Management Thread. A Fist Full of Dollars: Gunslinger Final Edition, Pt IlI

[Fatass]

We could potentially have a Colorado-like future, but it would require a lot to go right.

The Pettersson/Boeser core could be similar to MacKinnon/Landeskog where they were around with the team for a few years before the team became any good. We'll still need to find our Rantanen, as well as our Makar (and ideally Byram/Newhook). Those will have to come this year and next. And like you say, we'll need to get rid of these bad contracts while ensuring we do not sign any new bad contracts to replace them.

It's a tough ask, but not impossible if we replace our current incompetent management with a group that is very good at their jobs. I'm all for tanking this season to put the final nail in the coffin on the Benning mistake regime. Not only would that lead to better management (almost by default), but this year's draft is loaded with good defensemen at the top end.

Is Luke Hughes anyone we’d want to draft, or is he just Quinn’s brother, and it’s more reputation of his name than he’s actually a player we want? Looks like he’s ranked top five in the coming draft.

 

[Melvin]

Like, I've shared this before, but it's pretty easy to draw a line of best fit and make a rough formula that gives "chance of success" for a given draft position.

You can even do it in Excel:

This is using 250GP as a "success" which is arbitrary, but so is any other definition. Do it however you want.

You can then use this to get an "expected number of successes" given draft position, and aggregate by team for a given time period.

Now, defining "success" when it's this recent is very hard. We can't use 250 games since then Pettersson, Boeser, Hughes are all misses. So you have to use some kind of substitute that translates to players who are likely to hit 250 GP.

I used 100 games played, or debuted last year with 20 GP, or debuted 2 years ago with 50 GP. Something like this. I consider these players as "hits" although some will likely still fail to hit 250 GP.

For 2014-2018:

team	picks	Expected Hits	Hits	Success	Players
BOS	30	7.32	8	0.68	David Pastrnak, Brandon Carlo, Danton Heinen, Jake DeBrusk, Charlie McAvoy, Ryan Donato, Anders Bjork, Ryan Lindgren
ANA	26	6.33	7	0.67	Nick Ritchie, Brandon Montour, Ondrej Kase, Marcus Pettersson, Jacob Larsson, Max Jones, Sam Steel
CGY	28	5.80	6	0.20	Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, Rasmus Andersson, Andrew Mangiapane, Dillon Dube, Adam Fox
STL	32	6.46	6	-0.46	Ivan Barbashev, Vince Dunn, Robby Fabbri, Robert Thomas, Tage Thompson, Jordan Kyrou
VAN	31	7.58	7	-0.58	Jared McCann, Jake Virtanen, Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, Gustav Forsling, Adam Gaudette, Quintin Hughes
VGK	17	4.08	3	-1.08	Nick Suzuki, Cody Glass, Nicolas Hague
CBJ	30	7.25	6	-1.25	Zach Werenski, Markus Nutivaara, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Sonny Milano, Emil Bemstrom, Andrew Peeke
SJS	30	6.32	5	-1.32	Kevin Labanc, Timo Meier, Nikolay Goldobin, Mario Ferraro, Noah Gregor
MIN	31	5.49	4	-1.49	Joel Eriksson Ek, Alex Tuch, Jordan Greenway, Luke Kunin
NSH	27	5.87	4	-1.87	Viktor Arvidsson, Kevin Fiala, Samuel Girard, Dante Fabbro
PHI	36	8.88	7	-1.88	Ivan Provorov, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, Nolan Patrick, Oskar Lindblom, Joel Farabee, Connor Bunnaman
WPG	31	7.04	5	-2.04	Nikolaj Ehlers, Patrik Laine, Kyle Connor, Jack Roslovic, David Gustafsson
PIT	24	4.05	2	-2.05	Kasperi Kapanen, Dominik Simon
OTT	27	7.11	5	-2.11	Thomas Chabot, Colin White, Brady Tkachuk, Maxime Lajoie, Drake Batherson
NJD	33	7.75	5	-2.75	Pavel Zacha, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Joey Anderson, Jesper Boqvist
CAR	33	8.85	6	-2.85	Noah Hanifin, Sebastian Aho, Lucas Wallmark, Andrei Svechnikov, Warren Foegele, Haydn Fleury
DET	35	8.38	5	-3.38	Dylan Larkin, Filip Hronek, Dennis Cholowski, Michael Rasmussen, Givani Smith
WSH	25	4.52	1	-3.52	Jakub Vrana
BUF	35	9.66	6	-3.66	Sam Reinhart, Jack Eichel, Rasmus Dahlin, Brendan Lemieux, Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Asplund
ARI	37	9.66	6	-3.66	Christian Dvorak, Brendan Perlini, Clayton Keller, Jakob Chychrun, Christian Fischer, Dylan Strome
CHI	39	7.69	4	-3.69	Nick Schmaltz, Alex DeBrincat, Henri Jokiharju, Adam Boqvist
MTL	33	7.79	4	-3.79	Mikhail Sergachev, Victor Mete, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Cale Fleury
EDM	27	6.95	3	-3.95	Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Jesse Puljujarvi
NYI	30	7.06	3	-4.06	Anthony Beauvillier, Mathew Barzal, Noah Dobson
LAK	30	6.10	2	-4.10	Adrian Kempe, Michael Amadio
TOR	39	9.26	5	-4.26	William Nylander, Mitchell Marner, Auston Matthews, Travis Dermott, Rasmus Sandin
COL	30	7.28	3	-4.28	Mikko Rantanen, Tyson Jost, Cale Makar
TBL	35	7.34	3	-4.34	Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Brett Howden
FLA	29	7.39	3	-4.39	Aaron Ekblad, Lawson Crouse, Denis Malgin
NYR	32	6.86	1	-5.86	Filip Chytil
DAL	30	7.13	1	-6.13	Miro Heiskanen

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Obviously even with my loose diagnostic almost every team is underperforming. This is because there are players who will "hit" who still have 0 GP and I have no reasonable way to project any of them as likely hits in some kind of objective and fair way.

Anyway, I am just outlining a methodology. Anyone can do this, it's trivial and you can use whatever parameters you want.

You can see from this that yes, accounting for Draft Position, the Canucks from the 2014-2018 drafts have done well.

HOWEVER

I don't think from this you can conclude that "Jim Benning is good at drafting." The fact is that drafts give us very little data. They tell us who a team selected given their position and given who was available. They do not tell us who the team would have selected had they been in a different position, or if different players were available. In fact, in many cases a team might have made a WORSE selection if they were in a BETTER position. And the fact that another team selected that player before they could saved their bacon, as it were. Having the top pick in the 2012 draft for example is a poison apple. You're better off having a lower pick in some cases.

It's a bit like trying to asses stock-picking ability by having someone select from 1 of 3 stocks, once per year. It's not enough. Sometimes he'll pick a good stock, and sometimes a bad one, but sometimes all 3 selections that you give him end up the same and it wouldn't have mattered which one he picked, and sometimes the stock he really wanted wasn't one of the 3 options you gave him. So limiting his choice to 3 and only asking once per year, even after 10 years of doing this you still won't have much information (unless there is a clear #1 and he literally picks it every single time, which would be notable. But no team performs this well. See above.)

Finally, that's without even getting into segregation of duties and trying to examine how much influence Benning himself had on any pick, which we already know is fraught with peril. This is especially true during the Linden years when it isn't even clear that he had 100% autonomy over the final selection. At least post-2018 we can be certain he was not over-ruled by a PHO, but from 2014-2018 it's a tougher read.

All of which is to say that it's all very fun and interesting and cool to do, and I encourage anyone here to do it, take what I've presented here and tweak it into something better. But be careful not read too much into this. It's still a very small sample of data, and still is too fresh and recent to really draw major conclusions about most of these drafts.

Also f*** the Boston Bruins

 

[Fatass]

I was talking to a friend and I proposed Miller for PLD and a first.

it would depend on a few things:
1: does cbj see themselves as a contender/solid playoff team

2: what do we assume our actual timeline for competing is.

3: how much has PLDs attitude effected his value

I don’t know if we could get both PLD and a first for Miller. But PLD would, contract wise, fit better in that window you were suggesting is two years away - providing we get a competent GM soon.

 

[Melvin]

Here is 2008-2013. You can see that when doing older drafts, the numbers look much nicer, with half the teams doing "better" than expected and half the teams doing worse, as you'd expect. The total number of expected hits is 262, vs 241 for actual, which is overall an underperformance historically, which I blame on the 2012 draft.

team	picks	Expected Hits	Hits	Success	Players
OTT	40	8.61	13	4.39	Erik Karlsson, Zack Smith, Jakob Silfverberg, Mika Zibanejad, Cody Ceci, Mike Hoffman, Mark Stone, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Mark Borowiecki, Ryan Dzingel, Curtis Lazar, Patrick Wiercioch, Derek Grant
ANA	41	10.05	13	2.95	Cam Fowler, Jake Gardiner, Kyle Palmieri, Hampus Lindholm, Justin Schultz, Rickard Rakell, Sami Vatanen, William Karlsson, Devante Smith-Pelly, Josh Manson, Chris Wagner, Peter Holland, Shea Theodore
LAK	40	8.77	11	2.23	Drew Doughty, Kyle Clifford, Brayden Schenn, Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson, Nicolas Deslauriers, Jordan Nolan, Colin Miller, Nick Shore, Derek Forbort, Nic Dowd
DAL	35	8.28	10	1.72	Reilly Smith, Alex Chiasson, John Klingberg, Radek Faksa, Patrik Nemeth, Jamie Oleksiak, Esa Lindell, Devin Shore, Valeri Nichushkin, Brett Ritchie
TBL	37	9.55	11	1.45	Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, Brett Connolly, Radko Gudas, Richard Panik, Vladislav Namestnikov, Cedric Paquette, Jonathan Drouin, Mark Barberio
NSH	43	9.20	10	0.80	Craig Smith, Roman Josi, Colin Wilson, Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis, Seth Jones, Gabriel Bourque, Colton Sissons, Austin Watson, Jimmy Vesey
SJS	37	6.34	7	0.66	Jason Demers, Charlie Coyle, Matt Nieto, Tomas Hertl, Tommy Wingels, Chris Tierney, Dylan DeMelo
NYR	33	7.47	8	0.53	Derek Stepan, Michael Del Zotto, Chris Kreider, Dale Weise, J.T. Miller, Jesper Fast, Anthony Duclair, Brady Skjei
WSH	36	7.49	8	0.51	John Carlson, Marcus Johansson, Cody Eakin, Tom Wilson, Dmitry Orlov, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Filip Forsberg, Andre Burakovsky
DET	40	7.55	8	0.45	Tomas Tatar, Gustav Nyquist, Riley Sheahan, Calle Jarnkrok, Andreas Athanasiou, Mattias Janmark, Nick Jensen, Anthony Mantha
CBJ	38	9.56	10	0.44	Ryan Johansen, Cam Atkinson, David Savard, Matt Calvert, John Moore, Boone Jenner, Alexander Wennberg, Ryan Murray, Josh Anderson, Dalton Prout
WPG	19	4.67	5	0.33	Mark Scheifele, Jacob Trouba, Adam Lowry, Andrew Copp, Josh Morrissey
BUF	44	10.77	11	0.23	Tyler Myers, Tyler Ennis, Marcus Foligno, Zack Kassian, Rasmus Ristolainen, Zemgus Girgensons, Brayden McNabb, Mark Pysyk, Nikita Zadorov, Jake McCabe, Joel Armia
MIN	33	7.88	8	0.12	Nick Leddy, Marco Scandella, Jonas Brodin, Mikael Granlund, Jason Zucker, Matt Dumba, Erik Haula, Johan Larsson
PHI	30	5.91	6	0.09	Sean Couturier, Luca Sbisa, Zac Rinaldo, Shayne Gostisbehere, Nick Cousins, Scott Laughton
CAR	33	8.28	8	-0.28	Jeff Skinner, Justin Faulk, Elias Lindholm, Victor Rask, Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Brian Dumoulin, Brock McGinn
FLA	45	11.70	11	-0.70	Dmitry Kulikov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Erik Gudbranson, Aleksander Barkov, Nick Bjugstad, Vincent Trocheck, Joonas Donskoi, Zach Hyman, Mike Matheson, Alexander Petrovic, Matt Bartkowski
NYI	42	11.78	11	-0.78	Josh Bailey, John Tavares, Matt Martin, Jared Spurgeon, Travis Hamonic, Nino Niederreiter, Brock Nelson, Casey Cizikas, Anders Lee, Ryan Strome, Calvin de Haan
CHI	47	10.03	9	-1.03	Brandon Saad, Andrew Shaw, Marcus Kruger, Kevin Hayes, Teuvo Teravainen, Joakim Nordstrom, Phillip Danault, Ryan Hartman, Brandon Pirri
ATL	22	5.35	4	-1.35	Evander Kane, Zach Bogosian, Ben Chiarot, Alexander Burmistrov
NJD	36	7.53	6	-1.53	Adam Henrique, Adam Larsson, Damon Severson, Jon Merrill, Jacob Josefson, Miles Wood
PHX	36	9.21	7	-2.21	Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Mikkel Boedker, Michael Stone, Connor Murphy, Max Domi, Jordan Martinook, Oscar Lindberg
CGY	36	8.32	6	-2.32	Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, Lance Bouma, Micheal Ferland, Markus Granlund, Sven Baertschi
STL	38	9.35	7	-2.35	Alex Pietrangelo, Jaden Schwartz, Vladimir Tarasenko, Colton Parayko, Joel Edmundson, Jori Lehtera, Dmitrij Jaskin
VAN	33	6.79	4	-2.79	Bo Horvat, Ben Hutton, Cody Hodgson, Kevin Connauton
TOR	39	8.80	6	-2.80	Luke Schenn, Nazem Kadri, Morgan Rielly, Jimmy Hayes, Connor Brown, Greg Pateryn
BOS	33	7.08	4	-3.08	Tyler Seguin, Dougie Hamilton, Ryan Spooner, Joe Colborne
COL	34	8.65	5	-3.65	Ryan O'Reilly, Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Tyson Barrie, Nathan MacKinnon
MTL	37	8.34	4	-4.34	Alex Galchenyuk, Brendan Gallagher, Nathan Beaulieu, Artturi Lehkonen
PIT	32	6.48	2	-4.48	Olli Maatta, Bryan Rust
EDM	45	12.52	8	-4.52	Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Magnus Paajarvi, Tobias Rieder, Oscar Klefbom, Nail Yakupov, Darnell Nurse

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

You can see that yes, the Canucks were a bad team during this period, but not the worst in the NHL when you account for pick quality, and not worse than the Boston Bruins.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Is Luke Hughes anyone we’d want to draft, or is he just Quinn’s brother, and it’s more reputation of his name than he’s actually a player we want? Looks like he’s ranked top five in the coming draft.

I absolutely have him high on my list. Probably not as good as Quinn, and he is a LHD as well, but to complement him in our top 4 I think he would be a solid pick. I have him behind Brandt Clarke, but he's certainly in that group along with Lambos and Power.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

I don't know if this is off topic, but with (unsurprising talk) of our draft position, I'm less optimistic this is a great year to do it (assuming it's planned). I think many young players are missing out on key years of development, so that any evaluation on where they are is going to have much higher variance than previous years. In other words, you're more likely to get lucky with a lower draft pick this year than others, meaning the higher ones are worth less. As is the Canucks' luck, we'll probably win the draft lotto this year.

Any year is a good year to win the draft lotto, you just need competent management to either maximize the value (trade down numerous times and accumulate additional picks, if you believe the variance is high this year) or not screw it up if you use the pick.

 

[Melvin]

The more I look at the data the more I think it's noise. It's interesting and fun, as trivia. It's fun to laugh at the Oilers. But I don't read any meaning into it.

 

[HedonisticAltruism]

Any year is a good year to win the draft lotto, you just need competent management to either maximize the value (trade down numerous times and accumulate additional picks, if you believe the variance is high this year) or not screw it up if you use the pick.

...obviously choosing between winning the lotto or not is not any real choice. There is no argument that picking earlier is better than picking later; however, there are clearly empirically better draft years - would you rather draft 2005 and get Sydney Crosby or draft 1999 and get Patrik Stefan? Aside from #1, Sid's year had allstars Bobby Ryan, Carey Price, Anze Kopitar, Marc Staal, Tuukka Rask, TJ Oshie in the 1st round. 1999, outside the Sedin's, you have Havlat and Boynton.

If you don't understand this, you're completely missing my point.

 

[I am toxic]

Like, I've shared this before, but it's pretty easy to draw a line of best fit and make a rough formula that gives "chance of success" for a given draft position.

You can even do it in Excel:

View attachment 387073

This is using 250GP as a "success" which is arbitrary, but so is any other definition. Do it however you want.

You can then use this to get an "expected number of successes" given draft position, and aggregate by team for a given time period.

Now, defining "success" when it's this recent is very hard. We can't use 250 games since then Pettersson, Boeser, Hughes are all misses. So you have to use some kind of substitute that translates to players who are likely to hit 250 GP.

I used 100 games played, or debuted last year with 20 GP, or debuted 2 years ago with 50 GP. Something like this. I consider these players as "hits" although some will likely still fail to hit 250 GP.

For 2014-2018:

team	picks	Expected Hits	Hits	Success	Players
BOS	30	7.32	8	0.68	David Pastrnak, Brandon Carlo, Danton Heinen, Jake DeBrusk, Charlie McAvoy, Ryan Donato, Anders Bjork, Ryan Lindgren
ANA	26	6.33	7	0.67	Nick Ritchie, Brandon Montour, Ondrej Kase, Marcus Pettersson, Jacob Larsson, Max Jones, Sam Steel
CGY	28	5.80	6	0.20	Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, Rasmus Andersson, Andrew Mangiapane, Dillon Dube, Adam Fox
STL	32	6.46	6	-0.46	Ivan Barbashev, Vince Dunn, Robby Fabbri, Robert Thomas, Tage Thompson, Jordan Kyrou
VAN	31	7.58	7	-0.58	Jared McCann, Jake Virtanen, Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, Gustav Forsling, Adam Gaudette, Quintin Hughes
VGK	17	4.08	3	-1.08	Nick Suzuki, Cody Glass, Nicolas Hague
CBJ	30	7.25	6	-1.25	Zach Werenski, Markus Nutivaara, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Sonny Milano, Emil Bemstrom, Andrew Peeke
SJS	30	6.32	5	-1.32	Kevin Labanc, Timo Meier, Nikolay Goldobin, Mario Ferraro, Noah Gregor
MIN	31	5.49	4	-1.49	Joel Eriksson Ek, Alex Tuch, Jordan Greenway, Luke Kunin
NSH	27	5.87	4	-1.87	Viktor Arvidsson, Kevin Fiala, Samuel Girard, Dante Fabbro
PHI	36	8.88	7	-1.88	Ivan Provorov, Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, Nolan Patrick, Oskar Lindblom, Joel Farabee, Connor Bunnaman
WPG	31	7.04	5	-2.04	Nikolaj Ehlers, Patrik Laine, Kyle Connor, Jack Roslovic, David Gustafsson
PIT	24	4.05	2	-2.05	Kasperi Kapanen, Dominik Simon
OTT	27	7.11	5	-2.11	Thomas Chabot, Colin White, Brady Tkachuk, Maxime Lajoie, Drake Batherson
NJD	33	7.75	5	-2.75	Pavel Zacha, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Joey Anderson, Jesper Boqvist
CAR	33	8.85	6	-2.85	Noah Hanifin, Sebastian Aho, Lucas Wallmark, Andrei Svechnikov, Warren Foegele, Haydn Fleury
DET	35	8.38	5	-3.38	Dylan Larkin, Filip Hronek, Dennis Cholowski, Michael Rasmussen, Givani Smith
WSH	25	4.52	1	-3.52	Jakub Vrana
BUF	35	9.66	6	-3.66	Sam Reinhart, Jack Eichel, Rasmus Dahlin, Brendan Lemieux, Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Asplund
ARI	37	9.66	6	-3.66	Christian Dvorak, Brendan Perlini, Clayton Keller, Jakob Chychrun, Christian Fischer, Dylan Strome
CHI	39	7.69	4	-3.69	Nick Schmaltz, Alex DeBrincat, Henri Jokiharju, Adam Boqvist
MTL	33	7.79	4	-3.79	Mikhail Sergachev, Victor Mete, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Cale Fleury
EDM	27	6.95	3	-3.95	Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Jesse Puljujarvi
NYI	30	7.06	3	-4.06	Anthony Beauvillier, Mathew Barzal, Noah Dobson
LAK	30	6.10	2	-4.10	Adrian Kempe, Michael Amadio
TOR	39	9.26	5	-4.26	William Nylander, Mitchell Marner, Auston Matthews, Travis Dermott, Rasmus Sandin
COL	30	7.28	3	-4.28	Mikko Rantanen, Tyson Jost, Cale Makar
TBL	35	7.34	3	-4.34	Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Brett Howden
FLA	29	7.39	3	-4.39	Aaron Ekblad, Lawson Crouse, Denis Malgin
NYR	32	6.86	1	-5.86	Filip Chytil
DAL	30	7.13	1	-6.13	Miro Heiskanen

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Obviously even with my loose diagnostic almost every team is underperforming. This is because there are players who will "hit" who still have 0 GP and I have no reasonable way to project any of them as likely hits in some kind of objective and fair way.

Anyway, I am just outlining a methodology. Anyone can do this, it's trivial and you can use whatever parameters you want.

You can see from this that yes, accounting for Draft Position, the Canucks from the 2014-2018 drafts have done well.

HOWEVER

I don't think from this you can conclude that "Jim Benning is good at drafting." The fact is that drafts give us very little data. They tell us who a team selected given their position and given who was available. They do not tell us who the team would have selected had they been in a different position, or if different players were available. In fact, in many cases a team might have made a WORSE selection if they were in a BETTER position. And the fact that another team selected that player before they could saved their bacon, as it were. Having the top pick in the 2012 draft for example is a poison apple. You're better off having a lower pick in some cases.

It's a bit like trying to asses stock-picking ability by having someone select from 1 of 3 stocks, once per year. It's not enough. Sometimes he'll pick a good stock, and sometimes a bad one, but sometimes all 3 selections that you give him end up the same and it wouldn't have mattered which one he picked, and sometimes the stock he really wanted wasn't one of the 3 options you gave him. So limiting his choice to 3 and only asking once per year, even after 10 years of doing this you still won't have much information (unless there is a clear #1 and he literally picks it every single time, which would be notable. But no team performs this well. See above.)

Finally, that's without even getting into segregation of duties and trying to examine how much influence Benning himself had on any pick, which we already know is fraught with peril. This is especially true during the Linden years when it isn't even clear that he had 100% autonomy over the final selection. At least post-2018 we can be certain he was not over-ruled by a PHO, but from 2014-2018 it's a tougher read.

All of which is to say that it's all very fun and interesting and cool to do, and I encourage anyone here to do it, take what I've presented here and tweak it into something better. But be careful not read too much into this. It's still a very small sample of data, and still is too fresh and recent to really draw major conclusions about most of these drafts.

Also f*** the Boston Bruins

You had me at "Also f*** the Boston Bruins"

 

[I am toxic]

So when is the actual rebuild going to start? Before the Miller/Horvat deals end?

Wait and see!

 

[Index]

He’s gone before the draft

 

[rypper]

He's definitely got the entire season. I can't see owners approving firing either the coach or them firing the GM. Just the cost and logistics of it.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

I absolutely have him high on my list. Probably not as good as Quinn, and he is a LHD as well, but to complement him in our top 4 I think he would be a solid pick. I have him behind Brandt Clarke, but he's certainly in that group along with Lambos and Power.

I'd add Simon Edvinsson to that group too. Also OHL not playing any games yet worries me about picking Clarke above the others if the other players have good years.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

...obviously choosing between winning the lotto or not is not any real choice. There is no argument that picking earlier is better than picking later; however, there are clearly empirically better draft years - would you rather draft 2005 and get Sydney Crosby or draft 1999 and get Patrik Stefan? Aside from #1, Sid's year had allstars Bobby Ryan, Carey Price, Anze Kopitar, Marc Staal, Tuukka Rask, TJ Oshie in the 1st round. 1999, outside the Sedin's, you have Havlat and Boynton.

If you don't understand this, you're completely missing my point.

Are you suggesting the 99 draft was weak because its prospects were underdeveloped due to a pandemic? I thought what you initially stated was that, due to the pandemic, this years draft eligible prospects are under scouted and underdeveloped? If that is not your point then, yes, I am missing your point.
Also any year can be a great or not so great draft year. Of course winning the lotto in say 1999 and 2005 is completely different as one has Sidney Crosby in it. But you can't choose which year you win the lotto, so take any win and make the most of it. Even in 1999, with the #1 pick you could've chose a Sedin and it would've been decent value. So I don't see how it is the "Canucks' luck" if we end up winning the lotto this year.

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

He's definitely got the entire season. I can't see owners approving firing either the coach or them firing the GM. Just the cost and logistics of it.

I'd agree with this, but I think there's a chance that if we're almost mathematically eliminated before the trade deadline, maybe he gets axed then. He's shown that he's terrible at asset management at the deadline in the past, so maybe they bring in a new GM for that...but Frankie is also a cheap skate so it's doubtful.

 

[y2kcanucks]

I'd add Simon Edvinsson to that group too. Also OHL not playing any games yet worries me about picking Clarke above the others if the other players have good years.

It certainly is a gamble as you can't tell how some players will develop. I don't know enough about Edvinsson to offer too much of an opinion. But whenever I read "skates well for his size" it's a red flag for me. Anytime you need to qualify something by saying "for his size" tells me he's not that great at whatever it is you're grading him on. It's a concern I have with Owen Power too, and why I would probably have both Clarke and Hughes ahead of Power (who currently is ranked 1 on some sites).

I'm also super high on Aiden Hreschuk. Not ranked as high so we wouldn't need to absolutely tank. Probably a more realistic option if you expect the Canucks to pick around 10. Another mobile puck moving defenseman with high IQ. To me, skating/speed/agility/IQ are key areas that I'm looking at in defensemen. I want someone who can move the puck out of the defensive zone, maintain puck possession, and drive the play back into the offensive zone.

 

[HedonisticAltruism]

Are you suggesting the 99 draft was weak because its prospects were underdeveloped due to a pandemic? I thought what you initially stated was that, due to the pandemic, this years draft eligible prospects are under scouted and underdeveloped? If that is not your point then, yes, I am missing your point.
Also any year can be a great or not so great draft year. Of course winning the lotto in say 1999 and 2005 is completely different as one has Sidney Crosby in it. But you can't choose which year you win the lotto, so take any win and make the most of it. Even in 1999, with the #1 pick you could've chose a Sedin and it would've been decent value. So I don't see how it is the "Canucks' luck" if we end up winning the lotto this year.

*sigh* A good management team should have a five-year or so plan. If you're in rebuild mode, those earlier years should be timed with stocking up on draft picks while keeping the 'product' entertaining while not handicapping yourself for when you turn the corner. As you approach the 'middle years' of building a contender, you have to choose one of those years to start investing draft picks/cap space to flesh out the remainder of your roster. Inevitably, you choose one of those years to take that gamble.

We are arguably at that 'mid' point, even if it took waaaay longer than it should have. Thus, assuming we had competent management, they should be making a decision on this year on whether or not to 'tank'. While you can't control all the variables, you shouldn't ever had a season where you're planning to be a contender and end up being a lottery pick team. Your variance should never be that high (but yes, of course it happens, with the team usually bouncing back in a significant way the next season). This is a bad year to 'plan' to be a high pick team, though we may not have any choice in that.

But otherwise, yes, at least you are getting my pandemic specific point. I'm mostly throwing water on the idea that a tank this year is a good time to do it, assuming we 'choose'.

And while you can't choose which year you win the lotto, you can absolutely choose the nature/structure of your team for the current season (and a few seasons beyond that) by which contracts you take on, which moves you make, thus heavily influencing your draft position. No one can predict the lotto, but you can target 'high' vs 'low' picks with your moves. Benning has consistently gone the late pick route with his signings and ended up with early due to his incompetence.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

It certainly is a gamble as you can't tell how some players will develop. I don't know enough about Edvinsson to offer too much of an opinion. But whenever I read "skates well for his size" it's a red flag for me. Anytime you need to qualify something by saying "for his size" tells me he's not that great at whatever it is you're grading him on. It's a concern I have with Owen Power too, and why I would probably have both Clarke and Hughes ahead of Power (who currently is ranked 1 on some sites).

I'm also super high on Aiden Hreschuk. Not ranked as high so we wouldn't need to absolutely tank. Probably a more realistic option if you expect the Canucks to pick around 10. Another mobile puck moving defenseman with high IQ. To me, skating/speed/agility/IQ are key areas that I'm looking at in defensemen. I want someone who can move the puck out of the defensive zone, maintain puck possession, and drive the play back into the offensive zone.

The clip of his skating wouldn't copy on my mobile, but his skating looks good in general. The clip is on youtube if you look him up. He is 6 foot 4 but under 200 hundred pounds, so it's not like when they were saying Erik Gudbranson was a good skater for his size.

The draft thread is up so we can discuss this further in there.

 

[4Twenty]

I'd add Simon Edvinsson to that group too. Also OHL not playing any games yet worries me about picking Clarke above the others if the other players have good years.

Clarke and his brother are playing pro in Slovakia iirc

 

[VancouverJagger]

Geez our team looks like a tire fire now........I don't really see things getting much better. We could very well be looking at a bottoms 2 or 3 finish in our division.

Our D is a complete mess - we have no leadership, our goaltending has been verrrry average, our best players are not playing like our best players............all the recipe for a shit season.

I still firmly believe that we have a bright future however I'm starting to think that this is definitely going to be a transitional year and if so that it's time for Benning to go.

If this doesn't turn around in a hurry I'll be looking up the Team Tank thread and focusing my attention there and getting a high pick.

 

[kanuck87]

I still firmly believe that we have a bright future however I'm starting to think that this is definitely going to be a transitional year and if so that it's time for Benning to go.

A transitional year towards what? This is a team that is going to have no cap space in the off-season to re-sign any of its pending free agents (not that many of them are worth bringing back) nor dip into the market to improve the team. Things aren't going to get better next season.

 

[xtra]

A transitional year towards what? This is a team that is going to have no cap space in the off-season to re-sign any of its pending free agents (not that many of them are worth bringing back) nor dip into the market to improve the team. Things aren't going to get better next season.

Lol that’s the best part that so many causal fans don’t realize. Next years team has a solid chance to be worse

 

[kanuck87]

Lol that’s the best part that so many causal fans don’t realize. Next years team has a solid chance to be worse

It's not that they don't realize. It's that they don't care. To them, they just need something to distract them for a few hours, 2-3 nights a week. Win or lose, it doesn't matter to them.

 

[Didalee Hed]

Man, I'd certainly hope Aquilini would take them as a package. That would be an insane result, although I imagine he'd wear out his welcome quickly anyhow. I sort of have some faith it wouldn't happen... Gilman didn't even receive the interim tag when Gillis was fired. (Reminder that Gilman then interviewed for the GM job and lost out to Jim frickin' Benning).


That was also very clearly the pick where he had the most direct influence, too, and drifted farthest from consensus. That's a hell of a lot more telling to me than any other high draft pick.

Like.

 

[VancouverJagger]

A transitional year towards what? This is a team that is going to have no cap space in the off-season to re-sign any of its pending free agents (not that many of them are worth bringing back) nor dip into the market to improve the team. Things aren't going to get better next season.

I disagree - By then I think some of our young D should be playable and we will have Podz and Tryamkin (who I refuse to believe wouldn't at least be a solid third pairing guy for us).

What free agent are we gonna lose this off season that we will be upset about not having on the team? Sutter? Bäretschi? Benn? Those will all be blessings to be gone.

Kindly inform me on that..........I'll be waiting...............