2023 NHL Entry Draft Discussion

[God]

this is actually really funny and i wonder if the nhl would've fined the canucks if they scratched petey/hughes down the stretch

NBA fines the Dallas Mavericks $750K, saying team 'undermined the integrity of our sport' | CNN

The Dallas Mavericks were fined $750,000 for “conduct detrimental to the league” after resting All-Star Kyrie Irving and several other role players during a game against the Chicago Bulls on April 7, the NBA announced Friday.

www.cnn.com

 

[Hodgy]

i don't know how you square "video game thinking" with the undisputable fact that chicago, columbus, detroit, washington, philadelphia, san jose, anaheim, montreal, arizona and st louis all did exactly what fans here were hoping vancouver would do

i understand the theory that finish strong start strong, rebuild the culture, can't keep elite players on a leash, blah blah blah but the posters acting like it's unthinkable for an nhl team to intentionally handicap it's ability to compete are the ones who aren't aligned with reality

For sure, this is my view. But the group calling it “video game thinking” has also assumed that: 8th was somehow the worst pick we could achieve; and that short term considerations for this team are more important than long term ones.

And frankly, I appreciate these perspectives. But to dismiss those who don’t agree with them as being “nonsense” or “video game thinking” is a bit ridiculous.

 

[MS]

i don't know how you square "video game thinking" with the undisputable fact that chicago, columbus, detroit, washington, philadelphia, san jose, anaheim, montreal, arizona and st louis all did exactly what fans here were hoping vancouver would do

i understand the theory that finish strong start strong, rebuild the culture, can't keep elite players on a leash, blah blah blah but the posters acting like it's unthinkable for an nhl team to intentionally handicap it's ability to compete are the ones who aren't aligned with reality

There are two separate things here.

It's a legitimate thing to say maybe they should have played Hughes and Pettersson and Demko a little bit less and maybe they'd be slightly higher in the draft. I don't agree because I think those players are a much higher priority than a small difference in draft position but I understand the argument.

But the notion that we should have kept Boudreau after struggling for a year to make that change, or that we should have given Martin 50% of the starts, or that we could do a tank over the next couple years and still have Pettersson/Hughes/Demko on our roster doing great in 25-26 is absolutely pure video game nonsense. It's idiotic. And stuff like whining when Quinn Hughes levels up and plays Norris-type hockey and by far the best play of his career because it hurts our draft pick slightly is just beyond stupid. It's embarrassing. It's worse than loser Edmonton fans at their worst a decade ago.

And again, they did do a bunch of stuff to maximize their draft position. They shut down multiple key players. They traded multiple key players. They took their sweet time bringing Demko back from his injury. The blueline in the last 2 months of the season was mostly AHLers and NCAA UFA signings. The only thing they really did to go against this process was get behind their hugely important superstar players and give them big opportunity. And doing that is easily justifiable.

St. Louis picked up Vrana and Kapanen at the deadline and watched them score 18 goals in 43 combined games when they could have given those minutes to Matthew Highmore. Every team has balanced priorities aside from the 4 or 5 pure tank teams that have no hope of competing for the next several years.

For sure, this is my view. But the group calling it “video game thinking” has also assumed that: 8th was somehow the worst pick we could achieve; and that short term considerations for this team are more important than long term ones.

And frankly, I appreciate these perspectives. But to dismiss those who don’t agree with them as being “nonsense” or “video game thinking” is a bit ridiculous.

See above. There are reasonable takes to be made and then there are viewpoints which are those of 14 year olds playing EA Sports who don't seem to have a clue about how real life works.

And yes, thinking we were ever picking #5 overall was clueless and showed a total lack of understanding of why were were sitting 6th-worst and why it would correct.

 

[Gstank]

it's not like those teams don't have good young players. why are pettersson and hughes so fragile it's imperative the canucks be as competitive as possible but it's okay to hold back mctavish, suzuki, gaudreau, seider, kyrou...

Non of those players are on the same level as Petey or Hughes and they also dont have 2 of those types of players

 

[Hodgy]

There are two separate things here.

It's a legitimate thing to say maybe they should have played Hughes and Pettersson and Demko a little bit less and maybe they'd be slightly higher in the draft. I don't agree because I think those players are a much higher priority than a small difference in draft position but I understand the argument.

But the notion that we should have kept Boudreau after struggling for a year to make that change, or that we should have given Martin 50% of the starts, or that we could do a tank over the next couple years and still have Pettersson/Hughes/Demko on our roster doing great in 25-26 is absolutely pure video game nonsense. It's idiotic. And stuff like whining when Quinn Hughes levels up and plays Norris-type hockey and by far the best play of his career because it hurts our draft pick slightly is just beyond stupid. It's embarrassing. It's worse than loser Edmonton fans at their worst a decade ago.

And again, they did do a bunch of stuff to maximize their draft position. They shut down multiple key players. They traded multiple key players. They took their sweet time bringing Demko back from his injury. The blueline in the last 2 months of the season was mostly AHLers and NCAA UFA signings. The only thing they really did to go against this process was get behind their hugely important superstar players and give them big opportunity. And doing that is easily justifiable.

St. Louis picked up Vrana and Kapanen at the deadline and watched them score 18 goals in 43 combined games when they could have given those minutes to Matthew Highmore. Every team has balanced priorities aside from the 4 or 5 pure tank teams that have no hope of competing for the next several years.



See above. There are reasonable takes to be made and then there are viewpoints which are those of 14 year olds playing EA Sports who don't seem to have a clue about how real life works.

And yes, thinking we were ever picking #5 overall was clueless and showed a total lack of understanding of why were were sitting 6th-worst and why it would correct.

I’ve said this several times, but I think you are having a difficult time seeing others perspectives because you assume that the compete in the short term option is preferable to the long term rebuild option. And this just isn’t the case. There are good arguments either way. And again, distinguish this (I.e., what fans think they should have done) with what was most likely to occur taking into consideration the context of the situation (e.g., ownership, revenues, etc.). Because I get your point that a long term rebuild likely wasn’t going to happen, and I tend to agree with you.

Because if you accept that the Canucks maybe should be doing a longer term rebuild, then absolutely it isn’t “video game decisions” to not fire Boudreau and let these losers continue to lose which is exactly what all of the other shitty teams did. And again, it’s not like there was some inescapable conclusion that if you didn’t fire Boudreau the team would not have continued to suck at a similar rate that they were sucking. Or that Demko was necessarily going to turn it around when he did despite no changes to the team’s coaching. The opposite view seems quite reasonable.

And I get the quality of competition argument, but you have to weight that against the fact that teams with shitty morale that are not making changes to improve their morale naturally tend to play shittier and shittier as the season goes on, and not the opposite. And that’s why we saw some teams like Detroit, Washington and Philadelphia absolutely torpedo with 20-30 games left despite having, in some cases, significantly better records than us through 40-50 games.

 

[MS]

I’ve said this several times, but I think you are having a difficult time seeing others perspectives because you assume that the compete in the short term option is preferable to the long term rebuild option. And this just isn’t the case. There are good arguments either way. And again, distinguish this (I.e., what fans think they should have done) with what was most likely to occur taking into consideration the context of the situation (e.g., ownership, revenues, etc.). Because I get your point that a long term rebuild likely wasn’t going to happen, and I tend to agree with you.

Because if you accept that the Canucks maybe should be doing a longer term rebuild, then absolutely it isn’t “video game decisions” to not fire Boudreau and let these losers continue to lose which is exactly what all of the other shitty teams did. And again, it’s not like there was some inescapable conclusion that if you didn’t fire Boudreau the team would not have continued to suck at a similar rate that they were sucking. Or that Demko was necessarily going to turn it around when he did despite no changes to the team’s coaching. The opposite view seems quite reasonable.

And I get the quality of competition argument, but you have to weight that against the fact that teams with shitty morale that are not making changes to improve their morale naturally tend to play shittier and shittier as the season goes on, and not the opposite. And that’s why we saw some teams like Detroit, Washington and Philadelphia absolutely torpedo with 20-30 games left despite having, in some cases, significantly better records than us through 40-50 games.

And again, THE LONG TERM REBUILD ARGUMENT IS VIDEO GAMES.

This isn't EA Sports. This is a business. Long term rebuilds are a massive financial pill to swallow, and there has never been (and never will be) an NHL team who trades away young core the calibre of Pettersson/Hughes/Demko to spend 6-8 years in purgatory before flushing out whether it was possible to build a contender around those players.

A total rebuild was the right call in 2016. It got half-assed. But fans are obsessed with doing what should have happened in 2016 in 2023 and doing that right now is both absurd and totally, utterly unrealistic.

A long term rebuild will not happen. Not with this owner, not with any owner. It's absolutely pointless to even discuss because in the real world with real money and real people there is no way any business would come to that decision from the position we're in with the assets we have.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

i don't know how you square "video game thinking" with the undisputable fact that chicago, columbus, detroit, washington, philadelphia, san jose, anaheim, montreal, arizona and st louis all did exactly what fans here were hoping vancouver would do

i understand the theory that finish strong start strong, rebuild the culture, can't keep elite players on a leash, blah blah blah but the posters acting like it's unthinkable for an nhl team to intentionally handicap it's ability to compete are the ones who aren't aligned with reality

If we're going to throw them around as comparables, let's explore them earnestly.

Chicago: End of their competitive window, mired in scandal, tried to reload by trading futures for Seth Jones and it cratered spectacularly. Arguably overreacted, since they could have rebuilt around their young core, by trading DeBrincat and Dach for surprisingly low value, trading trading and retaining long term for a song on McCabe.

Are they the model you want to point to? Moving rather unsuccessfully from one polar to the opposite and appearing to be doomed to irrelevance for 5 years or more isn't a path I want to emulate. And they tried to reload and failed, and are at a different point in their competitive cycle. Can we agree to discard this one?

San Jose: is sort of like a funhouse version of us at the end of our Sedin run. The players are slightly younger but not as good (excluding Karlsson) and signed for longer. They had a wonderful 20 year run that hf memers won't respect because 'muh zero-sum game', but they too are in the sunset of their competitive window. Again, we can probably agree not an appropriate comparison.

Philadelphia: Signed an accountability coach and refused to tank despite having a far worse core than we do. I think arguing Philadelphia should have leaned into despair this season is far more defensible than arguing for...what, not being able to look Petey, Hughes, and Demko in the face and say, "I've got your back. I'm considering our best interests as a team"? How does a coach attain/retain credibility then?
Flyers again aren't a good comparable. Carter Hart is awesome and underrated. But they don't have a D or forward in our top players' stratosphere.

Arizona: Is like a shell company and not relevant to any comparison to any other team in terms of how they are run. Their prime directive hasn't been to win in the even medium future since like 2020.

Washington: Is again an entirely unique situation. End of a long long championship window that yielded one (1). Built to remain competitive when possible and get Ovechkin to an important NHL record. This year Backstrom missed most of the year and came back diminished (hip surgery IIRC?). Wilson was hurt most of the first half, and Carlson missed a bunch. Orlov was going to be UFA, and they didn't have it this year. They aren't throwing in the towel overall.

St Louis: O'Reilly and Tarasenko are UFAs. They ruined that team by letting Pietrangelo go and chasing Krug and Faulk instead. Faulk has, at times, been better than I thought he would be, but he's not what they need. Also Parayko seems to have been diminished, at least the last few years, by injury. Again, they didn't have much of a choice. We're not holding onto important UFAs or anything and our young stars are better than theirs.
Further, they are talking about moving the 1sts they received for O'Reilly and Tarasenko are rumoured to be on the block for young players.
Poor comparable.

Montreal: Went to the finals really randomly a couple of years ago, but it was the last great roar of some great and important players. Price and Weber went down permanently. The Habs expected to be good but were catastrophically bad last year. They leaned into it while retaining Suzuki and Caulfield to build around. The culture seemed absolutely broken under Ducharme, but St Louis has come in and miraculously changed the culture. For their troubles they got Slafkovsky whom I don't think will be as good as Svechnikov and thus probably not worth having their expectations so specularly let down last year compared to where they thought they were. Their fans are likely saying the same thing fans here are because they end up picking 5th or 6th this year instead of 1st.

Detroit: Everyone is on Yzerman's dick. He's a smart executive but he's not a genie. He played a big part in getting Tampa their cups, but to me that particularly points to him being good at both delegation and listening, and knowing which voice to prioritize. Their competitive advantage is that they were accidentally terrible in 08 and 09 (Hedman and Stamkos) and had a whole bunch of late picks go supernova (Kuch, Point, etc).
In Detroit nobody really clocked Seider and that's been a homerun, so people run with this idea of him as infallible.
His process has been okay, but the results are bad and his adjustment hasn't been good.

They went for the tank a lot of you want and are basically left with Seider and some good but not great pieces. I like Raymond a lot, but I don't think I want to be the 4th worst team in the league to get him.


None of those teams flushed a toxic culture and, importantly, are building a healthier one, none of them have an elite top 10 (arguably) at their position player at every position with a lot of other talented and impressive pieces.
People are so traumatized by Benning that they don't see the forest for the trees. The current management gave the old core another year after the Boudreau bump. They have made a whole bunch of really nice little/big win moves since.

People mocked them for acquiring Stillman but he had enough value that we unloaded his contract and picked up an interesting prospect.

Dakota Joshua already looks like more than I thought he could be after watching his first 30 games.

Kuzmenko 'nuf said.

Hirose looks possibly to be a rabbit that they have pulled from a hat. His poise is incredible and he looks smart and calm, with good wheels. That can get you a long way.

etc, etc.

It's very defensible to bet on this core and this season has reaffirmed that perspective. A lot of people were calling to trade Petey or Hughes in the last two years, but they have proven to be center piece quality players. Letting Horvat go at that contract rate looks good. Miller looks like a decent bet to be either tradable or a decent contract. He gets 500k more than Kadri for heavens sake.

Anyway, on topic, I wanted Benson a lot and I'm bummed that he's almost certainly not a possibility for us.

I have a lot more research to do but I'm intrigued by Moore, Sale, Reinbacher, somewhat by Cristall, and, probably not at our pick, Gulyayev who looks like Cale Makar against terrible competition. So always an interesting dice roll.

 

[I Hart Conor Garland]

This is just gambler's fallacy nonsense but a lot of posters will fall for it.

Using hindsight bias, 'if only we had the 8th pick' to then retroactively decide that they should have been undermining our young superstars, 'sorry petey and hughes, you don't play this pp I have a feeling the 8th pick is going to be very important' - breaks 4th wall and winks at the camera.

It's just not based in reality.

Or it’s as simple as proof of concept. Lower team than us won as should have happened so we should have not tried so hard to improve.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

There are two separate things here.

It's a legitimate thing to say maybe they should have played Hughes and Pettersson and Demko a little bit less and maybe they'd be slightly higher in the draft. I don't agree because I think those players are a much higher priority than a small difference in draft position but I understand the argument.

But the notion that we should have kept Boudreau after struggling for a year to make that change, or that we should have given Martin 50% of the starts, or that we could do a tank over the next couple years and still have Pettersson/Hughes/Demko on our roster doing great in 25-26 is absolutely pure video game nonsense. It's idiotic. And stuff like whining when Quinn Hughes levels up and plays Norris-type hockey and by far the best play of his career because it hurts our draft pick slightly is just beyond stupid. It's embarrassing. It's worse than loser Edmonton fans at their worst a decade ago.

And again, they did do a bunch of stuff to maximize their draft position. They shut down multiple key players. They traded multiple key players. They took their sweet time bringing Demko back from his injury. The blueline in the last 2 months of the season was mostly AHLers and NCAA UFA signings. The only thing they really did to go against this process was get behind their hugely important superstar players and give them big opportunity. And doing that is easily justifiable.

St. Louis picked up Vrana and Kapanen at the deadline and watched them score 18 goals in 43 combined games when they could have given those minutes to Matthew Highmore. Every team has balanced priorities aside from the 4 or 5 pure tank teams that have no hope of competing for the next several years.



See above. There are reasonable takes to be made and then there are viewpoints which are those of 14 year olds playing EA Sports who don't seem to have a clue about how real life works.

And yes, thinking we were ever picking #5 overall was clueless and showed a total lack of understanding of why were were sitting 6th-worst and why it would correct.

Your newest catch phrase is "video game talk."

Add it to the pile of "Brock Boeser" and "ECHL goaltending ruined our 2022-23"

Could it just be that you and your 5 cronies are out to lunch on how the league actually works today. The way you look at it is probably true in 2003 but after the hard cap was introduced cap space is the scarcest commodity in the league.

Its one thing, when you self admittedly just don't like the concept of tanking... but to then try to argue against tanking with logic... Eh. Teams that are far better constructed and closer to cup contention did exactly what people are asking for. Exactly what we are asking for:
- St Louis sold aggressively at the TDL and are well on their way building around their young core now and are just a few years removed from winning the cup.
- Detroit sold from a playoff position, shut down Dylan Larkin, out tanked us

Please retire your "videogame talk" meme. Its embarrassing.

Also "we have 3 good players" argument... Every team has 3 good players.

No other team behaves like this. No team in the league.

 

[MS]

Your newest catch phrase is "video game talk."

Add it to the pile of "Brock Boeser" and "ECHL goaltending ruined our 2022-23"

Could it just be that you and your 5 cronies are out to lunch on how the league actually works today. The way you look at it is probably true in 2003 but after the hard cap was introduced cap space is the scarcest commodity in the league.

Its one thing, when you self admittedly just don't like the concept of tanking... but to then try to argue against tanking with logic... Eh. Teams that are far better constructed and closer to cup contention did exactly what people are asking for. Exactly what we are asking for:
- St Louis sold aggressively at the TDL and are well on their way building around their young core now and are just a few years removed from winning the cup.
- Detroit sold from a playoff position, shut down Dylan Larkin, out tanked us

Please retire your "videogame talk" meme. Its embarrassing.

Also "we have 3 good players" argument... Every team has 3 good players.

No other team behaves like this. No team in the league.

What team ever has traded players the calibre/age of Pettersson/Hughes/Demko to do a long-term rebuild?

Teams like Montreal don't behave like this because they don't have good players and are in year 2 of a 6+ year rebuild. It's a totally different thing. We aren't acting the same because we aren't in the same position as other teams. There's a thing called context. Actions are determined by the situation.

It's video game crap because it's absolutely clueless takes from fans who are playing EA Sports in their heads and not even remotely comprehending that there is money and people involved in professional sports and it isn't just pushing buttons on a controller in fantasyland. And I'll keep saying it.

And again : this team shut down multiple players, traded multiple key players, dressed a shell roster for the last couple months. The only thing they didn't do was cut the minutes of their star players who they want engaged and buying into the program here, which is totally reasonable. And unlike every other team around us in the standings, those players are going to win hockey games.

 

[MS]

When you factor in the schedule and the inevitable goaltending bump, we probably could have finished 8th worst at most by doing a couple extra things instead of 11th.

Here's 8 vs. 11 over a 15 draft span 2006-2020, with obvious superior players highlighted.

2006 : Peter Mueller vs. Jonathan Bernier
2007 : Zach Hamill vs. Brandon Sutter
2008 : Mikkel Boedker vs. Kyle Beach
2009 : Scott Glennie vs. Ryan Ellis
2010 : Alex Burmistrov vs. Jack Campbell
2011 : Sean Couturier vs. Duncan Siemens
2012 : Derek Pouliot vs. Filip Forsberg
2013 : Rasmus Ristolainen vs. Samuel Morin
2014 : William Nylander vs. Kevin Fiala
2015 : Zach Werenski vs. Lawson Crouse
2016 : Alex Nylander vs. Logan Brown
2017 : Casey Mittlestadt vs. Gabriel Vilardi
2018 : Adam Boquist vs, Oliver Wahlstrom
2019 : Philip Broberg vs. Viktor Soderstrom
2020 : Jack Quinn vs. Yaroslav Askarov

Over 15 years, #8 has a 4-3 edge in terms of having a significantly higher pick value. Both pick slots have 3 core/impact players selected (Couturier, Nylander, Werenski vs. Ellis, Forsberg, Fiala).

The hullaballoo that this is some sort of massive catastrophe is just not grounded in reality. There's a reason that the team prioritized the actual star players we have over the small value loss from dropping a couple spots.

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

There are two separate things here.

It's a legitimate thing to say maybe they should have played Hughes and Pettersson and Demko a little bit less and maybe they'd be slightly higher in the draft. I don't agree because I think those players are a much higher priority than a small difference in draft position but I understand the argument.

But the notion that we should have kept Boudreau after struggling for a year to make that change, or that we should have given Martin 50% of the starts, or that we could do a tank over the next couple years and still have Pettersson/Hughes/Demko on our roster doing great in 25-26 is absolutely pure video game nonsense. It's idiotic. And stuff like whining when Quinn Hughes levels up and plays Norris-type hockey and by far the best play of his career because it hurts our draft pick slightly is just beyond stupid. It's embarrassing. It's worse than loser Edmonton fans at their worst a decade ago.

And again, they did do a bunch of stuff to maximize their draft position. They shut down multiple key players. They traded multiple key players. They took their sweet time bringing Demko back from his injury. The blueline in the last 2 months of the season was mostly AHLers and NCAA UFA signings. The only thing they really did to go against this process was get behind their hugely important superstar players and give them big opportunity. And doing that is easily justifiable.

St. Louis picked up Vrana and Kapanen at the deadline and watched them score 18 goals in 43 combined games when they could have given those minutes to Matthew Highmore. Every team has balanced priorities aside from the 4 or 5 pure tank teams that have no hope of competing for the next several years.

The problem is where the Devils are now is where the Canucks should be. The group the Canucks are in are all teams trending in the right direction with lots of picks and cap space. The Canucks don't have that and will have to get by with trying to plug holes with massive cap problems and I don't see how it's possible barring some trade miracle.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

Yes, they should stick to the plan because fixing the team's culture and getting the team's three young superstars to buy in long term is infinitely more important than a 3-spot move in the draft.

The obsession that fans have with minimal changes in draft position over literally everything else involved in building a hockey team is frankly comical.

Just so I'm clear, your claim now is that moving up 3 spots in the standing in 2022-23 season is all that will take for Petey to buy in long term? That is your justification for accepting the late season surge?

Hughes and Demko are locked in with term so it doesn't even matter with them. But your reason to support this late season run is that, THIS ALONE, is the difference between whether Petey buy in long term or not? Had we finished 27th overall, Petey is gone. But now we finished 22nd, he's happy to sign long term?

 

[sandwichbird2023]

When you factor in the schedule and the inevitable goaltending bump, we probably could have finished 8th worst at most by doing a couple extra things instead of 11th.

Here's 8 vs. 11 over a 15 draft span 2006-2020, with obvious superior players highlighted.

2006 : Peter Mueller vs. Jonathan Bernier
2007 : Zach Hamill vs. Brandon Sutter
2008 : Mikkel Boedker vs. Kyle Beach
2009 : Scott Glennie vs. Ryan Ellis
2010 : Alex Burmistrov vs. Jack Campbell
2011 : Sean Couturier vs. Duncan Siemens
2012 : Derek Pouliot vs. Filip Forsberg
2013 : Rasmus Ristolainen vs. Samuel Morin
2014 : William Nylander vs. Kevin Fiala
2015 : Zach Werenski vs. Lawson Crouse
2016 : Alex Nylander vs. Logan Brown
2017 : Casey Mittlestadt vs. Gabriel Vilardi
2018 : Adam Boquist vs, Oliver Wahlstrom
2019 : Philip Broberg vs. Viktor Soderstrom
2020 : Jack Quinn vs. Yaroslav Askarov

Over 15 years, #8 has a 4-3 edge in terms of having a significantly higher pick value. Both pick slots have 3 core/impact players selected (Couturier, Nylander, Werenski vs. Ellis, Forsberg, Fiala).

The hullaballoo that this is some sort of massive catastrophe is just not grounded in reality. There's a reason that the team prioritized the actual star players we have over the small value loss from dropping a couple spots.

You can play this game with any 2 picks though, what does it prove? I'll take #6 and #9, from 2010 to 2018.
2010: Connolly vs Granlund
2011: Zibanejad vs Hamilton
2012: Lindholm vs Trouba
2013: Monahan vs Horvat
2014: Virtanen vs Ehler
2015: Zacha vs Meier
2016: Tkachuk vs Sergachev
2017: Glass vs Rasmussen
2018: Zadina vs Kratsov

So it's 4-2 in favor of the #9 pick over the #6 pick. Again, what does that prove, that the 6th overall pick has less value than the 9th? You want as high of a chance to take the best player available to you in the draft, that's the goal. Obviously the higher the pick, the higher the chance. It is still a game of odds so you are never going to 100% get the better player by picking higher, but the odds are in your favor if you have the higher pick. That is the reason why team wants higher picks, I can't believe I have to explain this!

I don't think anybody is arguing that going from 8th overall to 11th is a massive catastrophe, you are making these exaggerations and arguing with yourself about it. What people has issues with are the lack of forward-planning, and the needless devaluation of our own assets for short term gain that doesn't make much of a difference in the long run, and this is a pattern that is recurring over and over. You can throw insults at people all you want calling them "video game" crap and all, it doesn't make your argument stronger.

 

[Cancuks]

this is actually really funny and i wonder if the nhl would've fined the canucks if they scratched petey/hughes down the stretch

NBA fines the Dallas Mavericks $750K, saying team 'undermined the integrity of our sport' | CNN

The Dallas Mavericks were fined $750,000 for “conduct detrimental to the league” after resting All-Star Kyrie Irving and several other role players during a game against the Chicago Bulls on April 7, the NBA announced Friday.

www.cnn.com

Should have taken away their first round pick.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

What team ever has traded players the calibre/age of Pettersson/Hughes/Demko to do a long-term rebuild?

I refuse this premise.

Taking a step back this year and the next year would not have cost us those players.

Teams like Montreal don't behave like this because they don't have good players and are in year 2 of a 6+ year rebuild. It's a totally different thing. We aren't acting the same because we aren't in the same position as other teams. There's a thing called context. Actions are determined by the situation.

It's video game crap because it's absolutely clueless takes from fans who are playing EA Sports in their heads and not even remotely comprehending that there is money and people involved in professional sports and it isn't just pushing buttons on a controller in fantasyland. And I'll keep saying it.

Except it obviously isn't. And you can see it all around the league this year and the past 20 years.

Stop trying to push this story as the truth.

Like I said I get not having the stomach for losing intentionally. But you cant start your argument from this ... ethical? point and try to work towards a logical conclusion.

Just say you don't like tanking. That is fine.

Could it be that just maybe you, Franky Aqualini and the ~5 posters on these boards that agree with you are wrong and everyone else is right?

And again : this team shut down multiple players, traded multiple key players, dressed a shell roster for the last couple months. The only thing they didn't do was cut the minutes of their star players who they want engaged and buying into the program here, which is totally reasonable. And unlike every other team around us in the standings, those players are going to win hockey games.

I don't think you actually believe this is comparable to what the teams I listed (and other teams like Washington) did. Again the proof of it not being video game logic is right around us. Actually now right below us in the standings. It didn't even take that much work. Those teams will be reloading and passing us by while we work hard and burn our futures, trying to be slightly less bad.

NO TEAM played the living shit out of their star players like the Canucks did. If you consider draft picks as capital or as money, they were able to Cut ~33% of the value of this asset with their last 2 games alone. It is a joke. Trying to build winning culture in games that don't count is a joke.

If this is from management, to me its close to a fireable offence. If its just Tocchet trying to pad his win/loss stats because his contract is not long, then we again are in position where the coach and the management isn't aligned.

I can think of 10 legit ways and reasons to lower minutes for EP, QH, Demko and Miller. Demko I can sort of buy. They needed to build back his confidence. There is an alibi there.

Philly was our last battle brother of the perpetual retool and it sounds like they are now giving up.

This season has been the bleakest in franchise history.

Out of the playoffs before 20 games were played nothing to show for it to end the year. If this shit doesnt pay off next year, heads should roll at the management level. They set their own goal as playoffs this year and fell flat on their faces. They make moves like a contender instead of a team that is one of the worst in the league.

Now they better contend next year.

Please. Stop using the "video game logic" meme. It. Is. Embarrassing.

 

[DFAC]

Its funny that people can still argue the team was tanking… we literally played Hughes and Demko into the ground like we were chasing the last wild card spot. It’s ridiculous really

 

[Izzy Goodenough]

Their star players wanted to play a lot, and the coaches wanted to win, so it was only fitting the owner and managers of the Canucks put the future success of their Franchise, for years to come, in the hands of their employees, some of whom may not be here next year.

But isn't that what visionary leaders do?

 

[Diversification]

So... how 'bout those prospects we might be in position to draft now that we're locked into 11 OA?

 

[MS]

Just so I'm clear, your claim now is that moving up 3 spots in the standing in 2022-23 season is all that will take for Petey to buy in long term? That is your justification for accepting the late season surge?

Hughes and Demko are locked in with term so it doesn't even matter with them. But your reason to support this late season run is that, THIS ALONE, is the difference between whether Petey buy in long term or not? Had we finished 27th overall, Petey is gone. But now we finished 22nd, he's happy to sign long term?

I'm not saying anything remotely like that. I don't think the actual results right now even particular matter other than being an offshoot of the process.

They're trying to establish a process here and standards and a system of a winning team. They're trying to show these guys they're doing things the right way and that the things they're doing will turn this team around. And they're trying to show these players that they're 'the guys' here who will receive an opportunity to level up into superstar players for this franchise.

They're trying to show these guys a plan and a path where a Pettersson will say, 'yeah, I'm happy signing an 8-year deal this summer because I think we can turn things around'. If they did a Detroit and messaged that they don't care about next year and it's going to be another 2-3 years before doing anything of note, Pettersson is gone. 0

 

[MS]

I refuse this premise.

Taking a step back this year and the next year would not have cost us those players.


Except it obviously isn't. And you can see it all around the league this year and the past 20 years.

Stop trying to push this story as the truth.

Like I said I get not having the stomach for losing intentionally. But you cant start your argument from this ... ethical? point and try to work towards a logical conclusion.

Just say you don't like tanking. That is fine.

Could it be that just maybe you, Franky Aqualini and the ~5 posters on these boards that agree with you are wrong and everyone else is right?

I don't think you actually believe this is comparable to what the teams I listed (and other teams like Washington) did. Again the proof of it not being video game logic is right around us. Actually now right below us in the standings. It didn't even take that much work. Those teams will be reloading and passing us by while we work hard and burn our futures, trying to be slightly less bad.

NO TEAM played the living shit out of their star players like the Canucks did. If you consider draft picks as capital or as money, they were able to Cut ~33% of the value of this asset with their last 2 games alone. It is a joke. Trying to build winning culture in games that don't count is a joke.

If this is from management, to me its close to a fireable offence. If its just Tocchet trying to pad his win/loss stats because his contract is not long, then we again are in position where the coach and the management isn't aligned.

I can think of 10 legit ways and reasons to lower minutes for EP, QH, Demko and Miller. Demko I can sort of buy. They needed to build back his confidence. There is an alibi there.

Philly was our last battle brother of the perpetual retool and it sounds like they are now giving up.

This season has been the bleakest in franchise history.

Out of the playoffs before 20 games were played nothing to show for it to end the year. If this shit doesnt pay off next year, heads should roll at the management level. They set their own goal as playoffs this year and fell flat on their faces. They make moves like a contender instead of a team that is one of the worst in the league.

Now they better contend next year.

Please. Stop using the "video game logic" meme. It. Is. Embarrassing.

This whole post is just absurd superficial generalization.

No other teams in our region of the standings have superstar players of this calibre. Few other teams have an impetus to turn things around and win hockey games for next year. Teams Chicago and the lot don't have good players to play and don't plan on doing anything other than miss the playoffs for the next several years. Their situation has literally nothing to do with where we're at.

And your statements that NO TEAM acts like this aren't even correct. Go look at the icetime spikes for Stutzle/Sanderson etc. in Ottawa to close out the season which are even bigger than what happened here.

I'm sorry you don't like being told that you aren't applying critical thinking skills and are playing video games. But it's the truth.

 

[bandwagonesque]

When you factor in the schedule and the inevitable goaltending bump, we probably could have finished 8th worst at most by doing a couple extra things instead of 11th.

Here's 8 vs. 11 over a 15 draft span 2006-2020, with obvious superior players highlighted.

2006 : Peter Mueller vs. Jonathan Bernier
2007 : Zach Hamill vs. Brandon Sutter
2008 : Mikkel Boedker vs. Kyle Beach
2009 : Scott Glennie vs. Ryan Ellis
2010 : Alex Burmistrov vs. Jack Campbell
2011 : Sean Couturier vs. Duncan Siemens
2012 : Derek Pouliot vs. Filip Forsberg
2013 : Rasmus Ristolainen vs. Samuel Morin
2014 : William Nylander vs. Kevin Fiala
2015 : Zach Werenski vs. Lawson Crouse
2016 : Alex Nylander vs. Logan Brown
2017 : Casey Mittlestadt vs. Gabriel Vilardi
2018 : Adam Boquist vs, Oliver Wahlstrom
2019 : Philip Broberg vs. Viktor Soderstrom
2020 : Jack Quinn vs. Yaroslav Askarov

Over 15 years, #8 has a 4-3 edge in terms of having a significantly higher pick value. Both pick slots have 3 core/impact players selected (Couturier, Nylander, Werenski vs. Ellis, Forsberg, Fiala).

The hullaballoo that this is some sort of massive catastrophe is just not grounded in reality. There's a reason that the team prioritized the actual star players we have over the small value loss from dropping a couple spots.

You're leaving aside the improved lottery odds, which I think are far more important than any perceived or actual difference between the value of the picks where they currently sit.

 

[MS]

You're leaving aside the improved lottery odds, which I think are far more important than any perceived or actual difference between the value of the picks where they currently sit.

Fair. but that 3% vs. 6% is pretty unlikely to come into play. And most people here seem more upset by the drop to 11th than the drop in lottery odds, and I'm responding to that.

 

[Luck 6]

I understand the premise of showing these guys that were able to compete for the playoffs now. I don’t really like what it’s done to our draft position, but whatever, it is what it is…

Who’s available at 11th OA? I assume a good center or another winger that has fell in the rankings due to position.

Depending on who it is, Meh, might even consider trading the pick.

 

[bandwagonesque]

Fair. but that 3% vs. 6% is pretty unlikely to come into play. And most people here seem more upset by the drop to 11th than the drop in lottery odds, and I'm responding to that.

It's unlikely, but it's Bedard and Fantilli. I actually think the team should have done a bit more to lose a game or two, although it's quite possible it wouldn't have worked. Nothing drastic, just sit the best players a little more and ride Delia a little more in the last couple of weeks. But in general I agree with you.