this is exactly right. the canucks have way too many players who are merely good or fine in their roles and not nearly enough players who excel in their roles. the idea that you can have 2-3 superstars and then fill the rest of the roster with journeymen is so so far from the truth in the modern nhl. you need multiple stars at every position. vancouver have -- at the most charitably -- pettersson, miller, kuzmenko, hughes and hronek (and demko, but goalies are a whole separate thing)
there's nothing wrong with mikheyev or boeser (contract aside) or garland or beauvillier or cole or whoever but there's also nothing special about them. every team -- even very bad ones -- have players just as good
It's not about stars at every position because beyond the top4 forwards and 3 D nobody has stars but if you mean "stars" is being very good players that can be quality at the 5-8 F and 4/5 D spots then i can follow along with this.
My point is that when you allocate cap space you have to be careful to find the right players to hitch your wagon to.
For us that top7 group of Pettersson Miller Kuzmenko Boeser Hughes Hronek and Myers is not meeting the performance value of contenders despite being in the same ballpark in AAV so that is still a problem. People like to deflect towards the poor support group and blame certain players of lesser talents but in order to be like the best you have to play like the best and this grouping has had a plethora of failures and needs 2 perfect additions to be in the same group as some contenders or reliable playoff expectations team at minimum
The 5-9 F's and 4/5 D in allocation are Mikhayev Garland Beauvillier Blueger Cole Soucy. My point is we still have no replacement for Myers which is fine if they are patiently waiting to get the money but not a good bet if they think they have a solution in 2 guys who have not excelled ever as top4s or are too old now to be that for 82games. Which also makes our #5 if Myers continues his play of last year (which is not a decent NHLer) Hirose or Juulsen/McWard/Wolanin etc until Bear can come back to 100%..... a flawed grouping also where players are put into positions to fail vs succeed.
The forwards mentioned are expensive and unable to help drive a top6 pairing which makes us reliant on Kuz and BB6 to be on at all times and in a poor spot if they are not. It's not a problem exclusive to us and obviously moving Garland and Pearson are 2 of the steps they have identified to start moving this into a better direction but as i said none of those guys are proven and are gambles. They cannot afford to be wrong when you're paying to clean it up.