This will be the best Canuck team since 2014.

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I'd say there are at least 3 teams in the Pacific I would trade dcores with in a heartbeat if the goal was to only compete this year. Vegas and Seattle are both easily better than are group, and I'd say Calgary's defense is considerably better too. I could be talked in/out of both Anaheim and Edmonton too (I completely forgot Keith is now on the Oilers, extremely stinky)

If ..Hughes can regain his form from 2020...Rathbone can achieve the level of a 2nd/3rd pairing D man....Juolevi can be a solid 3rd pairing D man..the Canucks D depth doesnt look bad.

All 'if's, but entirely doable.

Granted that it's all on the left side, but having 3 solid NHL D men under the age of 24 in your lineup ..drafted and developed by the Canucks..is a good look.

 

[BrentSopelsHair]

If ..Hughes can regain his form from 2020...Rathbone can achieve the level of a 2nd/3rd pairing D man....Juolevi can be a solid 3rd pairing D man..the Canucks D depth doesnt look bad.

All 'if's, but entirely doable.

Granted that it's all on the left side, but having 3 solid NHL D men under the age of 24 in your lineup ..drafted and developed by the Canucks..is a good look.

Solid is a stretch when you're including Juolevi, but again we basically might have an average defense if ALL of the 'ifs' hit at the same time, which is hugely unlikely.

And the point about it being a good look does not matter to me if the defense is likely going to get absolutely run over as whole

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Solid is a stretch when you're including Juolevi, but again we basically might have an average defense if ALL of the 'ifs' hit at the same time, which is hugely unlikely.

And the point about it being a good look does not matter to me if the defense is likely going to get absolutely run over as whole

An average D is doable, far from impossible....We have an improved top 9, and a good #1 goalie..

 

[nergish]

This is the most balanced take I've seen, and I'm hopeful for it this year. What worries me is that Benning has blown the window where we had Horvat, Boeser, Petersson and Hughes on cheap years, and from here on it just gets much, much worse to hold on to them, and we've got the cap anchors of OEL and Myers to deal with.

So pressure should be on to make something of this year given how many draft picks and prospects we spent to make this one year possible.

Sorry man, there was no window with Skinny Pete and Quinn "That's A Small Body" Hughes on ELC.
They are elite gamebreaking talents, but we weren't winning anything with them until physically mature.

Building around them for the next 2-5 years is our only chance. With that will come sacrifices.

 

[I in the Eye]

The entire point of the experiment was to end up with a Canucks team better than 2011. It was determined that the current regime could do this, whereas the past regime couldn't. 2014 was a notably worse year than 2011. 2014 was underwhelming and ordinary. It was around average. At this point, aiming for an around average season seems like a pretty underwhelming goal. It's not the prince that was promised. If next year's team ends up as the best team since 2014, that's an ok season, 8 years later. One that would have been completely unacceptable in past 8 year chunks, but all in all, it's ok. At this point, I'd consider a team equal to our 2011 to be a success next year. I am willing to ignore the better than 2011 goal for next year because of covid. Western Conference Champions, President's Trophy Winner, Stanley Cup Finals appearance... To me, that is a good goal for next year. In comparison, 5th in the Western Conference, 2nd round defeat, no President's Trophy seems, lacking and, unfulfilling. Maybe good for early in the experiment - for year 1 in the experiment, that was a pretty good start, and they took it as validation... but year 8? That's stagnation not validation... 8 years later to be somewhat relevant in the NHL is, ok. With how far the Canucks have fallen, it would be f***ing fantastic and incredible to be an ok team... but in the grand scheme of things? 8 years ago, I doubt Benning, Linden and Aquilini would have appreciated someone suggesting that as the 2021-2022 goal very much. Their visions seemed much more grandiose than that in 2014.

 

[BWJM]

Let's just hope Benning talked with Brad Shaw about potential fits on the blue line... people ranking Seattle/SJ ahead of the Canucks are out to lunch.

 

[RoyalRed]

Let's just hope Benning talked with Brad Shaw about potential fits on the blue line... people ranking Seattle/SJ ahead of the Canucks are out to lunch.

Would you expect any different here lol? If Vancouver had Seattle's roster people would NOT be giving them the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

I gotta tell ya, I'm feeling this optimism, too. Even on paper, this is an improved team. The only real big question marks for me are:

1. Can OEL turn around his career? How much of his poor last couple seasons was the context of where he was playing and that situation, and how much was just him dropping off in quality in a way that was unrelated to what team he was playing for?

2. Team chemistry: Hockey is a team sport, and nothing brings that home than stuff like this. That's a LOT of new moving parts, and none of us know how naturally they're going to fit together. For instance, we all assumed Schmidt was going to be a great fit here, and for whatever reason, he kinda wasn't.

Those are the two biggies. If both of those unspool in a way that ends up in the team's favor, this is a FOR SURE a playoff team. If not, it's likely gonna be not that dissimilar from what we saw last season.

You are optimistic because you are a fan. You view this team with a tinted lens. It’s better to listen to objective people and Dobber has us ranked 30th in the league for defense and 22nd for prospects.

those numbers should be for a team that was ripped apart after 2-3 cups and making the playoffs for 10 straight years.

not a team that has been a bottom dweller for a decade.

 

[December5th]

Petterson and Hogs will go super saiyan to get us to the first or second round. but Benning's not building us a sustainable cup type team or thinking long term towards that goal. like everyone has said before he takes it one year at a time. sometimes i think he looks at the future (not resigning Markstrom big win) but overall he is thinking about this year trying to make the playoffs and go on a Montreal run. i hate that. i mean for hecks sake the fact that he is buying out holtby after 1 year is like the final nail in the coffin for him if i was Francesco.

one thing to really look forward too is having a fresh take on the pp with a new coach. the last couple years we have seen our great players play this horrible static strategy of passing the puck back and fourth without opening any new lanes or really accomplishing anything. like yea we got a few pp goals still but we have potential to be a top tier pp unit in the league

 

[Regal]

I am projecting every player in the NHL using their xGF/xGA rates in the past 3 seasons (TOI and recency weighted,) then constructing rosters based on estimated usage, and projecting estimated GF/GA rates for each team based on said estimated usage of the players (so for example, assuming Pettersson gets 25% of ES Ice Time, 65% of PP time, and so forth.) I estimate PP/PK time as well based on penalty drawing and taking rates of the players. Finally, the last step is the Goaltending, which is the one I am least confident in, but again estimating #1/#2 usage for each team and projected GSAA based on the last 3 seasons.

It's very much still a work in progress, and the goaltending in particular seems wonky right now (the sum of estimated GSAA should be 0 but is instead a big negative number,) I will be adjusting my rankings as I iron out the kinks, but as I said in the other thread, I think 1, 2, and 8 are going to remain unchanged irrespective of any bug fixes or roster changes that happen from this point. The middle teams are re-arrangable. I have VAN and EDM as very close.

Is there any weighting to the expected goals rates based on teammates using relative or regression numbers? I'm thinking if not, wouldn't you likely end up with a bias toward teams staying good or bad? I know to some degree that's usually how things go, but it's tough to project a team for any improvement that way. And a team like Seattle would likely be influenced by the good teams these players are coming from (TB-Gourde, NYI-Eberle, StL-Schwartz, etc) more than the players themselves.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Petterson and Hogs will go super saiyan to get us to the first or second round. but Benning's not building us a sustainable cup type team or thinking long term towards that goal. like everyone has said before he takes it one year at a time. sometimes i think he looks at the future (not resigning Markstrom big win) but overall he is thinking about this year trying to make the playoffs and go on a Montreal run. i hate that. i mean for hecks sake the fact that he is buying out holtby after 1 year is like the final nail in the coffin for him if i was Francesco.

one thing to really look forward too is having a fresh take on the pp with a new coach. the last couple years we have seen our great players play this horrible static strategy of passing the puck back and fourth without opening any new lanes or really accomplishing anything. like yea we got a few pp goals still but we have potential to be a top tier pp unit in the league

How are the Canucks not a sustainable team in the future, when the majority of the best players are under 25..?..Montreals best players are in their early to mid- thirties...

 

[December5th]

How are the Canucks not a sustainable team in the future, when the majority of the best players are under 25..?..Montreals best players are in their early to mid- thirties...

your right but im thinking about just recent things like trading away pick + prospect for a couple months of tofoli, holtby cap, trading more picks and taking on future cap space to get rid of this years garbage. i mean i get why benning did it, cause we dont want more disgruntled players because of crappy erikssons, and we are more fresh now. but imagine if we had someone like gillis instead of benning with the same core we have now. we would be looking at stanley cup finals not first round. but you are right for sure i think we got good young players

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

your right but im thinking about just recent things like trading away pick + prospect for a couple months of tofoli, holtby cap, trading more picks and taking on future cap space to get rid of this years garbage. i mean i get why benning did it, cause we dont want more disgruntled players because of crappy erikssons, and we are more fresh now. but imagine if we had someone like gillis instead of benning with the same core we have now. we would be looking at stanley cup finals not first round. but you are right for sure i think we got good young players

Benning paid a high price to get rid of half a decade of bad signings...It's a gamble, but the current core players want to win now..waiting around for another year for bad contracts to expire is not an option...

Gillis presided over the most successful team in Canucks history...He also presided over its downfall, and the gutting of its prospect pool.

 

[Jyrki]

This team *should* make the playoffs, which is not saying much in the Pacific where half the teams look to be fighting for Wright instead of the Stanley Cup.

We will probably be embarrassed R1 though, unless Demko ascends to godhood. Our defensemen genuinely can't play defense and will get assblasted once a coach gets to pick them apart over and over.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

This team *should* make the playoffs, which is not saying much in the Pacific where half the teams look to be fighting for Wright instead of the Stanley Cup.

We will probably be embarrassed R1 though, unless Demko ascends to godhood. Our defensemen genuinely can't play defense and will get assblasted once a coach gets to pick them apart over and over.

This is getting way too stupidly overblown.

 

[Melvin]

Is there any weighting to the expected goals rates based on teammates using relative or regression numbers? I'm thinking if not, wouldn't you likely end up with a bias toward teams staying good or bad? I know to some degree that's usually how things go, but it's tough to project a team for any improvement that way. And a team like Seattle would likely be influenced by the good teams these players are coming from (TB-Gourde, NYI-Eberle, StL-Schwartz, etc) more than the players themselves.

That's a fair point. I am regressing the numbers towards the mean, but doing some sort of team adjustment is an interesting idea. I'll have to give that some thought.

 

[ChilliBilly]

Benning paid a high price to get rid of half a decade of bad signings...It's a gamble, but the current core players want to win now..waiting around for another year for bad contracts to expire is not an option...

Gillis presided over the most successful team in Canucks history...He also presided over its downfall, and the gutting of its prospect pool.

Bull crap. Gillis had a legit team to justify mortgaging the future. And the team was doing well, so it's not like the picks he traded were going to be top 10 players.

 

[Rumsfeld]

Haha. I knew "but Montreal!" would become the new rallying cry for the "but Gillis!" crew. All it took was one fluke playoff run in a whacked-out division.

 

[AwesomeInTheory]

How are the Canucks not a sustainable team in the future, when the majority of the best players are under 25..?..Montreals best players are in their early to mid- thirties...

Who is saying that Montreal is sustainable?

 

[Samzilla]

Benning paid a high price to get rid of half a decade of bad signings...It's a gamble, but the current core players want to win now..waiting around for another year for bad contracts to expire is not an option...

Gillis presided over the most successful team in Canucks history...He also presided over its downfall, and the gutting of its prospect pool.

That's funny cause Benning has presided over the gutting of our prospect pool too by trading away all our draft picks except we don't have an amazing team as a reward for the gutting of our prospect pool.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

That's funny cause Benning has presided over the gutting of our prospect pool too by trading away all our draft picks except we don't have an amazing team as a reward for the gutting of our prospect pool.

Benning started out with no prospect pool, and has built it into one of the teams with some of the best young organizational talent in the league...This from 2020.
2020 NHL organizational rankings: No. 3 Vancouver Canucks

It all comes down to the opinion of whether you think that moving draft picks was the correct move to accelerate this young core....Or they should have saved their picks and waited for their development 2-3 years down the road.?

Other than Tampa, most SC contenders have not been built exclusively through the draft.

 

[Nucklehead Supreme]

Seattle players last year on scored a total of 178 goals in their old roles and only including the top 12 forwards and top six d. That already puts them too 10 in the nhl. I don’t get the they can’t score narrative.

In their old roles, being the key, there is no way you can say they'll some how be able to match that on Seattle, in a brand new organization without the same level of talent around them.

Seattle has a great defence and solid goaltending, but their forward depth is bottom of the league, no chance they make the playoffs next year.

 

[timw33]

but their forward depth is bottom of the league

Quite the opposite, but sure.

 

[Wildcarder]

We seriously need to get rid of Myers and replace with someone who provides some decent value (Parayko/Pulock/RD). I can live with one of OEL or Myers contracts on the backend, but not both.

 

[Peen]

This is getting way too stupidly overblown.

?

We were bad defensively last season.

Benning says we are going to play the same system.

We replaced our high leverage pair who posed “decent” results with a guy who hasn’t been good in five years and tucker poolman.

I’m not sure how it’s getting overblown. That would be equivalent to saying “our forward group’s improvements are overblown”.

The overall defensive results may improve due to potential improvements from the forward group, but the defense we are putting out is literally worse at preventing opponent offense than it was last year.