Where do you think the Canucks will finish this year?

[Rotting Corpse*]

Above average health they could be 20th. Below average health (more probable with their travel,) and I could see dead-last.

Median would be 25. Again, with the likely injuries I'm going with 26-30

 

[Askel]

Chicago, St.Louis, Nashville,Los Angeles, San Jose, Anaheim, Minnesota is better teams than the Canucks.

Colorado has got a new coach and will probably do better, Winnipeg is hard to judge but they got a nice top 4 defence and great potential in their top 6. Calgary has a decent goalie and added depth in Brouwer.

That leaves Edmonton (healthy McDavid, improved defence, no Hall but Lucic) and Arizona (good top 4, a lot of rookies in their centers) who is at the Canucks Level.

At best with a lot of players overperforming I see the Canucks 8th, im guessing they´ll end up last in the west, hopefully Im wrong.

 

[Canadian Canuck]

Gudbranson isn't a top 4 d-man and he's a downgrade from Hamhuis.

Not 70% of last season Hamhuis. Hamhuis was complete garbage for 2/3 of last year. He really picked it up at the end though I'll give you that!

 

[me2]

Just outside the pages because I can't think of a more incompetent outcome and a bigger kick in the nuts for fans for next season. At least Benning being gawd awful art his job last year got us to 3rd last and a top 5 pick.

 

[MattiOEdler]

Voted that they will make the playoffs this year.

Hockey is a team game. I haven't heard many talk of the trickle down effect of getting a true top 6 winger. It means Hansen is the pillar on a great line instead of being an acceptable first line winger. If Sutter can stay healthy that's a second line strong center with size, strong defensive prowess and 20 goals that will mean our 3rd line becomes Horvat led instead of Granlund/Vey/McCann led? that is like getting a major upgrade on all top 3 lines. Guess what? 4th line might be interesting to play against if the other teams put big forechecking straight line players on it and ours has granlund, burrows and dorsett on it....could be a surprise and a half scoring wise compared to other teams'.

Defense is a question mark to me because we do have a number of young players and both Tanev and Edler could be expected to lose and average of 15 games each to injury year in and year out. I do like the fact we actually have a candidate to quarterback the pp who has more than just a good shot and a bit of speed to enter the zone. The killer attribute to pp quarterback to me is that dangle at the line and the seeing eye in-zone passing that sets up the shift, moves the defense out of position.

Larsen seems to have that ability...we'll see soon. in the 80's when we were fun, it was Reinhart that made us deadly. In the 90's when we were fun...it was Ronning who made our PP fun, and deadly. In 2011, it was erhoff who added that little something and made the PP that much better.

in 2014, when we made the playoffs last, it was special teams that improved the most. last year pk/pp nose dived. We get those figured out, and its going to be pretty fun to watch all the crow eating here.

IF we don't.....well....you'll have to see a humble MattiOEdler....


I'll be in trouble if both Calgary and Edmonton managed to pull into the playoffs in the same year or if we have even 70% of the lost top4/Top 6 man games to injuries we had last year.

thanks for putting up the poll!

 

[ChilliBilly]

Despite all the gnashing of teeth, there is so much parity in the league now that any team can win on any given night.

We are slightly below average in talent, a very shallow prospect pool ... and a poor GM and a coach with little depth. If we have a good year, we could end up as high as 10th. It would require almost no significant injuries and having a great OT record. I really think we will see a lot of 1 - 1 or 2 - 2 regulation games this year.

If I had to pick a number, it would be 18th in the league ... which is perhaps the most useless place to be.

 

[VeteranNetPresence]

Predicting and hoping it's a bottom 5 finish

 

[J Canuck]

21-25. Slightly improved Canucks won't likely keep up with our western bottom feeding counterparts, but some teams in the east seem likely to fall. I can see Detroit finally rebuilding from a lottery spot.

 

[ihaveyuidonttouchme]

between good old a sweet spot at not good enough spot but not bottom 5 enough crappy spot

 

[Maccas]

It's so tough to tell, in this league it can be so easy to be absolutely awful one season and then rebound the next. I think that we'll be just gently tapping on the door of the playoffs but not being let in. There'll be a definite improvement on last season but nowhere near enough to contend.

 

[PetterssonSimp]

21-25. Slightly improved Canucks won't likely keep up with our western bottom feeding counterparts, but some teams in the east seem likely to fall. I can see Detroit finally rebuilding from a lottery spot.

Ugh. If Detroit were to bottom out on say a Mazerk injury and Howard continual crap play, they find their solid defender and book back to the top like it never happened.

It's so tough to tell, in this league it can be so easy to be absolutely awful one season and then rebound the next. I think that we'll be just gently tapping on the door of the playoffs but not being let in. There'll be a definite improvement on last season but nowhere near enough to contend.

I think the Canucks have a much better chance in close games, we were garbage at setting any type of tone last season which I felt contributed to the Canucks seemingly always having to fight from behind. If it weren't for some stellar games from Markstrom we'd have easily knocked over Toronto for the basement suite.
We'll be better in 2-1 type games, probably see another season with a lot of beyond 60 min games. But some much bigger crease clearing defenceman on the team should help the team not be abysmal on the PK. The PP needs some new schemes though, that's where I feel the Canucks fall short. Another year of no true #2PP distribution of the puck. If the Canucks lean on defence for that I think Hutton might get overwhelmed in all he's asked to do.

 

[Pure West]

Our top line would really have to click for this team to be a playoff team, and its hard to imagine at their age and with such little supporting cast around them (particularly from the backend). I think you can make things work without a good 2nd line if you have a top notch 1st line and solid contributions from the other 3 like we had in 14-15. This is conceivable if our top 3 centers stay healthy but wow does it take a tumble if we have any injury to any of them. Biggest thing I don't like is the D, which beyond the top pair is littered with inexperience and players poorly suited for the modern NHL. We'd have to be very fortunate with health and get elite goaltending to have a chance, and I think we're more likely to finish last in the division than anywhere in the top 4.

I'm thinking 23-25ish. I have a feeling the Sedins will have a solid season with Eriksson that keeps playoffs imaginable throughout the season but unlikely.

 

[Evolu7ion]

I'll go with Vegas odds - bottom 3 in the league.

 

[brokenhole]

I think we will be 6-8 points behind at the trade deadline and Benning will be pressured into a bad trade to try and make the playoffs.

 

[hellstick]

It's going to be another low scoring, boring season. Our defense could be physically imposing, but our transition game won't be good enough. We seem to be relying on our young players taking a huge step forward, which usually spells trouble. The Sedins are 36. We'll experience crippling injuries as we always do.

We won't give up a lot of goals, but we also won't score a lot. 24th place finish. One of the bottom 2 teams in our division.

 

[VanillaCoke]

Within 3 spots of 25th..

 

[canuckfan75]

we will draft between 10-14

 

[DL44]

Playoff bound!

On the strength of internal development and better luck in the health department.

All the D outside of Edler, should be in for career yrs defensively.
Unfortunately that isn't as impressive as it sounds since the d corps includes a rookie, sophomore, Sbisa and Larsen.
Edler (30) is in his prime.. and the rest of the D is in the pre-prime phase of their careers... upswinging on their individual learning curves. ALL of them are 26 yrs old and younger.


Upfront...
Pre prime players: Horvat, Baertschi, Etem, Virtanen, Granlund, Rodin, Gaunce, Markstrom
Prime players : Sutter, Eriksson, Hansen
Post Prime : Sedins, Burrows, Miller

Prime and post-prime players - you know what range of production you're gonna get... just dont know how many games.

The effectiveness of our team will depend on how that pre-prime group of players step forward in their development. Obviously not all of them will however.

But if the right ones do, and chemistry develops on special teams...

The injuries probably hurt the PK the most last yr..
This season:
PKers: Sutter, Burrows, Hansen, Horvat, Granlund, Dorsett

PK needs to get back into the top 8.

PP: i know Hansen doesn't have the IQ for it, but i would like this at least tried: see him on the first unit in the Vrbata role, in the mid-low left circle.. i would like Erkisson in the Vey/Sutter role when they were with the twins - front of the net and popping up into the slot when a Sedin has it in the below the right end line. Edler pt.
2unit: endless possibilities.. pray you find one that works.

PP needs to find a way back into the top 10-12 range.

All that happens and its a 100 pt team.

 

[rypper]

26th to 29th, we haven't done enough to improve our depth this year. Too many question marks and unknowns we're banking on panning out.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Playoff bound!

On the strength of internal development and better luck in the health department.

All the D outside of Edler, should be in for career yrs defensively.
Unfortunately that isn't as impressive as it sounds since the d corps includes a rookie, sophomore, Sbisa and Larsen.
Edler (30) is in his prime.. and the rest of the D is in the pre-prime phase of their careers... upswinging on their individual learning curves. ALL of them are 26 yrs old and younger.


Upfront...
Pre prime players: Horvat, Baertschi, Etem, Virtanen, Granlund, Rodin, Gaunce, Markstrom
Prime players : Sutter, Eriksson, Hansen
Post Prime : Sedins, Burrows, Miller

Prime and post-prime players - you know what range of production you're gonna get...

The effectiveness of our team will depend on how that pre-prime group of players step forward in their development. Obviously not all of them will however.

But if the right ones do, and chemistry develops on special teams...

The injuries probably hurt the PK the most last yr..
This season:
PKers: Sutter, Burrows, Hansen, Horvat, Granlund, Dorsett

PK needs to get back into the top 8.

PP: i know Hansen doesn't have the IQ for it, but i would like this at least tried: see him on the first unit in the Vrbata role, in the mid-low left circle.. i would like Erkisson in the Vey/Sutter role when they were with the twins - front of the net and popping up into the slot when a Sedin has it in the below the right end line. Edler pt.
2unit: endless possibilities.. pray you find one that works.

PP needs to find a way back into the top 10-12 range.

All that happens and its a 100 pt team.

LOL. Even if all of that happens this is nowhere near a 100 point team. And that's ignoring the fact that not all of that will happen, and this will not be the first team in NHL history to go the full season without a single injury.

 

[RandV]

I'll go out on a limb and predict that we'll finish 7th or 8th in the conference (i.e. 1st or 2nd Wildcard), and lose in the 1st round.

I know most on here hate Jim Benning and are down on the team, but the truth of the matter is that the Canucks were decimated by long term injuries to very key players last year (Sutter, Edler, etc.). Yes, injuries occur all the time, and teams should be equipped to handle injuries, but the Canucks dealt with key LONG TERM injuries to key players.

The Canucks fell off a cliff last season when Edler and Sutter went down. When both men were in the line-up however, our record was reflective of a team that would finish 7th/8th.

The trade board has a thread for both team lineups and depth chart you're free to look at, and while everyone is entitled to there opinion the Canucks simply don't look strong. Particularly our 4-12 forward group may be the weakest in the league, and our defense has a lot of questions marks and little to no offensive potential.

If Sutter and Granlund are going to be anchoring our #3 and #4 forward lines then we can't expect much offensive output from them. So in order for the Canucks to be competitive like you suggest or Benning believes we're basically going to need the Horvat line (with Baerstchi and Virtanen?) to step up and produce as much some of the other better 2nd lines in the West, like Boedker-Couture-Donskoi, Pearson-Carter-Toffoli, etc etc. And anything's possible but that's a real long shot.

Personally I picked us for a 20-25 finish, as the one thing we do have going for us is a strong top line and top pairing. That may be enough to keep us out of the basement, if the team stays middle of the pack for injuries.

 

[DL44]

LOL. Even if all of that happens this is nowhere near a 100 point team. And that's ignoring the fact that not all of that will happen, and this will not be the first team in NHL history to go the full season without a single injury.

LOL. ok.

 

[The Extrapolater]

Bottom five team. Basically, there's a severe lack of scoring on the Canucks. Which is made worse by a questionable defense.

The Canucks don't actually have many impact players. The Sedins. Eriksson. Horvat. Tanev. Edler. Hutton. An injury to any of these players could reduce the teams ability to score by half. And the Canucks will have trouble scoring as it is.

They do have more than a few anchors. Sutter. Gudbranson. Miller. Dorsett. Sbisa. It's a bad scenario. All these players will be placed into roles on the team they're simply not suited for. All these players, except for Gudbranson, are severely overpaid for the impact they actually make on the ice. And it's Gudbranson's contract year, so brace for the worst case scenario regarding his next contract: $5 million a season for 6 years.

An untested defense. Larson. Tryamkin. Pedan. They're stepping into roles we just don't know if they're able to fill. Also, Hamhuis' departure left a huge hole on the team, and there's simply no player on the Canucks' roster who can mitigate the impact of his loss.

All the rest of the Canucks are basically replaceable.

 

[Jay Cee]

Same as the last three years. If we have things go right we are a fringe playoff team. If things go wrong like this year, we are a bottom 5 team.

I will cut it down the middle and say bottom 10.

 

[valkynax]

I said just outside the playoffs. I's amazing how very similar looking NHL teams can perform so differently from year to year. I think last year was a transition year regardless of injuries. Many people will be surprised to see how hockey really works.

Ideally I want the team to finish bottom 3 again, this way Benning and WD can both take a walk and never ever come back.

But I think that's extremely unlikely, WD and Benning are well aware of the number of people who want their heads on a pair of rusty pikes, William Wallace-style, not to mention the pressure from Don Aquaman, so they will do everything within their power to NOT miss the playoff again. This means, contrary to what they said, it seems very reasonable to see Benning throwing away picks and/or future prospects for short term gains. To them, making the playoffs = success, even if it will cost the team decades of future.