Well it's pretty clear to me that if they don't bring back Tanev there is going to be a massive hole in the defense corps and if just bringing Tryamkin over is the replacement than it's probably pretty likely Tampa is getting a pretty high 2021 1st round pick.

I don't think they can bring the same group back next year. It's clearly not good enough. Nothing on the farm looks close and nothing projects to be a top 4 in the system either.

I'd be looking to move Stecher and Tanev, unless Tanev will sign a 3 year extension max. I think they need to trade for a JT Miller version of defensman, hopefully it can get done without picks.
 
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hcg

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Having Juolevi become the bust of the decade really torpedoes any hope of having a good young defense.

Barrie is 28 and is going to cost a lot.

Stecher and Hughes are the only guys 25 or under, and building around 2 small guys is a problem. Especially when Stecher isn't much more than a bottom pairing talent.

I don't know how they build a competitive defense at this point. Tryamkin helps but they need 3 top 4 guys.
 

VanJack

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The 'construction' of the Canucks blueline represents the biggest failure of the Benning regime imo. The reality is that other than Hughes, the Canucks haven't been able to draft or acquire a single top-four d-man in six years. Not one. Think about that.

Thus every off-season they scramble with trades and disastrous UFA signings that inevitably fail in the end. The Gudbranson trade cost them dearly; and the most recent acquisitions of Myers and Benn seem poised to flop in the end as well. As for some of the others it's been a string of futility with guys like Larsen, Weircioch, Pouliot, and Hutton; and young players like Brisebois, Sautner and Chatfield who look like they top out as depth call-ups but little else.

The fact that Tanev and Edler are still in the 'top-four' and were inherited from the Gillis regime is a testament to how badly this current regime has screwed up over six years.

And it's all the more reason why the Juolevi pick is such an unmitigated disaster. When you expend a fifth overall pick on a d-man, and your back-end is as thin as the Canucks, he absolutely HAS to make your lineup. And in any competent draft circumstances he would have by now.
 

Lupuls Grit

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The 'construction' of the Canucks blueline represents the biggest failure of the Benning regime imo. The reality is that other than Hughes, the Canucks haven't been able to draft or acquire a single top-four d-man in six years. Not one. Think about that.

Thus every off-season they scramble with trades and disastrous UFA signings that inevitably fail in the end. The Gudbranson trade cost them dearly; and the most recent acquisitions of Myers and Benn seem poised to flop in the end as well. As for some of the others it's been a string of futility with guys like Larsen, Weircioch, Pouliot, and Hutton; and young players like Brisebois, Sautner and Chatfield who look like they top out as depth call-ups but little else.

The fact that Tanev and Edler are still in the 'top-four' and were inherited from the Gillis regime is a testament to how badly this current regime has screwed up over six years.

And it's all the more reason why the Juolevi pick is such an unmitigated disaster. When you expend a fifth overall pick on a d-man, and your back-end is as thin as the Canucks, he absolutely HAS to make your lineup. And in any competent draft circumstances he would have by now.
All of the above is fair comment. So, if you can take over as GM, how would you construct the defence with what we have or what we may be able to obtain? This is meant to be a forward-thinking thread rather than another Benning bashing thread though I certainly concur that he has failed to build a good defence.
 

Hit the post

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All of the above is fair comment. So, if you can take over as GM, how would you construct the defence with what we have or what we may be able to obtain? This is meant to be a forward-thinking thread rather than another Benning bashing thread though I certainly concur that he has failed to build a good defence.
Professional scouting department needs to be overhauled (or whoever was in charge/had this area of responsibility transferred to selling 50/50 tickets). Else the same mistakes will be repeated again.
 

RandV

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All of the above is fair comment. So, if you can take over as GM, how would you construct the defence with what we have or what we may be able to obtain? This is meant to be a forward-thinking thread rather than another Benning bashing thread though I certainly concur that he has failed to build a good defence.

I mean not to make it a bash Benning thread but ideally if you want to fix the blue line you don't leave it up to the guy that Hughes aside has had nothing but a long string of failures for 5 years. Back to the defense though, the tricky part is exactly how much cap space we're going to have to work with. There's no space to add someone to the current group, unless you swap them in by letting Tanev and Stecher go.

Concerning Barrie, you wouldn't have thought we could have room but there's good news that he may actually be a possibility due to poor season he's having in Toronto he may actually be an affordable option in place of Tanev... The bad news is as bad as he's been with Toronto do we really want him?

Considering Tryamkin, I think it's a reasonable assumption that he could be brought back, and should be a welcome addition. But you probably can't expect he'll take a minimal salary, he's not an ELC anymore, has 3 more years of pro experience in Russia, and likely can and will use that as leverage. Tryamkin will probably be looking somewhere between Stetcher and Tanev money, so depending on which way that swings bringing him in could mean losing one of them.

Really though it's impossible to put out a 'plan' right this instance. All you can do is continue to draft and develop, and try to keep some cap space and assets open so if the right guy becomes available you can pounce on him. It really shouldn't be that hard to add competent dmen - as far back as I can remember Quinn, Keenan, Burke, Nonis, and Gillis were all able to do it without much fuss, it's just really hard to say who may become available and when. While we always lacked that big Norris candidate from Quinn to Gills the Canuck organization had actually been quite good at acquiring and developing dmen.
 
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F A N

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I’ve been a big Tanev fan for years but I also wonder about how well he’s going to age. He’s had a lot of injuries, he blocks a lot of shots, and takes a lot of hits.

I read an article a couple of years ago that was pretty well researched, it showed that defensive dmen tend to age worse than offensive dmen. I’ll try to find the article(hopefully I bookmarked it in my laptop).

It’s tough trading him away though since the rest of the dcore is very shaky defensively and Hughes-Tanev has been a pretty solid pairing.

The one thing about Tanev is that he's also missed a ton of games over the years. So while he actually hasn't had that much mileage on him in terms of taking a lot of hits and blocking a lots of shots.

I've said this before, I fully expect that Tanev, like other Dmen before him (Bieksa and Hamhuis) will discover the fountain of good health upon leaving here.
 

vanuck

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I would prefer if Benning hadn't splurged 6M a year on a bottom 4 at best D-man in Tyler Myers. "It's more than the analytics", our GM said when it comes to Myers. But if you claim to be a proponent of this sort of stuff, and then turn around and go on to complete ignore the statistical evidence of his performance over the past however many reasons of mediocre to poor play, how does one reconcile that with what our GM - who supposedly has this magical eye for talent - has said about him? Remember it's still early in the season. 20-odd games of okay play from a 29 year old player does not magically erase seasons upon seasons' worth of data. That would be taking the small sample over the larger sample which is erroneous at best. It's wishful thinking that suddenly he's going to be a completely different sort of D-man, when he's shown to be mediocre at best in his prime.

For starters, the evaluation of talent on defence has to be seriously looked at. Stecher is pretty much the only defender who has actually performed at a decent level (or better, with the results to back it up) among the myriad of blueliners our dear leader has set his sights on. Frankly, everyone else he's acquired has mostly been absolute dog****.
 

vadim sharifijanov

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The 'construction' of the Canucks blueline represents the biggest failure of the Benning regime imo. The reality is that other than Hughes, the Canucks haven't been able to draft or acquire a single top-four d-man in six years. Not one. Think about that.

Thus every off-season they scramble with trades and disastrous UFA signings that inevitably fail in the end. The Gudbranson trade cost them dearly; and the most recent acquisitions of Myers and Benn seem poised to flop in the end as well. As for some of the others it's been a string of futility with guys like Larsen, Weircioch, Pouliot, and Hutton; and young players like Brisebois, Sautner and Chatfield who look like they top out as depth call-ups but little else.

The fact that Tanev and Edler are still in the 'top-four' and were inherited from the Gillis regime is a testament to how badly this current regime has screwed up over six years.

And it's all the more reason why the Juolevi pick is such an unmitigated disaster. When you expend a fifth overall pick on a d-man, and your back-end is as thin as the Canucks, he absolutely HAS to make your lineup. And in any competent draft circumstances he would have by now.

this is actually kind of bonkers.

quinn. hired summer 1987, inherits a defence of jim benning, garth butcher, doug lidster, michel petit, dave richter, and jim agnew is the young guy.

for obvious reasons he immediately goes to work fixing that d.

before the season starts he trades wendel young for darryl stanley and picks up someone named randy boyd on waivers. soon into the season he trades petit for willie huber and larry melnyk.

ok, still a tire fire.

in the offseason before year two he trades richter for robert nordmark and the second round pick that would eventually be traded to montreal for lumme. on the same day, he picks up reinhart for almost nothing. he also reacquires harry snepsts and grabs kevan guy.

that bad but no longer on fire d of reinhart, butcher, lidster, nordmark, snepsts, and melnyk/benning/guy made the playoffs and combined for seven goals (and all three game winners) in the seven game OT loss to calgary.

at the end of year three, quinn trades snepsts' corpse for adrian plavsic and gets lumme for almost nothing

in year four, he get kurvers for brian bradley and gerald diduck for almost nothing and replaces butcher, who he gave up in the ronning/courtnall trade with murzyn, who he got for spare parts. he also added dirk in the ronning/courtnall trade.

that offseason, he trades kurvers for babych and drafts slegr.

in year five, mclean finishes second to patrick roy in vezina voting and the canucks win the smythe with a d of lumme, lidster, diduck, babych, murzyn, and dirk.

in addition to slegr and the immortal leif rohlin, quinn also went on to draft ohlund, aucoin, sopel, jassen cullimore, scott walker (was originally a dman), and mike wilson.

///

keenan inherited lumme, hedican, aucoin, babych, steve staios, grant ledyard, and murzyn's corpse, with ohlund coming in as a rookie.

he wasn't there for long but he added mccabe, jason strudwick, and enrico ciccone, whom he then traded for another nondescript goon, jamie huscroft.

///

burke inherited basically the same team as keenan, let the old guys walk and effectively replaced aucoin and mccabe with jovo and salo. he drafts bieksa.

///

nonis basically rides burke's core of ohlund, sopel, jovo, salo, bryan allen, and randos. while he's there, he signs mitchell and drafts edler and luc bourdon (RIP).

///

so this is where it gets interesting. gillies inherits a solid readymade d of ohlund, bieksa, mitchell, salo, edler, and krajicek. he immediately trades krajicek for SOB.

in his time, he makes two big mistakes. first was picking up alberts during the 2010 trade deadline instead of sending assets to florida for seidenberg (which ehrhoff pushed for). second was sending those assets to florida several months later for ballard.

he let ohlund walk, got ehrhoff for nothing, signed tanev, replaced mitchell with hamhuis, eventually let salo walk, signed garrison, and left benning with hamhuis, bieksa, edler, tanev, garrison, and yannick weber.

///

since then, benning has added the following players: sbisa, pedan, clendening, philip larsen, stecher, gudbranson, pouliot, mdz, sautner, wiercioch, schenn, benn, and myers. benn and myers notwithstanding, into year five the only one of any value was troy stecher.

but of course, he did also draft quinn hughes.
 

VanJack

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All of the above is fair comment. So, if you can take over as GM, how would you construct the defence with what we have or what we may be able to obtain? This is meant to be a forward-thinking thread rather than another Benning bashing thread though I certainly concur that he has failed to build a good defence.
It's pretty simple. The Canucks need the blueline version of 'Judd Brackett' to unearth d-men. Who scouts d-men for the Preds? ..or the Carolina Hurricanes?......whoever it is, throw whatever money at him that it takes to get him to West Coast.

This isn't just Benning's failure, although the scouting buck stops with him, so I guess he's ultimately responsible. It's not like the Canucks haven't picked a lot d-men in the draft in the last five years. But guys like Olson, Neill, Gunnarson, Utunen, Brassard, Candella, Liberati and Cedarholm, were so bad, most didn't even get signed.

And the only two guys with any NHL potential--Forsling and Tryamkin--were either traded or left. Tryamkin is one what really gets me. In a blueline as devoid of talent as the Canucks, the guy should never have been allowed to 'walk''. But that's a story for another thread.

So it's ultimately gets down to scouting. Canucks have revamped their CHL scouting. And Rathbone looks a 'value pick' in the fourth round. And some of the UFA signings like Eliot, Rafferty, Teves, Chatfield and Sautner are probably AHL players at very least. So they get a pass on those.

But bottom line....the Canucks will never be contender until they start developing some 'home-grown' top four d-men, instead of desperately overpaying in free agency or botched trades like Gudbranson.
 

Motte and Bailey

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Professional scouting department needs to be overhauled (or whoever was in charge/had this area of responsibility transferred to selling 50/50 tickets). Else the same mistakes will be repeated again.

This “our pro scouting is the worst ever” narrative should be completely debunked by now after JT Miller, Tyler Myers, Antoine Roussell, Josh Leivo, Radom Vrbata, Ryan Miller, etc.
 

Pip

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They need a succession plan for Edler and Tanev who will be done in the next few seasons. They also need at least 1 more top 4 defenseman. I see nothing in the organization that will amount to much that aside from potential a few longshots (Woo/Rathbone) that would foolish to bank on. They also have to deal with Myers’ contract when he isn’t suited for top 4 minutes.

They aren’t going to be able to spend much in free agency so they will either have to move assets (Boeser? Gaudette? Draft picks?) or try to acquire a couple guys. Going for Barrie would be a big mistake. Maybe they can get lucky in the draft but again it would be stupid to bank on that.

This is a tough task now that so many assets have been blown trying to acquire defensemen in the Benning era We also have so many forwards with zero/negative value which really limits what we can do. Yikes
 

Pip

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This “our pro scouting is the worst ever” narrative should be completely debunked by now after JT Miller, Tyler Myers, Antoine Roussell, Josh Leivo, Radom Vrbata, Ryan Miller, etc.

Myers isn’t a pro scouting win. Vrbata also is questionable given he has 1 good year and 1 awful year and we couldn’t move him for anything.
 

Billy Kvcmu

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They need a succession plan for Edler and Tanev who will be done in the next few seasons. They also need at least 1 more top 4 defenseman. I see nothing in the organization that will amount to much that aside from potential a few longshots (Woo/Rathbone) that would foolish to bank on. They also have to deal with Myers’ contract when he isn’t suited for top 4 minutes.

They aren’t going to be able to spend much in free agency so they will either have to move assets (Boeser? Gaudette? Draft picks?) or try to acquire a couple guys. Going for Barrie would be a big mistake. Maybe they can get lucky in the draft but again it would be stupid to bank on that.

This is a tough task now that so many assets have been blown trying to acquire defensemen in the Benning era We also have so many forwards with zero/negative value which really limits what we can do. Yikes
I swear you are like the only person here that undervalue Boeser.....
As for the D core

Resign Tanev to a short term deal, doubt he gets a raise based on his injury history and the fact that he’s very loyal to the team. Ideally you employ him as 3rd pair defence specialist.

Let Edler walk, I doubt he will be anything more than a 3rd pair D by next season, period.

You hope Raffetty can be a regular by next season and Woo/Rathbone as call up.

Trade Stecher if he gets passed by Raffetty, any positive return is fine. Ideally a draft pick.

Hope Hughes can become a bonafide top D

If you want to trade for a top 4 D, Gaudette/Dipietro/picks are your assets.

Tryamkin and Juolevi are wild cards and wishful thinking
 

Motte and Bailey

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Myers isn’t a pro scouting win. Vrbata also is questionable given he has 1 good year and 1 awful year and we couldn’t move him for anything.

What would it take for Myers to be a pro scouting win? He’s no JT Miller I’ll give you that but to me Myers has been solid and a small win for the pro scouts.
 
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VanJack

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What would it take for Myers to be a pro scouting win? He’s no JT Miller I’ll give you that but to me Myers has been solid and a small win for the pro scouts.
I really don't think the pro scouts for the Canucks had anything to do with signing Myers. It was obvious from the midway point of last season when Myers was approaching free agency and the Jets didn't have the money to re-sign him, that Jimbo was going to throw money at him. He seemed to have been as fixated on him, as he was with Sutter and Gudbranson.

My prediction, by year 4-5 of that Myers deal he's no better than a 6-7 depth defender for the Canucks.
 

hcg

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The 'construction' of the Canucks blueline represents the biggest failure of the Benning regime imo. The reality is that other than Hughes, the Canucks haven't been able to draft or acquire a single top-four d-man in six years. Not one. Think about that.

Thus every off-season they scramble with trades and disastrous UFA signings that inevitably fail in the end. The Gudbranson trade cost them dearly; and the most recent acquisitions of Myers and Benn seem poised to flop in the end as well. As for some of the others it's been a string of futility with guys like Larsen, Weircioch, Pouliot, and Hutton; and young players like Brisebois, Sautner and Chatfield who look like they top out as depth call-ups but little else.

The fact that Tanev and Edler are still in the 'top-four' and were inherited from the Gillis regime is a testament to how badly this current regime has screwed up over six years.

And it's all the more reason why the Juolevi pick is such an unmitigated disaster. When you expend a fifth overall pick on a d-man, and your back-end is as thin as the Canucks, he absolutely HAS to make your lineup. And in any competent draft circumstances he would have by now.
Maybe the Gillis regime should have left some prospects behind.

6 years is a long time, but they have spent 2 first round picks on dmen. The problem is one of them busted. Juolevi pans out as even a number 4 and the defensive situation looks worlds better. Needing 3 top 4 dmen, plus more depth guys. That's crazy.

Expecting the Canucks to draft a top 6 forward or top 4 dman outside of the first round is a recipe for pain. It doesn't happen. The last one was Edler 15 years ago. That's a big part of why this team is going to have such a hard time ever winning a cup. Especially in a capped league. You have to be able to unearth later round gems.
 

Motte and Bailey

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I really don't think the pro scouts for the Canucks had anything to do with signing Myers. It was obvious from the midway point of last season when Myers was approaching free agency and the Jets didn't have the money to re-sign him, that Jimbo was going to throw money at him. He seemed to have been as fixated on him, as he was with Sutter and Gudbranson.

My prediction, by year 4-5 of that Myers deal he's no better than a 6-7 depth defender for the Canucks.

In defense of the pro scouting, it's not their fault when a player comes here and we get the injury bug and things go sideways when they're forced to play in situations above the level they were slotted in to play. Top pairing defenseman Matt Bartkowski anyone? It's also not the scouts' fault when the coach decides to use Derek Dorsett too much and DD flubs a play in the ozone and everyone gets mad because they're down a goal with only 1 minute to go in a playoff elimination game. That's the dumb coach's fault.

Have you noticed that during relatively healthy years our pro scouting looks great and stretches where we get the injury bug worse than most NHL teams ever get the pro scouting looks bad? Perhaps there's a connection there. In 2014-2015 - Dorsett, Bonino, Vrbata, Miller so we added a 1RW, 2C, and 1G and a terrific 4th liner and they all played fantastic hockey and well above expectations. Pro scouts are geniuses! But then in 2015-2018 we run into one of the worst or second worst stretch of injuries in the entire NHL for those 3 seasons while our core starts to look old and slow at the same time that the league is getting faster big time and also getting younger. Predictably the players we added were forced to play up the lineup higher than they should've for too long and they struggled. Was that really the pro scouts fault? In 2019 the injury gods have been good to us and look at that our pro scouting looks great again - JT Miller, a legit 1st line winger is a huge win, Myers has been solid, Leivo, Pearson, Schaller, Benn, even Motte are all contributing to the team in a positive way. Pro scouting dept are geniuses again! Oh wait...
 

vadim sharifijanov

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Maybe the Gillis regime should have left some prospects behind.

gillis sure didn't do benning any favours in the prospect department, i'll give you that. he did, however, leave behind a d corps of hamhuis, bieksa, garrison, edler, and tanev though. garrison was immediately pissed away for linden vey. later bieksa was pissed away as a sweetener to downgrade from bonino, who played last night, to sutter, who didn't. then hamhuis, who also played last night, was pissed away for literally nothing. five years later, edler and tanev are still two of our three best defencemen.

and hell, the sixth defenceman gillis left benning with, yannick weber, played against us in last week's nashville game.

meanwhile, he spent jared mccann + $12 million over four years on gudbranson, then spent $30 million over five to "fix" it.
 

dombrova22

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Apr 12, 2017
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Seems most of you are seriously underrating Woo's potential. The kid is going to be a stud, mark my words.

Top 4 of:

Tryamkin-Hughes
Woo-Barrie/UFA
 
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