Markus Granlund, a pleasant surprise this season?

[DL44]

Hansen routinely put up 25+ point seasons where basically all of his production was 5v5.

Granlund's most notable season was putting up 32 points by getting every last drop of production out of him and ended up a -13 at even strength.

Not to mention stylistically, they're not that similar.

He should have had way more based on how many chances he was able to earn himself with his speed. Whether on the rush, breakaway or around the net... he left a lot of points on the table.

There was a legit reason there was a ground swell of opinion to trade him prior to him scoring goals as the only Sedin option seemingly left.

 

[mossey3535]

All Granlund has to do to get on my side is take two extra strides in most situations.

All you have to do is watch his linemates. On the forecheck they keep going until they make contact with the man. Granlund pulls up EVERY SINGLE TIME. I've seen this player not make the extra strides to reach a BREAKAWAY PASS. How am I supposed to then come to the conclusion he's a good player for us?

On a team that's supposed to be all about compete, I'm supposed to cheer some spurts where he produces points because he's been gifted PP time again? I'm supposed to watch this guy float all over the ice and then get praised because he pops in a couple of points?

Look at EP. He's not a physical guy but he keeps skating until he can put stick blade on blade. If he peels off a bit, he usually gets an extra stick check by spinning and getting a backhand slash in. He CLOSES to the puck carrier. Next time watch Granlund, he will stop skating right when it means he will not actually reach the player before the puck is gone. To me that's despicable, and even more despicable that he keeps doing it and gets praised for his play at the end of the day.

 

[VanJack]

Sutter is more of an asset at his contract than Granlund is.

Sorry, but Sutter has been chronically hurt and has played in all 81 games exactly once since arriving in VanCity. And he hasn't come anywhere near the 20 goal mark playing for the Canucks. And if Gaudette continues to improve and Beagle comes back, then Sutter isn't even a 3-4 center anymore.

For $4m a season that's terrible value. And if Granlund ever went on waivers, there's no way he'd clear. But Sutter? I'd wager he'd clear for sure.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I've liked his play most of the season.



You have shown to be an extremely biased poster in the past. Why do you have such low tolerance for other peoples biases?

I have no problem with it...it's just an observation that a pre conditioned bias exists with this player.

 

[Canucks1096]

Granlund and Hansen aren't a good comparable..

Tyler Motte on the other hand looks like a reincarnation of the honey badger.

Hansen was a crowd favorite for being a scrappy, hard working player... he was also was a very frustrating player offensively till late in the his career here... where I guess experience finally started to kick in and finally translated to some reasonable offensive success with the twins. So many blown scoring chances. especially early in his career.. had no hands.

Granlund is obviously the smarter, more versatile, better defensively and on the PK than Hansen was at this age.. Hansen was faster and more in the battle.
We'll see where Granny ends up when he's 27-28-29... probably viewed in retrospect as the more valuable player.

But Hansen was the home grown, crowd favorite home badger.

Granlund is 25 right now. Hansen at age 25 put up 39 points. At age 24 put up 29 points. Don't think Granlund can out up 39 points. I guess you can say he is more versatile because Grandlund can player center and Hansen can't. Not sure how we can measure who is better defensively and smarter.

That being said overall Granlund has played well this year and deserve to be the top 12 forwards when everyone is healthy.

 

[bandwagonesque]

I've liked his play most of the season.



You have shown to be an extremely biased poster in the past. Why do you have such low tolerance for other peoples biases?

You could address that statement to almost any poster here, certainly including yourself.

 

[JanBulisPiggyBack]

All Granlund has to do to get on my side is take two extra strides in most situations.

All you have to do is watch his linemates. On the forecheck they keep going until they make contact with the man. Granlund pulls up EVERY SINGLE TIME. I've seen this player not make the extra strides to reach a BREAKAWAY PASS. How am I supposed to then come to the conclusion he's a good player for us?

On a team that's supposed to be all about compete, I'm supposed to cheer some spurts where he produces points because he's been gifted PP time again? I'm supposed to watch this guy float all over the ice and then get praised because he pops in a couple of points?

Look at EP. He's not a physical guy but he keeps skating until he can put stick blade on blade. If he peels off a bit, he usually gets an extra stick check by spinning and getting a backhand slash in. He CLOSES to the puck carrier. Next time watch Granlund, he will stop skating right when it means he will not actually reach the player before the puck is gone. To me that's despicable, and even more despicable that he keeps doing it and gets praised for his play at the end of the day.

I’m not saying you don’t spend the entire game watching Granlund, documenting his every puck battle, observing and comparing his engagement to every other player, remembering all of those moments and coming to your opinion based on this relentless inspection of Granlund buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut ...... come on man

I can certainly remember seeing Granlund strip players of pucks and create turnovers, maybe you missed that game

 

[Nomobo]

Bottom line on Granlund is that he’s an asset to this team and worth his contract. I see him playing to earning another contract if he manages to stay relatively healthy.

 

[Fire Benning]

Sorry, but Sutter has been chronically hurt and has played in all 81 games exactly once since arriving in VanCity. And he hasn't come anywhere near the 20 goal mark playing for the Canucks. And if Gaudette continues to improve and Beagle comes back, then Sutter isn't even a 3-4 center anymore.

For $4m a season that's terrible value. And if Granlund ever went on waivers, there's no way he'd clear. But Sutter? I'd wager he'd clear for sure.

Granlund has played 69 and 52 games since he came here, not much different in that regard.

He scored 17 goals two years ago..not sure how that isn't considered close to 20 goals.

I'm not sure Gaudette has improved enough to surpass him on the depth chart, maybe he will eventually, not at this moment. I feel pretty comfortable saying he's a superior player to Beagle.

He's definitely overpaid, but for what he can bring it's palatable. Even at his cap hit he has value to this team as well in a possible trade, you would have a tough time dealing Granlund for something tangible

 

[Get North]

We have to start looking at this team as if we were in the playoffs. Look at teams like Winnipeg, Nashville, last years Knights, Washington. They have fast forwards throughout their line-up and they play fearless. Granlund is neither of those. If he's a consistent 0.5 PPG player, then he's a top 6 forward, but I doubt he keeps that up.

Looking at our bottom 6, I like Roussel, Motte, Schaller, Virtanen, Eriksson much more than Granlund on the 3rd and 4th line.

Granlund might be better "value" than all the players I named, but it's common to overpay for specific players that fit a certain style of game. When we're healthy, we don't need penalty killers, above-average hockey sense two-way players like Granlund because we have an abundance of those players that also do more than Granlund.

Our top players aren't big, physical guys, so I think we need to fill that hole through our bottom 6. Effective, physical, direct players are needed in the playoffs. After the first game in a playoff series defenders will understand they have to move the puck quickly which may cause turnovers, ex. Ferland.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Fedor Federov, Steve Kariya, and so on and so forth. Didn’t we have the lesser Pronger for a time as well? Always the lesser brother it seems

going all the way back to the original canucks, we started off with wilf paiement’s lesser brother.

at least we had the good bure though.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

come on guys, jannik hansen played hard every shift of his career in vancouver and opponents noticed when they were playing against him.

sure he had hands of stone but through sheer force of effort and hustle he basically grinded 10-15 goals into the net every year.

granlund is a lot of things, but he sure as spit isn’t that.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Granlund is no world beater (same for Guddy,and Poiliot)...If you want to see an obvious pre conditioned bias,read the post game analysis from some of the anti- management posters regarding these players.

Even when these players are effective or score..It’s just reduced to a series of anomalies or flukes..

 

[Melvin]

Granlund is no world beater (same for Guddy,and Poiliot)...If you want to see an obvious pre conditioned bias,read the post game analysis from the anti- management posters regarding these players.

Even when these players are effective or score..It’s just reduced to a series of anomalies or flukes..

Yeah, like this...

- Granlund was very good. Probably playing the best all-around hockey of his career. Was a significant asset tonight. When he moves his feet he can be useful. When he goes a whole season gliding around like last year, he's junk. Needs to skate with purpose every night to compensate for how slow/weak he is.

...and like this ...

Granlund - doing a good job of replacing Sutter. The one thing you like about Granlund is that he knows how to stay on the defensive side of the play and keep inside position. He is getting chances to score every game which again suggest he is getting to scoring positions. Hopefully he will do a better job of burying some of those chances.

...seriously, do you ever post anything that is true?

 

[MS]

Yeah, like this...



...and like this ...



...seriously, do you ever post anything that is true?

Granlund had one absolutely brilliant game against Dallas last year where I legitimately said he looked like Pavel Datsyuk, and meant it. Unfortunately that was surrounded by 50 games of absolute crap.

 

[Melvin]

Granlund had one absolutely brilliant game against Dallas last year where I legitimately said he looked like Pavel Datsyuk, and meant it. Unfortunately that was surrounded by 50 games of absolute crap.

It was against Dallas at almost this exact same point in the season. It happens.

 

[mossey3535]

I’m not saying you don’t spend the entire game watching Granlund, documenting his every puck battle, observing and comparing his engagement to every other player, remembering all of those moments and coming to your opinion based on this relentless inspection of Granlund buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut ...... come on man

I can certainly remember seeing Granlund strip players of pucks and create turnovers, maybe you missed that game

Read my GDT posts. He has his strengths and weaknesses.

Again, he is good in time and space. Which is why he is good on the PP and SO, and I'm ok with him in OT. 5 on 5 he doesn't finish because he is poor in traffic and right now as a center he has to be in the weeds. When he was with the Sedins they would put him in wide open situations.

He is decent on PK because he has a good sense of defensive positioning, doesn't have to engage as much physically and the stationary aspect of it reduces the limitations of his footspeed. Unfortunately I've seen him flub clearing attempts on said PK because he doesn't win battles.

I never said he never strips guys or create turnovers - on the PK he is often in the right place and he picks off passes. If he's forced into traffic he has a good enough stick to come out with it if he wants to. The issue is that he makes sure he's not in those situations wayyyyy too much.

My main problem with him is that he is so soft of a player, and I dislike him getting rewarded for the softness. Like can he be good on the PP? Of course, and I have said so in GDTs. But does he EARN the icetime he has gotten while on this team? In my opinion no. And that drives me crazy because Granlund is that kind of player who is constantly "conserving his energy" and gets away with it while our coaching staff has a total double standard for other players who at least have a ceiling that is way higher than his.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

You could address that statement to almost any poster here, certainly including yourself.

What makes you say that? Especially in my case?

 

[MS]

It was against Dallas at almost this exact same point in the season. It happens.

Yup.

Was like he was fired out of a cannon in that game. Skated miles, had several quality chances, had 3 or 4 Datsyuk-style pickpocket turnovers and actually looked fast. And then never played a game anything like that again.

It's the single biggest outlier game I've ever seen from an NHLer. Looked like a completely different player.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the pleasant surprise has given way to unpleasant normalcy.

 

[xtra]

The only reason people were advocating trading Hanse was to get in picks to rebuild the organization otherwise Hansen was a valuable piece to the organization

 

[Rowlet]

I dont mind Granlund, I dont think hes particularly skilled but he is good enough defensively

hes done well replacing Sutter

 

[geebaan]

Yeah, like this...



...and like this ...



...seriously, do you ever post anything that is true?

So disingenuous all the f***ing time.

 

[absolute garbage]

Reads the title...

 

[Hit the post]

I dont mind Granlund, I dont think hes particularly skilled but he is good enough defensively

hes done well replacing Sutter

I don't see it. Not anti-management bias either as Sutter is a Benning acquisition.