This will be the best Canuck team since 2014.

[lowerlameland]

Put me down as another person who really hopes you’re right, but I’m very worried about the D. Everything could go perfectly and we’re in for a great year, but I’m thinking it’s a lot more likely going to show that once again Benning has really sub-par pro scouting, especially on the back end. I suppose the forwards could be such a good group that there’s less pressure on the back end…

Anyway, what I actually came here to ask is, has anyone actually played out the roster for 22/23 and shown whether there’s really room for Boeser? There seems to be a lot of freaking out that we’ll have to trade him, but I’ve played with the capfriendly thing a little and unless I’m missing something, it looks like there’s room to sign him. Am I missing something? Horvat and Miller in 23/24 might be a different story…

 

[Clinton Comets EHL]

Okay. An optimist here. I am going to project this years team is the best we have had since at least 14/15. I wrote this in the poll comparing teams but thinks it makes a good discussion piece. Would love to hear where I am wrong and what points I should have considered, but haven't.

Some overall points. We got rid of a bunch of washed up journeymen who couldn't skate or score and were grabbing cap space.
Now line by line:
First line. No change. Hoping for better if Petey can have a breakout year.
Second line. Somewhat better.
Third line. Different ballpark better.
Fourth Line. About the same, but far cheaper.
I think these lines will be easier to set and forget

D1. Should be substantially better with OEL. Some risk.
D2. About the same.
D3. About the same.
These are more dependent on our defense bouncing back from last year. I suspect the lack of consistency from the forwards hurt our defence.

Goal. Demko slightly weaker than Markstrom, but could be just as strong as we saw in the playoffs in the bubble.

But, further than this I think we have the following improvements:

• I am hoping with Shaw coaching the defense we will have better structure. Disagreeing with many here, I think we have the raw talent.
• A much more balanced team all around, both forward and defence.
• Losing the drama of Louie, Jake, Beagle, and Rousell being a drain on the team morale.
• A good balance of youth and experience. It sounds like everyone wants to be here. Should be better morale.
• With us having three solid forward lines other teams won't be able to focus all their defence on Petey and the lotto line.
• I am hoping we will have two solid PP units.

To digress, I will add a suggestion that I don't think anyone in the league is doing. How about if we just play our first and second lines as our PP1 and PP2 with Hughes with PP1 and OEL with PP2. Possibly bring in the stronger of Olli, Podz, or whoever to play the second point position. Then we could just cycle our first and second lines and get a lot more balanced ice time. And other teams will have a harder time penalty killing.

Okay flamers. Let me have it.

This is a 50 loss team, doesn't sniff the playoffs.

 

[IslandBeast]

Petterson needs to stay healthy and Hughes needs to continue to grow or we are in trouble

 

[Grub]

We may say our defense is worst, but that improve top 9 lines will make sure they play better. With our forwards getting more possession the D should be much better.

Lets hope Rathbone and Hughes can become top defenders.

 

[jfc64]

I believe players often feel when the moment has arrived to be their best. Now management gave up some draft picks and a few less prominent players to aquire Ekman Larsson and Garland. That must have sent a message. At least the goalie situation and top 9/12 forwards is not a worry. One trade away, I say.

 

[WTG]

I think we are primed for a bounce back season. Last year we just had the deck totally stacked against us.........10 days of training camp and then an insane first half schedule that never gave us any time to catch our breath and get our team D organized.

That along with covid and players like Schmidt not being able to integrate with his new team really never allowed anyone to feel comfortable or get in stride.........we got off. on the wrong foot and things never got any better.

With a solid training camp and plenty of time to get systems in place i think there's a very good chance we will see a massive rebound this year............to where exactly remains to be seen however I don't quite anticipate being nearly the tire fire we were last year.

Bounce back from what? Fluking in the playoffs the year before? The Canucks were in a massive slide before covid hit and then the freeze allowed the team to go into the playoffs.

 

[Love]

not even close does this team have the worse D in the league. Hard to take you serious when you write stuff like that.

None of our defenceman can actually defend. Yes we have some D who are really good offensively, but we will give up a ton of chances. We lost our best defensive defenceman and replaced him with a guy who’s a huge liability defensively.

 

[Catamarca Livin]

This is a 50 loss team, doesn't sniff the playoffs.

Abbotsford is going to have a great year for sure. How many points you think Vancouver Canucks are going to get. I would put the over/under at 92 and I would bet the over. Of course Covid and injuries could happen so anything is possible as we saw last year.

 

[Jyrki21]

i think our odds this year are much better than most during the benning era. oel gives them some legit odds of being a really good team

but there is no way those odds are good enough to have made all the short term moves we just made.

this team needs to gamble less. there are better ways to improve a team than spend to the cap year upon year (after first paying the piper for spending to to the cap in earlier years).

Someone should let krutovsdonut know that his account has been hacked.

I expect the team will be reasonably better if they stay healthy (they don't usually) but that this is a terrible Faustian bargain whose main purpose is to save Benning's job, not build a contender. And that it's not in the club's long-term interest to be a middling playoff team this year.

I also think the team should be absolutely ridiculed when they declare victory this season, after bumbling around chasing their own tail for the better part of a decade, you are not "proven right" for one OK season, especially achieved this way, and only possible because of a piss-poor division.

 

[Ottobot]

Are we talking 82-83 points or winning a round and ‘pushing’ the next team to 7 games.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Even though the Canucks got 101 points in 2014-15..Its my least favourite playoff team the Canucks have ever had..After the playoff defeat by the Flames, I wanted to turn the page on the entire roster (coach included)...except Horvat.

I would be stoked to see our current group in the playoffs.

 

[Bojack Horvatman]

The good:

-We may have the best offensive depth in the conference. However I believe we will be third offensively. Vegas plays just such a strong team game and actually scored alot last year in the regular season. Edmonton has McDavid and Drasaistl.

-Demko has the ability to steal us games in stretches. If he improves/stagnates/regressed will be a big factor for the season.

The bad:

-Who the f*** is going to play the minutes Tanev and Edler used to play? Hughes struggles defensively when he isn't paired with a top shut down defender. OEL used to be miscast as an all situations guy but now struggles in a top 4 role defensively. It looks like he will be the #1 all situations guy here when really he should be sheltered like Hughes. Hamonic should be a #4/5 defensive guy at this point in his career. Myers should be a 4/5. Poolman is a bottom pairing guy. Rathbone has 8 NHL games and shouldn't be more than a bottom pairing guy unless there are injuries or he earns it. Maybe Brad Shaw helps a bit, but I don't think he's Jesus.

Best case scenario: Edmonton doesn't get goaltending and are offence and Demko carries us to 2nd.

Most likely outcome: We finish 3-5 points of the playoff bar either way, and finish with around the glut of Calgary, LA, and Seattle. This isnt a strong division and someone gets the last spot.

Worse case Ontario: We finish just above/around San Jose and Anaheim.

 

[Ryp37]

For what it’s worth Vegas has us ranked as the 23rd favourite to win outright next year but I am unsure when these lines were last updated

2014/2015 we ran
Sedin sedin vrbata
Higgins bonino burrows
Mathias Richardson kassian
Dorsett/Vey/Hansen/Horvat

One of the reasons this team was successful was it actually had pretty well distributed goal scoring across these 4 lines

I can’t see that being the case with a bottom 6 of
Pearson/Dickinson/Pod
Motte/Sutter/macewan?

And this team definitely doesn’t have a tanev/edler shut down pair

 

[CpatainCanuck]

For what it’s worth Vegas has us ranked as the 23rd favourite to win outright next year but I am unsure when these lines were last updated

2014/2015 we ran
Sedin sedin vrbata
Higgins bonino burrows
Mathias Richardson kassian
Dorsett/Vey/Hansen/Horvat

One of the reasons this team was successful was it actually had pretty well distributed goal scoring across these 4 lines

I can’t see that being the case with a bottom 6 of
Pearson/Dickinson/Pod
Motte/Sutter/macewan?

And this team definitely doesn’t have a tanev/edler shut down pair

The 2014/15 forward group might be a bit deeper, but this current iteration should have a significantly better top-six. Obviously if players like Pettersson don't bounce back the team is basically screwed, but if the top-six plays to its potential we should be looking at 6 20 goal scorers, with some of them being 30 goal scorers.

 

[digger1188]

Lol oh yippee

 

[geebaan]

I hope I’m wrong and we win the cup. I’ve wanted to be wrong these last 7 years. Please let me be wrong. I just don’t see our defense being good enough for us to be anything other than a bubble playoff team, again

 

[logan5]

I hope I’m wrong and we win the cup. I’ve wanted to be wrong these last 7 years. Please let me be wrong. I just don’t see our defense being good enough for us to be anything other than a bubble playoff team, again

Seems like most teams have a lackluster defensive group. Which teams in the Pacific have a strong defence? Not sure if the Canucks d is any worse than 16 other teams in the league, though I haven't studied each teams defence, but that's the impression I get when hearing info on other teams.

 

[Melvin]

I finally went through and updated rosters and did my first look at the numbers. As I expected, Seattle came out strong. Still a lot of work to do over the coming months but very very preliminarily it looks like this to me:

1. Vegas
2. Seattle
3. San Jose
4. Calgary
5. Los Angeles
6. Edmonton
7. Vancouver
8. Anaheim

S.J. is the only real surprise to me, gonna look into that but their offense rates better than I would have expected.

Unsurprisingly, Vancouver's defense rates very poor and, in fact, lowest among all 32 teams. But there is much work to do.

 

[Jimnastic]

The (Stanley) cup is certainly half empty around here.

I continue to believe that we will get between 90 and 100 points.

I expect that we will be stronger than Seattle, LA, Anaheim, and SJ.

I think we will wind up ahead of Calgary and Edmonton.

Vegas will be difficult.

And Seattle can afford to make a lot of trades and make themselves instantly competitive if they want to. Depends on whether Ronny wants to go for long term, which based on what he has done so far, is most likely.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

The (Stanley) cup is certainly half empty around here.

I continue to believe that we will get between 90 and 100 points.

I expect that we will be stronger than Seattle, LA, Anaheim, and SJ.

I think we will wind up ahead of Calgary and Edmonton.

Vegas will be difficult.

And Seattle can afford to make a lot of trades and make themselves instantly competitive if they want to. Depends on whether Ronny wants to go for long term, which based on what he has done so far, is most likely.

I agree with the OP, this might very well be the best Canuck team since 2014. Not exactly a high bar, buuuuut, it's something to go on. My initial feeling is somewhere in the mid 90s for points. I think Edmonton will be able to lean on a much improved top 6 for the regular season, but goaltending and defense will sink them in the playoffs. LA is my wildcard team, not in the sense they'll get a spot, but in that they could be anywhere between 3rd-8th and it wouldn't completely surprise me.

1 Vegas
2 Edmonton
3 Vancouver
4 Calgary
5 LA
6 Seattle
7 San Jose
8 Anaheim

 

[geebaan]

Seems like most teams have a lackluster defensive group. Which teams in the Pacific have a strong defence? Not sure if the Canucks d is any worse than 16 other teams in the league, though I haven't studied each teams defence, but that's the impression I get when hearing info on other teams.

At actually defending, I’d say we have the worst defence in the Division, and arguably the NHL

 

[Peen]

I finally went through and updated rosters and did my first look at the numbers. As I expected, Seattle came out strong. Still a lot of work to do over the coming months but very very preliminarily it looks like this to me:

1. Vegas
2. Seattle
3. San Jose
4. Calgary
5. Los Angeles
6. Edmonton
7. Vancouver
8. Anaheim

S.J. is the only real surprise to me, gonna look into that but their offense rates better than I would have expected.

Unsurprisingly, Vancouver's defense rates very poor and, in fact, lowest among all 32 teams. But there is much work to do.

Yeah, I’m curious about why Sj is so high as well. Vancouver and Edmonton being together makes sense

 

[Sedinery]

Unfortunately Green is still the head coach and Baumer is still employed

the roster has outgrown the coaching

Green and Baumer will not survive the season

 

[Kryten]

Unfortunately Green is still the head coach and Baumer is still employed

the roster has outgrown the coaching

Green and Baumer will not survive the season

Its crazy how the teams ability to defend has gone down 2 offseasons in a row and Baumer is still here. We havent had a discernible defensive system for years

 

[RoyalRed]

Love the optimism! We need more of that in Canucks land. I also like how the team looks and really believe we will have a great season!