2023 NHL Entry Draft Discussion

[LemonSauceD]

We need to go for some size and skill. Yager is fine, but guys like Moore, Danielsson etc are under sized and we have plenty of those.

My picks would be Honzek, Yager if he drops, Simashev, or Dvorsky.

I like Dvorsky more than Honzek but Honzek is 6’4 200lbs. I’d be fine with either. Simashev is also interesting.

It's crazy how like half this board seems to think they've thrown 100% at a massive late-season push and every thread is filled with these stupid sarcastic 'MUST WIN GAME!' posts when they've done nothing of the sort.

The new coach is justifiably trying to implement a better defensive system after years of rot. And they're giving Hughes/Pettersson a chance at bigger minutes, partly to keep them happy and see if they can level up and partly because there is simply no depth after trading guys and shutting other guys down for the season. Demko has played his normal workload.

They've also traded away their leading goal scorer, traded away their top RHD and defensive defender, shut down 3 key guys for the season, and filled like half the roster with AHL players and NCAA signings. And, as you say, kept Demko out for a suspiciously long time before bringing him back.

Who? Hamonic lol

 

[Izzy Goodenough]

Watching him live, Honzek is like a deer on skates, if you are looking for a left shot deer on skates he's your buck.

 

[MS]

Who? Hamonic lol

Luke Schenn was pretty clearly the team's best RHD even if Myers played the most minutes.

 

[Vector]

i don't think reinbacher is a bad pick but i think the hype is out of control. just because seider had a similar path doesn't mean seider is a good comparable

For me, I view him as a guy with #2 upside that will more likely be a #3/4. I just steady two-way #3/4s extremely highly. In no way do I think he’s going to develop into anything like Seider.

 

[MS]

For me, I view him as a guy with #2 upside that will more likely be a #3/4. I just steady two-way #3/4s extremely highly. In no way do I think he’s going to develop into anything like Seider.

Yeah, for me he's a very solid bet to develop into a quality high-minute two-way #2-3 defender and also has a very high floor given that he's already an extra step or two closer to the NHL than most draft picks and excelling in a good men's league.

 

[m9]

I think it's okay to acknowledge that it's an overall positive the team is playing better while wishing for some "better" results along the way. Like, those games where Kuzmenko scored in the last minute to get us extra points. Do I think those extra goals for Kuzmenko are going to make any positive difference in the future of the team? No. But they sure hurt the draft slotting.

The only criticism I can get behind is the schedule for Demko and it's very minor - maybe 2 or 3 less games along the way. You can point to what he's played in the past as a reason for his current schedule, but it's a bit different when games actually mean something.

So yeah, maybe you have a couple less points from those end-game situations. Maybe one less point from those Demko starts. Maybe that lands us in the 8th spot vs where we will actually end up but that's about it.

 

[credulous]

i just wouldn't want the canucks to pass on an impact forward because they've got it in their heads a top four defenseman is some unicorn that can't be acquired otherwise

 

[MS]

I think it's okay to acknowledge that it's an overall positive the team is playing better while wishing for some "better" results along the way. Like, those games where Kuzmenko scored in the last minute to get us extra points. Do I think those extra goals for Kuzmenko are going to make any positive difference in the future of the team? No. But they sure hurt the draft slotting.

The only criticism I can get behind is the schedule for Demko and it's very minor - maybe 2 or 3 less games along the way. You can point to what he's played in the past as a reason for his current schedule, but it's a bit different when games actually mean something.

So yeah, maybe you have a couple less points from those end-game situations. Maybe one less point from those Demko starts. Maybe that lands us in the 8th spot vs where we will actually end up but that's about it.

I mean, absolutely. The ideal is to have maximum process with minimum results and I think that's what they were trying for. And I'm sure if you put Rutherford/Allvin on a lie detector test they'd admit that they would probably have preferred that Kuzmenko didn't score that string of late winning/tying goals. But honestly there's not a lot you can do about that.

I agree that it probably would have been better to play Demko a couple less games. But as you say, the overall impact of that might have been a point.

 

[Vector]

Yeah, for me he's a very solid bet to develop into a quality high-minute two-way #2-3 defender and also has a very high floor given that he's already an extra step or two closer to the NHL than most draft picks and excelling in a good men's league.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes a development path similar to Nemec and Jiricek. AHL next season and vying for NHL time the following season.

 

[tradervik]

Samuel Honzek about NHL teams interested in him and possibility of playing at WC 2023

From the fine article (translated by Google):

He immediately listed the attributes that impress scouts about him. "They praised my shot, smart decisions with the puck, and, given my height of 193 centimeters, very good skating. They also noticed that I have no problem walking into the areas near the guardhouse, where it often hurts."​

 

[sandwichbird2023]

i just wouldn't want the canucks to pass on an impact forward because they've got it in their heads a top four defenseman is some unicorn that can't be acquired otherwise

I don't know, a young quality top 4 RHD does look pretty hard to acquire. The only ones (non-prospect) that moved recently are Hronek and Seth Jones, off the top of my head. They cost a lot in terms of assets to acquire and in cap space. Therefore getting a young top 4 RHD under cost control is a huge win if Reinbacher works out.

Not to mention that if Reinbacher can develop like some believe he can, ie: top pairing, that is insanely valuable both to this team, and on the trade market. But even if he "only" becomes a 2nd pairing guy, at #8 and onwards I think he holds the most value in the sense that his floor is the highest and his positional value is also highest.

 

[credulous]

I don't know, a young quality top 4 RHD does look pretty hard to acquire. The only ones (non-prospect) that moved recently are Hronek and Seth Jones, off the top of my head. They cost a lot in terms of assets to acquire and in cap space. Therefore getting a young top 4 RHD under cost control is a huge win if Reinbacher works out.

Not to mention that if Reinbacher can develop like some believe he can, ie: top pairing, that is insanely valuable both to this team, and on the trade market. But even if he "only" becomes a 2nd pairing guy, at #8 and onwards I think he holds the most value in the sense that his floor is the highest and his positional value is also highest.

marino, romanov and lundqvist all last offseason alone

i think getting an impact center or winger is harder than getting a top 4 defenseman by a huge margin

 

[Nucker42]

We need to go for some size and skill. Yager is fine, but guys like Moore, Danielsson etc are under sized and we have plenty of those.

My picks would be Honzek, Yager if he drops, Simashev, or Dvorsky.

I like Dvorsky more than Honzek but Honzek is 6’4 200lbs. I’d be fine with either. Simashev is also interesting.


Who? Hamonic lol

Yeah, tend to agree. Not sure you need to target size with your 1st though. Maybe you use a couple of the 4th rounders for that.

I think in the 1st you go best player available. Guessing Danielson and or Honzik will be there 10-12. Hoping somehow Reinbacher sneaks through.

Honestly, my preference if the Canucks trade down to the 15-18 range and add a late 1st or 2nd.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Because he's arguably the team's most important player, is returning from a serious injury, and needs to play and rebuild his confidence. Any team outside of maybe Arizona would do exactly the same thing -- it doesn't mean they aren't strategically taking reasonable steps to get a better pick.

The type of tanking you're suggesting the Canucks should do is only done infrequently by teams planning to bottom out for several seasons, because the human/psychological cost for teams in any other situation is too high.

Hes going to be long gone when we compete again.

It's crazy how like half this board seems to think they've thrown 100% at a massive late-season push and every thread is filled with these stupid sarcastic 'MUST WIN GAME!' posts when they've done nothing of the sort.

The new coach is justifiably trying to implement a better defensive system after years of rot. And they're giving Hughes/Pettersson a chance at bigger minutes, partly to keep them happy and see if they can level up and partly because there is simply no depth after trading guys and shutting other guys down for the season. Demko has played his normal workload.

They've also traded away their leading goal scorer, traded away their top RHD and defensive defender, shut down 3 key guys for the season, and filled like half the roster with AHL players and NCAA signings. And, as you say, kept Demko out for a suspiciously long time before bringing him back.

The quality of your posts has tanked from being one of the top reasons to read these boards to becoming a meme... I refuse to believe you actually think the spin city bullshit you post after the management change is true. Its not possible.

Sigh.

 

[MS]

Hes going to be long gone when we compete again.


The quality of your posts has tanked from being one of the top reasons to read these boards to becoming a meme... I refuse to believe you actually think the spin city bullshit you post after the management change is true. Its not possible.

Sigh.

Absolutely nothing has changed in my worldview and I've been saying pretty much exactly the same things about what the organization should be doing since 2019.

I've always thought draft pick surpluses were overrated. I've always thought tanking mentalities were stupid except in very specific situations. I've never been one of the big cheerleaders here about draft pick position. I've always valued competing and always valued actual NHL players over draft picks.

Like, I was saying that this team should try trading for/signing pending UFA Mark Stone at the 2019 deadline when they were out of the playoffs, FFS.

People just didn't seem to read what I was saying and equated my disgust with Jim Benning's incompetence with being a Drance-esque Modern Fan Moron.

 

[MS]

marino, romanov and lundqvist all last offseason alone

i think getting an impact center or winger is harder than getting a top 4 defenseman by a huge margin

Lundqvist is a fringe #6-7 defender.

The team moving Romanov required a 6'4 21 y/o C who was a #3 overall pick back for him, so the value was pretty massive.

Marino was the only good RHD who moved for a fairly low price.

Obviously getting an impact C is harder than getting a good #3D but I'll take a good #3D over any non-elite winger.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Absolutely nothing has changed in my worldview and I've been saying pretty much exactly the same things about what the organization should be doing since 2019.

I've always thought draft pick surpluses were overrated. I've always thought tanking mentalities were stupid except in very specific situations. I've never been one of the big cheerleaders here about draft pick position. I've always valued competing and always valued actual NHL players over draft picks.

Like, I was saying that this team should try trading for/signing pending UFA Mark Stone at the 2019 deadline when they were out of the playoffs, FFS.

People just didn't seem to read what I was saying and equated my disgust with Jim Benning's incompetence with being a Drance-esque Modern Fan Moron.

I think I mistook you for someone who also thought that winning the Stanley cup was the goal.

Everything else that you now post that I find most likley dishonest or just plain idiotic follows from there. If the stanley cup is not the goal then yes by all means bring in Hronek and sign Kuzmenko to a weird 2 year extension to try to trick Elias Pettersson in to signing an extension here. Go ahead and sign Miller to an albatross contract that wont make sense given our compete window. Use the last 30 games of a lost season as something to justify your misguided moves by winning as many games as possible instead of using it to improve the team long term.

We are a bottom 10 team acting like a cup contender. This is the way you end up like Philly and Buffalo.

As a Canuck fan this should horrify you.

This is what I mean when I say you were broken by Benning. The bar is set so incredibly low now. You don't expect to have a winner here.

 

[Vector]

I think the I mistook you for someone who also thought that winning the Stanley cup was the goal.

Everything else that you now post that I find most likley dishonest or just plain idiotic follows from there. If the stanley cup is not the goal then yes by all means bring in Hronek and sign Kuzmenko to a weird 2 year extension to try to trick Elias Pettersson in to signing an extension here. Go ahead and sign Miller to an albatross contract that wont make sense given our compete window. Use the last 30 games of a lost season as something to justify your misguided moves by winning as many games as possible instead of using it to improve the team long term.

We are a bottom 10 team acting like a cup contender. This is the way you end up like Philly and Buffalo.

As a Canuck fan this should horrify you.

This is what I mean when I say you were broken by Benning. The bar is set so incredibly low now. You don't expect to have a winner here.

What does any of this have to do with the NHL draft?

 

[m9]

Lundqvist is a fringe #6-7 defender.

The team moving Romanov required a 6'4 21 y/o C who was a #3 overall pick back for him, so the value was pretty massive.

Marino was the only good RHD who moved for a fairly low price.

Obviously getting an impact C is harder than getting a good #3D but I'll take a good #3D over any non-elite winger.

The Romanov thing was two separate deals, but for Montreal it ended up being Romanov, #66, #98 for Dach. Just to add value context vs Dach.

 

[Szechwan]

I mean, absolutely. The ideal is to have maximum process with minimum results and I think that's what they were trying for. And I'm sure if you put Rutherford/Allvin on a lie detector test they'd admit that they would probably have preferred that Kuzmenko didn't score that string of late winning/tying goals. But honestly there's not a lot you can do about that.

I agree that it probably would have been better to play Demko a couple less games. But as you say, the overall impact of that might have been a point.

Sure there is, you can do what literally every other team in the NHL does and use the death march at the end of the season to actually get a look at depth players and young guys in meaningful minutes.

Load up your top PP unit to end the game, and they're probably going to score. Slot the Pods, Kravs, Hogs into those roles and see how they do with more than 10 minutes of ice time and MAYBE, just maybe you won't have the shocked pikachu face on for eternity when your team keeps coming back to get points in absolutely meaningless games.

These players aren't going to remember those wins come next season. They do absolutely nothing but hurt the franchise.

 

[MS]

I think the I mistook you for someone who also thought that winning the Stanley cup was the goal.

Everything else that you now post that I find most likley dishonest or just plain idiotic follows from there. If the stanley cup is not the goal then yes by all means bring in Hronek and sign Kuzmenko to a weird 2 year extension to try to trick Elias Pettersson in to signing an extension here. Use the last 30 games of a lost season as something to justify your misguided moves by winning as many games as possible instead of using it to improve the team long term.

We are a bottom 10 team acting like a cup contender. This is the way you end up like Philly and Buffalo.

As a Canuck fan this should horrify you.

This is what I mean when I say you were broken by Benning. The bar is set so incredibly low now. You don't expect to have a winner here.

Of course winning the Stanley Cup is the goal.

And when you have a young core group of elite players like we have now, you try to build around those guys to open a window to compete for a Cup.

As I've said many times, if two years from now the team still sucks and Pettersson is forcing his way out, then at that point the team will likely be forced to do a full rebuild. And if they don't do that at that point, at a point where it actually makes sense and is the correct course of action, then I will be critical.

To be living in video game tank land right now while the team has some of the most dynamic young players in the history of the franchise is, to me, absolutely idiotic. You to everything you can with those guys while you have them. If it fails, you only lose 2 years. We've already lost 10.

__________

On Kuzmenko, we'll never know but I'm pretty sure he verbally agreed to a 3-year wink-wink nudge-nudge deal last summer but they couldn't formally agree to the rest of it until mid-season this year. Same thing I think about the Kotkaniemi extension in Carolina.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Of course winning the Stanley Cup is the goal.

And when you have a young core group of elite players like we have now, you try to build around those guys to open a window to compete for a Cup.

As I've said many times, if two years from now the team still sucks and Pettersson is forcing his way out, then at that point the team will likely be forced to do a full rebuild. And if they don't do that at that point, at a point where it actually makes sense and is the correct course of action, then I will be critical.

Has there ever been a rebuild that starts from a worse position if we wait that long?

To be living in video game tank land right now while the team has some of the most dynamic young players in the history of the franchise is, to me, absolutely idiotic. You to everything you can with those guys while you have them. If it fails, you only lose 2 years. We've already lost 10.

Stop it with this bullshit.

Understand that the Canucks is the only team that behaves this way.

Understand that you and ~5 other posters on these forums are pretty much alone in the way you think.


I've had my Penguins fan friends (who hyped Rutherford up when he became the president) almost apologize for hyping JR and saying I guess the owner in Vancouver just wont JR do what needs to be done.

I've had former Liga player buddy ask what the f*** is wrong with the new management.

I've had everyone in my fantasy league laugh at me for having to endure another idiot management after a decade of error by Benning.

__________

On Kuzmenko, we'll never know but I'm pretty sure he verbally agreed to a 3-year wink-wink nudge-nudge deal last summer but they couldn't formally agree to the rest of it until mid-season this year. Same thing I think about the Kotkaniemi extension in Carolina.

That would make it make more sense.

 

[Vector]

We're way off topic and @PuckMunchkin stop insulting people. Let's get back on-topic and be respectful.

 

[Szechwan]

I'm actually very fascinated to see what some people on this board say if the #8 wins the lotto.

Will they really continue with the "well, there's nothing we could have done, we were just too good, Demko demanded the starts!" or do you think the reality of missing out on a generational talent and hometown kid will allow them to see that we actually could have accomplished everything they wanted to to prepare for next year, while also not sewering their draft position.

 

[MS]

Has there ever been a rebuild that starts from a worse position if we wait that long?



Stop it with this bullshit.

Understand that the Canucks is the only team that behaves this way.

Understand that you and ~5 other posters on these forums are pretty much alone in the way you think.

Virtually every NHL team thinks this way. The only teams that tank/rebuild are teams with aged-out cores and nothing in terms of mid-20s impact assets. We were that sort of team in 2016. We are not that sort of team in 2023.

I'm well aware that a majority of the fans on this board live in video game land.