Post-Game Talk: Draft Lottery - Bedard going to Chicago. Canucks stay at 11.

[me2]

We had the #1 pick in 1999 even if that isn't what's reflected in the history books. Daniel Sedin was the 'true' #1 overall pick in that draft.

Also being the worst team is a weird thing to take pride in.

That was a trade. We were not awarded itw/won the lottery.

 

[arttk]

as someone that splits my time in the States and Vancouver id say you are wrong. Haven’t seen a crack head in a month

Skid row, West San Jose, Tenderloin, basically the whole Market street lol, certain sections of SOMA.

 

[Breakers]

Im glad I’m not the only one who feels the hatred towards Bettman’s favorite franchise winning this

They talked about the insanely light fine Chicago received from the beach incident on TSN radio rant.
They brought up past organizations being fined like the devils were fined $3 million and lost draft picks for an effin contract that the league approved.

But the blackhawks don’t lose any draft picks for a 10000000000x worse offense and a smaller fine.

 

[valkynax]

as someone that splits my time in the States and Vancouver id say you are wrong. Haven’t seen a crack head in a month

Imagine the people/volunteers in the east side seeing crack/meth heads every f***ing minute...

 

[Play]

Imagine the people/volunteers in the east side seeing crack/meth heads every f***ing minute...

Man that can really f*** with peoples emotions. The highest respect to those folks

 

[tradervik]

We aren't that much better off in coastal BC. Maybe less tsunami, but the earthquake is going to be devastating. Infrastructure is going to take a beating, along with a lot of older buildings. If you talk to a structural engineer, the amount of seismic reinforcement they need to do now is way beyond even what they were doing 20 years ago. Going back to the 60's, they didn't even know we got earthquakes here. Plate tectonics were a crackpot theory until then.

For sure, it will be a major shit show. However, we have a chance to survive whereas anyone living on the Oregon coast is a goner.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

While you can never guarantee a 1st overall pick under the lottery system, you should be able to get a franchise player if you land a top 5 pick and your scouting team is doing a good job.

In the Lafrenniere year, Stuztle and Raymond went top 5. Hischier draft has Heiskanen/Makar/Petterson top 5. Ekblad year has Draisaitl top 5. Etc etc. If you plan and execute your rebuild correctly and have a good scouting team in place, it doesn't matter very much if you draft 1st overall or 5th or 6th, you can still take players that are franchise-altering.

That's also not to mention all the additional picks you'll acquire along the way from trading vets, taking cap dumps, etc. You will get more shots at drafting talented players all throughout the draft. Sure it helps if you tank in a year where a generational talent is available, but good planning and scouting talent can overcome luck, in the long run.

This is especially true if you use confirmation bias and ignore the other top 5 picks who didn't become superstars.

Great for Edmonton that they got Draisaitl, would tearing it down to the studs be worth it for Reinhart or Bennett?

 

[DonnyNucker]

Imagine the people/volunteers in the east side seeing crack/meth heads every f***ing minute...

I can’t imagine it. I stay far away from the east side . Vancouver, Portland and San Francisco are all ruined now unfortunately. A few more safe injection sites should do the trick

 

[valkynax]

I can’t imagine it. I stay far away from the east side . Vancouver, Portland and San Francisco are all ruined now unfortunately. A few more safe injection sites should do the trick

I only volunteered for a short few months, and this is when I didn't have a car. Now I will say that, of the druggies I've seen, at least the ones who came to our clinic, most were pretty...OK people, I mean as OK as you can be if you lived in that shithole. And also because our clinic has the free injection kits, and all that stuff they want (I was the lovely chump who's handing those out behind a barred window like, I'm guarding police evidence locker in the Terminator or something...). I did lose my watch one time, which I think is mostly my fault because I took my watch off and left it on the counter as I was washing my hand, and this guy just rushed by and grabbed it. Jokes on him though the watch only costed me 20 bucks!


But Hasting and Main intersection is the epicenter of all this. Again, most people are more or less OK by the area's standard but it only takes 2-3 crazies to scare the piss out of someone who's never been there and never want to even see that area ever again. The area also has legit small businesses that I think are suffering, because if you want to make people wade through a swamp of drug addicts, piss, and shit you better be selling the BEST mother f***ing kung pow chicken on the planet...

 

[sandwichbird2023]

This is especially true if you use confirmation bias and ignore the other top 5 picks who didn't become superstars.

Great for Edmonton that they got Draisaitl, would tearing it down to the studs be worth it for Reinhart or Bennett?

Reinhart or Bennett might not be homerun superstars, but drafting them is infinitely better than expending assets in a futile pursuit of a wild card spot just to fall short and drafting #14 instead.

 

[Jyrki]

I only volunteered for a short few months, and this is when I didn't have a car. Now I will say that, of the druggies I've seen, at least the ones who came to our clinic, most were pretty...OK people, I mean as OK as you can be if you lived in that shithole. And also because our clinic has the free injection kits, and all that stuff they want (I was the lovely chump who's handing those out behind a barred window like, I'm guarding police evidence locker in the Terminator or something...). I did lose my watch one time, which I think is mostly my fault because I took my watch off and left it on the counter as I was washing my hand, and this guy just rushed by and grabbed it. Jokes on him though the watch only costed me 20 bucks!


But Hasting and Main intersection is the epicenter of all this. Again, most people are more or less OK by the area's standard but it only takes 2-3 crazies to scare the piss out of someone who's never been there and never want to even see that area ever again. The area also has legit small businesses that I think are suffering, because if you want to make people wade through a swamp of drug addicts, piss, and shit you better be selling the BEST mother f***ing kung pow chicken on the planet...

I go a lot to that intersection. Not many other music venues in town that are accessible/affordable.

Suffice to say, the people struggling with deadly addiction and those in the environment are the ones suffering. not the people complaining about needles or aggro addicts.

 

[Petey But Really Jim]

Reinhart or Bennett might not be homerun superstars, but drafting them is infinitely better than expending assets in a futile pursuit of a wild card spot just to fall short and drafting #14 instead.

Or succeed and get your dick knocked off in the first round. Or top out as a top ten team with no realistic Cup chances. Both also awesome.

 

[VanJack]

Maybe I'm crazy but pro scouting seems to have done a much better job. Sasson and Hirose make me feel better about our amateur scouting assuming they're in charge of college FAs.

There's always some top tier talent picked way lower than the top-3 who are usually as advertised or slightly overhyped.

We're also doing a better job in Abby of bringing these players along. You wonder about a bunch of the players who go super high and bust....did those organizations fail at developing them?

Maybe we actually pluck a good one out of here this draft.

I agree that the Canucks are stockpiling some interesting junior and college UFA's. Guys like Bains, Hirose, McWard, Sasson and Topolito only cost the Canucks contract slots. And they've expended very few assets to acquire the likes of Kravstov, Bloom, Studnicka and Bear.

But sadly all these UFA signings don't make up for some of the lackluster drafts of the Benning years. Since 2020, the Canucks have traded three first rounders; at least four second rounders; and even later picks in the draft. This is utter lunacy for a team locked into the lottery year after year.

 

[valkynax]

I go a lot to that intersection. Not many other music venues in town that are accessible/affordable.

Suffice to say, the people struggling with deadly addiction and those in the environment are the ones suffering. not the people complaining about needles or aggro addicts.

And it makes me furious that I'm not seeing anything being done for them, besides giving these people more free drugs.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

There's a difference between 'tanking' and 'being bad.'

Tanking, at least in the context I use it and has largely been used in this thread, implies it being intentional or conscious.

Chicago being utterly terrible wasn't a conscious decision to be bad for draft picks. They were bad because they had a cheapskate owner who was an asshole.

Somehow they had a massive pick surplus during that time.

So there was some intentionality to it.

BUT THAT IS BESIDES THE POINT.

I am just saying their trajectory as a result of that is day & night different to ours. I've completely given up on the conversation about how this team should be ran.

If you're talking about identifying trends and selling/buying as appropriate (so to speak), yeah, you'll brook no argument from me.

But if you're saying that Chicago had some sort of plan to be bad, culminating in grabbing Kane and Toews, uhhh, I dunno what to tell you.

Chicago landing their players is very different from, say, Ottawa doing everything in their power to land Daigle (lol):

Winning by Losing

The 1992-93 Ottawa Senators were plenty bad during their maiden season in the NHL. With only 10 wins in 84 games, they were almost unprecedentedly bad. But

vault.si.com

That the "Blackhawks tanked like a mother f***er" to build their Cup winning teams. They didn't. They were just organically dogshite. Re-read @bandwagonesque 's post if you need a refresher. Here it is again:

I have this poster on ignore. He is a self admitted troll.

How much was intentional can be debated (that is not my point at all) fact is they had massive amounts of picks in the first two rounds during that time.

Your dismissive tone towards other people in the thread is at odds with your premise (the Blackhawks were intentionally bad during the Wirtz years) which is flawed, because the Hawks were either incompetent, unintentionally bad or simply just bad with no grand scheme behind the badness. Take your pick.

2022-23 they were very disciplined about being bad.

I do not honestly give a f*** what happened 20 years ago to put them on this type of cycle.

My dismissive tone is just a response to their dismissive tone. Also I honestly think there are some really naïve opinions you need to hold or you need to be willingly dishonest to say the things some of these folk say.

It's also wild because you and MS are more or less agreeing on the proper course of action, you both just have different interpretations on 'when' that should be.

I'm not sure about that.

I think MS hates the draft system rewarding being bad and absolutely hates tanking to a point where it skews his view on this.

I guess the question is, do you feel Hughes/EP/Demko are worth building around? If not, why?

Obviously the answer is not that simple.

EP & QH certainly are good enough pieces to be part of a cup contending core. But two players is not enough.

There are very few goaltenders in the world who can start +60 games and be quality starters in the playoffs. Demko has shown to break down under that type of usage. If we are to count on him as the 3rd elite piece he has to show he can be one of the ~5 people on this planet that can play +60 regular season games and still be able to hide our warts in the playoffs.

We can hope that he is that. Its not even completely unreasonable. But hope is not a plan.

We play in a league with 31 other teams in the league who also will try to compete and most of them are in a better spot to do so or in the process of exiting their contention windows.
We have:
- No cap space
- VERY FEW players on contracts they are out performing
- No draft pick surplus
- No prospect pool
- No depth at Center, Defense and Goalie.
- Depth but no quality at wings

Basically the situation is that of a team exiting its contention window, without ever actually making the playoffs legitimately.

We will be mediocre and will be picking in the 12-18 range enough to perpetually stay here. In 8 years there will be another 2-3 really good young players who prevent us from actually taking a step back even a little because the loosing culture will seep in.

There will be some other "unforeseen" obstacle next year that will be used as an excuse for why we weren't good enough. This year it was goaltending. (See VGK as an example how this should not be used as an excuse if we are supposed to be a playoff caliber team.)





BUT.... I think the timing to actually take a breath and wait out a few bad contracts and try to accumulate picks and prospects and maybe sell some pieces at the TDL is gone. We are now stuck on this path. The retool folk will get their wish. I will not. To me this means we wont be contending with EP & QH.

Next summer, I think will be very telling of what this will look like. I will admit with joy that I had it all wrong if they actually pull a massive overhaul of the team this summer. I fear the other side will do no such thing if the opposite happens.

Edit. Im really making an effort to stay out of this discussion / debate. There absolutely zero to be gained. The premise of 'the other side' is so far removed from mine that no actual discussion even takes place. It just becomes a circular argument where we can agree on even the most basic things about what it takes to create a cup contention window from the position we find our selves.

 

[bandwagonesque]

2022-23 they were very disciplined about being bad.

I do not honestly give a f*** what happened 20 years ago to put them on this type of cycle.

You wrote an entire post about how they tanked effectively 20 years ago and that the Canucks should have emulated it. We all read that post and subsequently discussed it. Do you have any recollection of this?

 

[racerjoe]

You wrote an entire post about how they tanked effectively 20 years ago and that the Canucks should have emulated it. We all read that post and subsequently discussed it. Do you have any recollection of this?

He said he has you on ignore.

 

[Vector]

Maybe I'm crazy but pro scouting seems to have done a much better job. Sasson and Hirose make me feel better about our amateur scouting assuming they're in charge of college FAs.

There's always some top tier talent picked way lower than the top-3 who are usually as advertised or slightly overhyped.

We're also doing a better job in Abby of bringing these players along. You wonder about a bunch of the players who go super high and bust....did those organizations fail at developing them?

Maybe we actually pluck a good one out of here this draft.

McWard also looked good in his limited time.

All three of the free agent prospects from last summer (Aman, Johansson, and Bains) are in-line to get NHL minutes next season.

Whatever changes were made in the scouting department got immediate results. Hopefully Bains is the first of many to come out of our also improved player development.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

He said he has you on ignore.

They had massive amounts of picks and drafted players like Crawford, Saad, Bolland with their surplus picks.


BUT I'll just completely concede the point that Blackhawks accidently got Patrick Kane and Toews.
Lets 100% ignore that debate here. It doesn't matter to the point I am trying to make.


My point is about how the NHL works with its current CBA. If you are mediocre you stay mediocre, if you are good you become awful and then become good again because of the cap and the draft.

 

[VanJack]

Connor Bedard is a supreme talent, but at 18 he can't be a savior, at least not yet. This Hawks team is beyond 'bad', and will be for a number of seasons yet.

So he may put up points, but on a team that's still tanking hard for the future.

 

[racerjoe]

McWard also looked good in his limited time.

All three of the free agent prospects from last summer (Aman, Johansson, and Bains) are in-line to get NHL minutes next season.

Whatever changes were made in the scouting department got immediate results. Hopefully Bains is the first of many to come out of our also improved player development.

Wonder what the biggest change was...

 

[AwesomeInTheory]

I am just saying their trajectory as a result of that is day & night different to ours. I've completely given up on the conversation about how this team should be ran.

I would agree on Current Year Hawks/Canucks, yeah. I was focusing on your line about the Cup winning team the Hawks had assembled.

The path the Hawks have gone under is the one the Canucks should've gone under earlier, I agree.

I have this poster on ignore. He is a self admitted troll.

How much was intentional can be debated (that is not my point at all) fact is they had massive amounts of picks in the first two rounds during that time.

I think going to hockeydb and just eyeballing a list of picks is a bit of a misnomer. Some of these picks were acquired due to what I had said before, about Wirtz being a cheapskate and an asshole.

EG, the Hawks got 2 1st rounders for Chelios. Not because they were trying to tank, but because they didn't want to re-sign Chelios. You can say it's good asset management, but trying to contort it to some sort of byzantine scheme is a stretch.

2022-23 they were very disciplined about being bad.

I agree.

I do not honestly give a f*** what happened 20 years ago to put them on this type of cycle.

Then don't bring it up, lmao.

My dismissive tone is just a response to their dismissive tone. Also I honestly think there are some really naïve opinions you need to hold or you need to be willingly dishonest to say the things some of these folk say.

I'm not sure about that.

All MS was really saying is that there was a time to do what the Hawks were doing, but it was several years ago in the midst of the clusterf*** Benning years.

His 'video game' comment is just a shorthand to talk about how you need to consider player feelings/thoughts in the mix and not just look at everything as purely transactional. An egregious example of what I'm talking about would be the recent furor with the Flames and Sutter.

Telling the team that we're going to just stink it up, reduce your playing minutes for AHLers, etc. isn't going to sit well with most professional athletes. You might think it's achievable, but at the very least the reaction to such a strategy from your roster needs to be considered.

Obviously the answer is not that simple.

EP & QH certainly are good enough pieces to be part of a cup contending core. But two players is not enough.

Well, that's why I said 'build around.' You have to start somewhere. If they're not a good starting point, that's totally fair.

There are very few goaltenders in the world who can start +60 games and be quality starters in the playoffs. Demko has shown to break down under that type of usage. If we are to count on him as the 3rd elite piece he has to show he can be one of the ~5 people on this planet that can play +60 regular season games and still be able to hide our warts in the playoffs.

We can hope that he is that. Its not even completely unreasonable. But hope is not a plan.

We play in a league with 31 other teams in the league who also will try to compete and most of them are in a better spot to do so or in the process of exiting their contention windows.
We have:
- No cap space
- VERY FEW players on contracts they are out performing
- No draft pick surplus
- No prospect pool
- No depth at Center, Defense and Goalie.
- Depth but no quality at wings

Basically the situation is that of a team exiting its contention window, without ever actually making the playoffs legitimately.

Yeah, I agree mostly on this. It's very much treading water and the path to respectability for the Canucks is a long one. What it comes down to is whether or not some of the good pieces we do have are worth building around or not. If it's the latter, then it should be close to full on scorched earth.

I think either way isn't particularly encouraging. The first runs the risk of continuing to get saddled with cumbersome contracts and more or less putting the team back to where we started. The latter runs the risk of much the same, but with pissing off players and/or making Vancouver an undesirable destination for players a la Atlanta back in the day.

We will be mediocre and will be picking in the 12-18 range enough to perpetually stay here. In 8 years there will be another 2-3 really good young players who prevent us from actually taking a step back even a little because the loosing culture will seep in.

There will be some other "unforeseen" obstacle next year that will be used as an excuse for why we weren't good enough. This year it was goaltending. (See VGK as an example how this should not be used as an excuse if we are supposed to be a playoff caliber team.)

The issues this year is that we had a shite D corps, a coach that was hung out to dry (and team who had more or less tuned him out as a result) and ya, some shitty goaltending. Like you said earlier, expecting Demko to be perfect is not a sane or logical course of action, but the team was more or less built with that in mind, so, yeah, it is a contributing factor.

BUT.... I think the timing to actually take a breath and wait out a few bad contracts and try to accumulate picks and prospects and maybe sell some pieces at the TDL is gone. We are now stuck on this path. The retool folk will get their wish. I will not. To me this means we wont be contending with EP & QH.

This is why I'm saying that you and MS are on the same page. I don't think MS is in love with the idea of what the team is doing, but there's not really other options because the time has passed.

Next summer, I think will be very telling of what this will look like. I will admit with joy that I had it all wrong if they actually pull a massive overhaul of the team this summer. I fear the other side will do no such thing if the opposite happens.

Edit. Im really making an effort to stay out of this discussion / debate. There absolutely zero to be gained. The premise of 'the other side' is so far removed from mine that no actual discussion even takes place. It just becomes a circular argument where we can agree on even the most basic things about what it takes to create a cup contention window from the position we find our selves.

And ya, I'm with you. I was always waiting for Benning to prove me wrong because I'd much rather the team be a winner and be enjoyable than be 'right' (The y2k paradox) but it never came.

I think we're mostly in agreement in a lot of things and there's generally a lot of common ground with the folks who are butting heads. Sorry for dragging you into this when you weren't wanting to, haha, I was just clarifying one comment.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I think we're mostly in agreement in a lot of things and there's generally a lot of common ground with the folks who are butting heads.

I've unfortunately not found this to be true.

Sorry for dragging you into this when you weren't wanting to, haha, I was just clarifying one comment.

No worries. I could have just not replied here.

I'm still working on staying out of this mess.

edit

...but trying to contort it to some sort of byzantine scheme is a stretch.

This was never my intention.

The point was about the different trajectories.

 

[elitepete]

Conor Bedard is going to play out most of his prime as a Vancouver Canuck. Do not care what anyone says.

Chicago is a dogshit organization and Bedard’s parents are not happy that they have they #1 overall pick.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

in my dream world, bedard’s agent announces, like publicly and quotably, in a press conference held at the convention centre so you can look out the window behind them and see that they’re obviously in vancouver, that he refuses to play for that rape-covering up, racist mascot-having, Black prospect-burying team, eric lindros style. then bedard walks up to the stage wearing a homemade “toews knew” t-shirt and flashes some kind of cryptic gang sign and says “luongo 4ever” to the throng of reporters and photographers.

i am a highly unrealistic person.