Very Early Prediction Time! Where Do You See The Canucks Finishing The Season?

[credulous]

I find it weird you put Mikheyev in your group of guys dragging us down. And Cole and Soucy, we will see. They're definitely not elite. Beau is an average guy.

i don't think mikheyev is bad he's just not good enough to be the second or third best winger on a good team. the canucks problem is not that they don't have enough good players it's that they don't have enough very good or great players. you can't build a winner with pettersson, hughes, miller and a bunch of middle six forwards and #4-5 defensemen

 

[Petey But Really Jim]

i don't think mikheyev is bad he's just not good enough to be the second or third best winger on a good team. the canucks problem is not that they don't have enough good players it's that they don't have enough very good or great players. you can't build a winner with pettersson, hughes, miller and a bunch of middle six forwards and #4-5 defensemen

It's like Hughes and Petey gotta spin around in circles searching for all of the other same aged guys they should have been growing up with as Canucks.

Oh well, we can just sign high quality players for cost controlled deals from the UFA market like everyone else does. Who cares that we are basically missing like a decade worth of draft classes? We will buck the trend and win that Cup.

 

[nucksflailtogether]

It's like Hughes and Petey gotta spin around in circles searching for all of the other same aged guys they should have been growing up with as Canucks.

Oh well, we can just sign high quality players for cost controlled deals from the UFA market like everyone else does. Who cares that we are basically missing like a decade worth of draft classes? We will buck the trend and win that Cup.

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Yeah after Vegas won I'm not really buying that. Good players are good players.

 

[HairyKneel]

Mikheyev would have been the #3 winger on the 2011 team.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

i don't think mikheyev is bad he's just not good enough to be the second or third best winger on a good team. the canucks problem is not that they don't have enough good players it's that they don't have enough very good or great players. you can't build a winner with pettersson, hughes, miller and a bunch of middle six forwards and #4-5 defensemen..

Disagree, to a point. The Canucks best players are a franchise C, a franchise D, and an elite goaltender (if he can stay healthy.)... Throw in an elite Miller, and thats a pretty good good 1-2 punch down the middle...You certainly do have the foundation to build a winner with that group.

Where it falls short, are the complimentary players, but that is also improving ..Kuz and Hronek are going to be a bonus...Myers,Beauvillier and Pearsons contracts all expire after this season ($13M) which gives Allvin more room to manoeuvre.

So , you're saying that Mikheyev is a 4th line winger on a good team ? I thought he was pretty good, considering he played through an injury all year. The guy injured himself on his very first shift in a Canuck sweater (how canuck is that ?)...If he can get back to that level where he was previous to last season (as a Leaf) we've got a winner.

 

[VanJack]

Looking at last year's standings, the Canucks have to find a way to reel in the Jets, Flames and Predators, who all finished ahead of them in the wildcard race.

Or in the Pacific, they have to finish third, ahead of the Kings, Sharks, Ducks, Kraken and the aforementioned Flames. That is, if you concede the top two spots to the Oilers and Knights.

Could happen......but a lot would have to go right.....and teams like the Kings, Flames and Jets would have to take a serious step backwards.

 

[BWJM]

Top 3 in the pacific. You can book it cause I was vote #17 and that’s my lucky number.

 

[credulous]

Disagree, to a point. The Canucks best players are a franchise C, a franchise D, and an elite goaltender (if he can stay healthy.)... Throw in an elite Miller, and thats a pretty good good 1-2 punch down the middle...You certainly do have the foundation to build a winner with that group.

Where it falls short, are the complimentary players, but that is also improving ..Kuz and Hronek are going to be a bonus...Myers,Beauvillier and Pearsons contracts all expire after this season ($13M) which gives Allvin more room to manoeuvre.

So , you're saying that Mikheyev is a 4th line winger on a good team ? I thought he was pretty good, considering he played through an injury all year. The guy injured himself on his very first shift in a Canuck sweater (how canuck is that ?)...If he can get back to that level where he was previous to last season (as a Leaf) we've got a winner.

where do you get this from what i said? this is what's so frustrating about discussing anything on this board. players can only ever be the best ever or absolute trash. there's no room for nuance. i think mikheyev is a decent middle six forward. you're pretty happy if he's your 4th or 5th best forward. 15-18 minutes a game kind of territory. what he's not is someone you should be happy to see on your top line regularly or someone you should be relying on to drive offense. that doesn't mean you're doomed if he's on the top line it just means you need to make up for it somewhere else

someone claimed he'd be the 2nd or 3rd best winger on the 2011 team which is wrong but at least debateable. he was definitely worse than daniel sedin, almost certainly worse than samuelsson and burrows and probably about as good as torres or raymond. regardless, even if he was somehow the 2nd or 3rd best winger on that team, that team had erhoff, edler, bieksa, hamuis and salo on defense (and tanev) and had malhotra and lapierre at center. that team's strength wasn't it's wings

anyways, you can think mikheyev is a pretty useful player who belongs in the lineup while simultaneously thinking it's a problem that he plays on the top line with kuzmenko and pettersson

 

[lawrence]

Is hronek 100% ? If so it can be a huge boost

 

[ChilliBilly]

I think the Canucks are going to be close to 100 pts.

Elite - EP, Hughes and hopefully Demo.
very strong - Kuz, Hronek, Silvos, Miller
Surprises - (hopefully) Pods, Hogs, and someone from abby
Decent - Mik, Soucy, Garland and Beau.

Who knows, but if that group plays well, and we don't have injury problems, we should be better than league average.

Edit - and who know, Boeser might score 40 + , I think he has something to prove this year ...

 

[sting101]

4th in the very strong Pacific and maybe surprise into 3rd if LA has big goalie issues.

Pacific - (1)Vegas (2)Edmonton (5)Los Angeles (6WC)Vancouver (8WC) Seattle
Central = (3)Colorado (4)Dallas (7)Minnesota

9 St.Louis
10 Winnipeg
11 Calgary
12 Nashville
13 Arizona
14 Anaheim
15 Chicago
16 San Jose

 

[nucksflailtogether]

He has consistently poor player evaluation.

Yeah that middle six winger who's got blazing speed, PKs well and pops in 20 goals, he's killing us!

 

[Vector]

I'll be optimistic and say they are a wild card team. Right now, I see the standings shaking out something like this:

Central:
Stars
Avalanche
Wild

Pacific:
Golden Knights
Oilers
Kraken/Kings

I have the bottom of the standings like this:
Coyotes
Blackhawks
Ducks
Sharks

That leaves the following fighting for the last two Wild Card spots:
Kraken/Kings
Flames
Predators
Blues
Jets
Canucks


Kraken are just a solid team. Good depth throughout the line-up but lacking a true gamebreaker. The biggest factor for their continued success will be if Beniers takes another step or has a bit of a sophomore slump.

I am really down on the Kings. While they certainly added a great talent in Dubois, but gave up quite a bit of scoring depth to do it, and retained Gavrikov. The main problem is their goaltending tandem of Copley and Talbot is extremely suspect. The line-up is strong but if that goaltending goes the way I think, they may end up treading water until they can come up with a better solution.

Flames should have a giant asterisk as I don't think the roster they have now is how they'll start the season. One of the first things Conroy said was he felt it was a mistake going into Gaudreau's last season without a clear answer. Lindholm, Backlund, Hanifin, Tanev, Zadorov, and Kylington are all upcoming UFAs. On top of them, their top-6 is significantly weaker without Toffoli. This is a team that needs a lot of players to perform the exact opposite as they did last season.

Not quite sure what Trotz's plan is for the Predators. He did a good job of clearing out the cruft and improving the culture but O'Reilly and Schenn have lost several steps and are expected to play above what they are capable of. I have 3 of the top-6 wingers as Tomasino, Evangelista, and Nyquist. One step back for Josi and Saros and this team is in complete collapse.

The Blues are nearly the exact same as last season. They've added Hayes and will have full seasons of Vrana, Blais, and Kapanene but the defence is identical. Actually that's not fair, the defence is another year older. That's four players that need to stop regression and at least two of them will need to have bounce-back seasons. To make matters worse, there's no safety net behind Binnington. It's a team where the top-line needs to carry the vast majority of the production and hope the rest can tread water.

I don't f***ing know about the Jets, man. Will Scheifele and Hellebuyck start the season on the team? Traded early on? Not traded? Be mopey? Beyond that, can this team be healthy? How will Iafallo and Vilardi fit in? Every season I look at the Jets and figure they are roughly a wild card team. This is the first season in a while that they look quite different and I still have come to the same conclusion. I'd probably have them just on the outside looking in and a lot depends on what they do with Scheifele and Hellebuyck.

A lot of these question are the same for the Canucks. Health, production, bounce-back seasons, how will new players fit in, etc. I think there's an outside change of grabbing the 3rd pacific spot but a lot more needs to go right over the course of the entire season to make that happen. So, really, it comes down to 6 teams fighting for two spots.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Just outside looking in. Though I will also say that the playoffs should no longer be the bar to determine success. The team is mortgaging the future to go all-in this season. They've been mortgaging the future for years by trading away high draft picks. This year they have committed significant future salary cap to build this team. Making it past the 2nd round should be the bar.

 

[VanJack]

Top 3 in the pacific. You can book it cause I was vote #17 and that’s my lucky number.

You know, that's not as outlandish as it might sound. When you look at the Pacific, Vegas has lost some key guys including Mark Stone, and will probably be in a Cup hangover.

Seattle dramatically overachieved last season, and some guys had 'career years', which they might have trouble matching. And the Kings made some huge changes to acquire Dubois, but their goaltending is in the hands of Cam Talbot. And how much longer can they ride Doughty and Kopitar?

As for the Ducks and Sharks, they're stuck on the rebuild treadmill. Slight improvement at best.

So the door might be open, if Vancouver can get off to a strong start and keep the pedal to the metal.

 

[VanillaCoke]

You know, that's not as outlandish as it might sound. When you look at the Pacific, Vegas has lost some key guys including Mark Stone, and will probably be in a Cup hangover.

Seattle dramatically overachieved last season, and some guys had 'career years', which they might have trouble matching. And the Kings made some huge changes to acquire Dubois, but their goaltending is in the hands of Cam Talbot. And how much longer can they ride Doughty and Kopitar?

As for the Ducks and Sharks, they're stuck on the rebuild treadmill. Slight improvement at best.

So the door might be open, if Vancouver can get off to a strong start and keep the pedal to the metal.

Its outlandish, none of those guesses change reality.

They need to get off to a very strong start, have almost everything go right, and keep the petal on the medal.

 

[CherryToke]

I'll vote once I see what Brock Boeser has been up to this offseason. Any pics? Does he look like Rocky Balboa yet?

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I'll vote once I see what Brock Boeser has been up to this offseason. Any pics? Does he look like Rocky Balboa yet?

If he does, that wouldnt be good..He looked like Mr Beefcake at training camp 3 or 4 years ago, which did nothing for his already limited speed and mobility.

Needs to work on his cardio/stamina.

 

[LordBacon]

Having watched this team for over a decade has taught me not to get my hopes up.
Would love to be proved wrong though.

I'll gauge this management team based on this seasons results.

 

[Johnny Canucker]

We have to be patient. We are only in year 13 of the rebuild.

I'll vote once I see what Brock Boeser has been up to this offseason. Any pics? Does he look like Rocky Balboa yet?

Brocky Balboa.


He skates like I do so…..

 

[hellstick]

I can see the Canucks flirting with 100 points if they're reasonably healthy. That generally means a playoff position. With that being said, I don't see us being a top 3 team in our division either... I do think Vegas, Edmonton, LA, and maybe even Seattle are all better than us. Calgary could be better as well.

I really want to see a good season. We have pieces to compete, but it needs to come together, and this team really can't stumble out of the gate like they did last season.

 

[VanJack]

The Canucks have a legitimate 100-point center in Petterson; and a another guy in Miller who's not far behind.

And they have a d-man in Hughes who's a lock for Norris conversation every year; and in Demko they have a goal--when healthy-- who's as good as any goalie in the NHL.

I mean they have the basic building blocks a lot of other teams don't have. So they've done the heavy lifting in terms of roster construction. The problem has always been that they've utterly failed to fill in around those four stars because of dismal drafts and UFA signings.

But looks like that's slowly changing. If they get the goaltending and can dramatically improve their dismal PK, there's simply no reason they can't be a wildcard team at the very least.

 

[IDJOTBOY]

Just outside looking in. Though I will also say that the playoffs should no longer be the bar to determine success. The team is mortgaging the future to go all-in this season. They've been mortgaging the future for years by trading away high draft picks. This year they have committed significant future salary cap to build this team. Making it past the 2nd round should be the bar.

Where have you been Y2K? Do you think the canucks can pass the "bar" this year?

 

[EpochLink]

I think the Canucks are going to be close to 100 pts.

Elite - EP, Hughes and hopefully Demo.
very strong - Kuz, Hronek, Silvos, Miller
Surprises - (hopefully) Pods, Hogs, and someone from abby
Decent - Mik, Soucy, Garland and Beau.

Who knows, but if that group plays well, and we don't have injury problems, we should be better than league average.

Edit - and who know, Boeser might score 40 + , I think he has something to prove this year ...

Canucks are at 91 points, 9 points out of 100.
Boeser is at 35 goals, 5 shy of 40.

This post = success!

 

[EpochLink]

I posited that the Canucks have important pieces like a Norris level defenceman, a Selke level 100 point plus C, and one of the best goalies in the league. Those are huge pieces that most teams don't have, and that you can build an elite team around. That sounds reasonably rational to me. I'll also add that the Canucks look to be a lot better structured under Tocchet, in that even our AHL level defencemen looked solid playing Tocchet's system. That is something that bodes well for his upcoming season, where we will have a healthy Hronek and Cole and Soucey coming on board. The PK should be vastly improved with addition of good pk personnel, and a healthy Mikheyev. There is easily enough there to be optimistic to predict a 100 plus point season from the team. From there you evolve into an elite team as the team matures even more.

Great post!