2023 Tank Thread - Die Hard for Bedard

[Canuck Luck]

I don't doubt the Canucks are trying to move pieces. But who can afford these guys at the moment. All the good teams are capped out.

Take on guys with expiring contracts or even 2 year deals. In the case of horvat using a retention slot but Aquaman probably would never allow that.

Depending on colorados preference to fill their 2C hole:

miller for compher + 23 1st + OR add dermott for girard + 2nd and flip girard

Either of these as a base makes the cap work for both teams

Just random spitball here with Carolina:
horvat for kotkaniemi + 2nd or staal + 1st
If we could retain on bo we could even do horvat 50% retained for fast + 1st +

Boeser to NYI for a 1st + Panik closer to the deadline when their 2M in cap space becomes 8M due to it accuring

Garland to Calgary for zadorov + 1st or dube + 2nd

Stillman to LA for a 5th

Dermott to

There’s ways to trade these guys off and get picks and or lesser players to that are young enough to stay as we rebuild over the next 2-3 years

 

[Canuck Luck]

Delete double post

 

[Ruthervin]

The Half Glass Full Approach - and if all else fails, a full blown tank:

Yesterday, I made a lot of sarcastic posts as a way of venting my anger in a passive-aggressive manner, but I do however want to clarify my exact stance on our current situation. Even though we've lost our first four games, I do believe that the Canucks have earned the right to be looked at in a "half glass manner" approach for the simple fact that they've held multiple goal leads in all four of their losses. Philadelphia is 3-0 this year while Edmonton and Washington are solid teams, and the Canucks had multiple goal leads against all three of these teams. This, all the while, not being fully healthy (sans Columbus game). If the Canucks were being blown out in all of these games 4-1, 5-2, etc., or were losing games without ever really being in it (i.e. scoring last minute goals to keep games artificially close), then yes, I could definitely see the need to panic........but this hasn't happened yet.

So what does this mean? While it could mean that the Canucks simply aren't good enough, it could also mean that the Canucks are just a slight nudge or a slight victory away from "getting over that mental hurdle" and turning the ship.

Given the manner in which we've lost, the Canucks have earned the right to buy more time to prove that they are good enough to be kept together. HOWEVER (and this is a big however) IF the Canucks are out of it by American Thanksgiving, then I'm in favour of Team Tank................and by team tank, I don't just mean moving Horvat, Garland, and Miller. By team tank, I literally mean moving ALL of our top talents for picks and prospects and going HARD after Bedard.

Demko, Petterson, Hughes, Kuzmenko, Boeser, Garland, Miller, and Horvat all gone for massive combinations of elite prospects and picks. Build a HUGE farm, secure young core pieces in all positions, and land Bedard. Weaponize cap space for even more picks and prospects (targeting vets on bad contracts that have 2 years left on their contracts......*maybe* 3).

Back in 2014, it was impossible to completely tank for McDavid due to the contracts that we had on our team. This year however, it wouldn't be impossible.

So that's my exact stance:

1) Give this current core a little bit more rope and chance to turn the ship around by virtue of the way they've been losing (i.e. losing, but still having the ability to race out to multiple goal leads in all of their games so far).

2) If they still can't turn it around, do a TANK........but not just any tank. Complete and utter scorched earth firesale tank in which they completely rebuild and revamp their prospect pool, while giving themselves the best possible chance to land hometown hero Bedard.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

Take on guys with expiring contracts or even 2 year deals. In the case of horvat using a retention slot but Aquaman probably would never allow that.

Depending on colorados preference to fill their 2C hole:

miller for compher + 23 1st + OR add dermott for girard + 2nd and flip girard

Either of these as a base makes the cap work for both teams

Just random spitball here with Carolina:
horvat for kotkaniemi + 2nd or staal + 1st
If we could retain on bo we could even do horvat 50% retained for fast + 1st +

Boeser to NYI for a 1st + Panik closer to the deadline when their 2M in cap space becomes 8M due to it accuring

Garland to Calgary for zadorov + 1st or dube + 2nd

Stillman to LA for a 5th

Dermott to

There’s ways to trade these guys off and get picks and or lesser players to that are young enough to stay as we rebuild over the next 2-3 years

Maybe I'm too pessimistic but I don't think any of the above proposals, save the Horvat one, are realistic.
Avs will not want anything to do with JTM's new contract, not with MacKinnon's new dealing kicking in soon. JTM on his current expiring contract would be valuable to them, but the new 7x8? Not a chance.
Boeser is a slow one-dimensional scorer who lost his scoring touch. Plus he's on a 3 year deal worth over $6m AAV. He's a cap dump at this point, better and more productive wingers were moved for very little recently, Boeser doesn't return anything close to a 1st.
I doubt Garland return a 1st either, similar reason as Boeser above. Wingers just aren't very valuable when most of the teams are capped out.
LA I think can do better than Stillman.

I'm thinking that aside from Horvat, EP, Hughes, Demkos and the kids on ELC, none of the players on the NHL roster has positive trade value in this cap environment. Even if we try to tank, we are going to be hard pressed to get many high picks. If they decide to blow it up, it's not the JTM/Boeser/Garland/OEL/Myers that gets moved because they are worthless, it will be EP, Hughes, Demkos and Horvat.

 

[lawrence]

If we tank , petey, podz, hogs, Hughes and demko has to stay. Everyone else is tradeable,

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Depends on what you want to accomplish. If you want to flail around trying to sneak into a wildcard spot for the next 5 years (before you actually rebuild) you could do that. If you're actually serious about building a contender and possibly winning a Cup, you probably need to start thinking about a rather significant roster turnover right now.

There are a number of media members at this point that have basically said they don't see more than 2-3 of the current players even being on the roster the next time the Canucks are legitimately a perennial playoff team.

That is what should have started at last TDL

 

[Yultron]

If we tank , petey, podz, hogs, Hughes and demko has to stay. Everyone else is tradeable,

Klimovich and JL stay aswell

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

What would Vancouver want from Buffalo for Myers? No retention.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

What would Vancouver want from Buffalo for Myers? No retention.

Biggest issue is what comes back.

Nucks would need some piece that is a dman and preferably RHD. They'd want Jokihariju but that's not going to happen.

There's lots of nice C prospects I would personally take but the deal would really need a dman unless Van trades a forward for a dman in a separate (or larger) deal.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Biggest issue is what comes back.

Nucks would need some piece that is a dman and preferably RHD. They'd want Jokihariju but that's not going to happen.

There's lots of nice C prospects I would personally take but the deal would really need a dman unless Van trades a forward for a dman in a separate (or larger) deal.

Buffalo has a couple prospect defenders. I don't think it's impossible that Buffalo would trade Jokihariju, but for Myres straight up (and at 100%) that seems less likely.

Laaksonen is a 23 year old RHD in the AHL. That might make sense if Vancouver wanted a more ready prospect, and to save cap space. Getting someone ready for their roster right now would be harder. Pilut or Byrson I would assume are tradeable.

 

[Canuck Luck]

Maybe I'm too pessimistic but I don't think any of the above proposals, save the Horvat one, are realistic.
Avs will not want anything to do with JTM's new contract, not with MacKinnon's new dealing kicking in soon. JTM on his current expiring contract would be valuable to them, but the new 7x8? Not a chance.
Boeser is a slow one-dimensional scorer who lost his scoring touch. Plus he's on a 3 year deal worth over $6m AAV. He's a cap dump at this point, better and more productive wingers were moved for very little recently, Boeser doesn't return anything close to a 1st.
I doubt Garland return a 1st either, similar reason as Boeser above. Wingers just aren't very valuable when most of the teams are capped out.
LA I think can do better than Stillman.

I'm thinking that aside from Horvat, EP, Hughes, Demkos and the kids on ELC, none of the players on the NHL roster has positive trade value in this cap environment. Even if we try to tank, we are going to be hard pressed to get many high picks. If they decide to blow it up, it's not the JTM/Boeser/Garland/OEL/Myers that gets moved because they are worthless, it will be EP, Hughes, Demkos and Horvat.

I’d say maybe you’re somewhat right but moreso being too pesimistic. All the teams I've made proposals with have their windows for contention now. late 1st/2nd round picks do nothing for them vs adding strong top 6 or complimentary top 6 pieces instead.

Colorado can absolutely afford Miller if they wanted to add more scoring upfront and sacrifice some D depth. After this season they have 13 players signed and 16M cap space (if cap goes up 4M). 8M goes to Miller. Their roster with Miller would have 8M in cap space and the only notable players they need to re-sign are Byram and Newhook. The rest are bottom 6F. The only issue will be how much Byram wants. I cant imagine Newhook comands more than 2.5M at this point. Realistically they have to move off Girard I'd imagine, something which Avs fans already want to do because they see him as an uneccessary luxury with Toews/Byram around on the left side.

Having a top 6 of:
Landeskog Mackinnon Rantanen
Lehkonen Miller Nichuskin

A D core of:
Toews Makar
Bryam Manson

All locked up to deals is a pretty strong roster to fill out

I'd say theres teams that would still pay for Boeser. If you hear the media talk about Boeser, they say the industry believes hes a strong 2 way player vs a 1 dimensional sniper now. His scoring has taken a hit but they believe its due to him being more defensively responsible.

NYI fans on the mainboards have been 50/50 of trading Adam Pelech for him straight up. To ease your thoughts though we could probably agree to setle on the fact he would return Beauvillier + 2nd at the very least?

You're probably right on Garland not returning a 1st. Of the players I made proposals for, he's the one i'd least want to move anyways. However I think CGY or EDM would pay a roster player + 2nd minimum. SOmething like Zadorov/Dube + 2nd from CGY or Puljujarvi + 2nd from EDM.

So I think even if we managed to get minimal returns on all 4 of them, we still add 2 1sts + 2 2nds whilst clearing 11+M after this season. In the off-season when teams have more cap to play with, we can even flip Beauvillier for a 2nd or 2 3rds clearing another 4M.

 

[Canuck Luck]

What would Vancouver want from Buffalo for Myers? No retention.

Its tough to say. Our D is ass and Myers definitely stablizes it. With the premium RHD cost it likely won't be as cheap as you'd think reading HFBoards. IMO at worst Myers is our 3rd best defender by a fair margin. The only RHD that are hitting the market better next off-season are Zub/Dumba/Severson/Klingberg so replacing him probably wont be possible either.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I cant believe the vibes (tm) around this team are right back where they were 12 months ago... How the f***?!

 

[Shareefruck]

I cant believe the vibes (tm) around this team are right back where they were 12 months ago... How the f***?!

I mean, anyone who wasn't at best merely cautiously optimistic about this season and aware of possible disaster wasn't really paying attention. So many things have to go right for this to go right. (and they still might, but there was always going to be a ton of uncertainty/skepticism)

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I mean, anyone who wasn't at best merely cautiously optimistic about this season and aware of possible disaster wasn't really paying attention. So many things have to go right for this to go right. (and they still might, but there was always going to be a ton of uncertainty/skepticism)

I dont mean winning.

I mean it seems toxic as hell around the team

 

[credulous]

Colorado can absolutely afford Miller if they wanted to add more scoring upfront and sacrifice some D depth. After this season they have 13 players signed and 16M cap space (if cap goes up 4M). 8M goes to Miller. Their roster with Miller would have 8M in cap space and the only notable players they need to re-sign are Byram and Newhook. The rest are bottom 6F. The only issue will be how much Byram wants. I cant imagine Newhook comands more than 2.5M at this point. Realistically they have to move off Girard I'd imagine, something which Avs fans already want to do because they see him as an uneccessary luxury with Toews/Byram around on the left side.

you're overestimating how far 8m goes when you have 8-9 roster spots to fill. you can't play that many league min guys and be competitive

if you give byram 3m (too little, imo, but for argument's sake) and newhook 2m (ditto) you need to fit at least 6 players into 3m which means 750k each. they currently pay their bottom six 5.2 mil and that's with helm (1.25) on IR. it's nearly 6m if you subtract jayson megna and insert helm. it's not realistic

 

[Shareefruck]

I dont mean winning.

I mean it seems toxic as hell around the team

Oh, are you talking about the chemistry of the team itself? I thought you were talking about the attitude posters here have towards the team, nevermind.

 

[iFan]

I cant believe the vibes (tm) around this team are right back where they were 12 months ago... How the f***?!

because our lazy management group kept the band together. You can’t keep the same team with all the same issue and expect a different result. Locker room issues with this group have been known for years and nothing has been done about it.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

I’d say maybe you’re somewhat right but moreso being too pesimistic. All the teams I've made proposals with have their windows for contention now. late 1st/2nd round picks do nothing for them vs adding strong top 6 or complimentary top 6 pieces instead.

Colorado can absolutely afford Miller if they wanted to add more scoring upfront and sacrifice some D depth. After this season they have 13 players signed and 16M cap space (if cap goes up 4M). 8M goes to Miller. Their roster with Miller would have 8M in cap space and the only notable players they need to re-sign are Byram and Newhook. The rest are bottom 6F. The only issue will be how much Byram wants. I cant imagine Newhook comands more than 2.5M at this point. Realistically they have to move off Girard I'd imagine, something which Avs fans already want to do because they see him as an uneccessary luxury with Toews/Byram around on the left side.

Having a top 6 of:
Landeskog Mackinnon Rantanen
Lehkonen Miller Nichuskin

A D core of:
Toews Makar
Bryam Manson

All locked up to deals is a pretty strong roster to fill out

I'd say theres teams that would still pay for Boeser. If you hear the media talk about Boeser, they say the industry believes hes a strong 2 way player vs a 1 dimensional sniper now. His scoring has taken a hit but they believe its due to him being more defensively responsible.

NYI fans on the mainboards have been 50/50 of trading Adam Pelech for him straight up. To ease your thoughts though we could probably agree to setle on the fact he would return Beauvillier + 2nd at the very least?

You're probably right on Garland not returning a 1st. Of the players I made proposals for, he's the one i'd least want to move anyways. However I think CGY or EDM would pay a roster player + 2nd minimum. SOmething like Zadorov/Dube + 2nd from CGY or Puljujarvi + 2nd from EDM.

So I think even if we managed to get minimal returns on all 4 of them, we still add 2 1sts + 2 2nds whilst clearing 11+M after this season. In the off-season when teams have more cap to play with, we can even flip Beauvillier for a 2nd or 2 3rds clearing another 4M.

Issue with Colorado isn't their immediate future. By the 2024-25 season they have $62.5m committed to 10 players, with Rantanen and Georgiev both pending UFA. Say the cap goes up to $100m, I can't see Rantanen taking less than 11.2% of the cap like he currently is, and Georgiev (or any decent starting G) will common at least $5m. With that bare minimum increase they are already at $78.6m. They still have to make room for Toews, a backup goalie, the complete bottom 6 and 3 more D's. And then we get to Byram. He is a premium D and will certainly be paid as one sometime during JTM's contract. You can bridge him for a couple years but eventually he'll commend $8m+. There is just no money for a moody player that is not defensively reliable. Miller would really only be an asset to the Avs this season, once his new contract kicks in he is an anchor, I would be shocked if Sakic doesn't see that.

If the industry see Boeser as a 2 way player...we'll all I can say is I disagree. I had preferred if we didn't qualify him last summer vs signing him to this extension, so he is negative value to me. If we can get assets for him, awesome, NHL GMs does some crazy things sometimes. Brock the person is top notch and I feel bad for his personal tragedy, but Brock the NHL player doesn't hold very much value at his cap hit.

I honestly think Dube and Puljujarvi might have more value than Garland currently. Cheaper AAV, shorter contract, younger etc. I would be happy to get a 1 for 1 without picks added on.

Again the valuations for me hinges mainly on the contract term and AAV, in a capped league those factors are just as important than the counting stats, if not more. Therefore these guys all have negative values IMO. Love to be proven wrong though.

 

[Ruthervin]

If we tank , petey, podz, hogs, Hughes and demko has to stay. Everyone else is tradeable,

There would be no point of that. If we went in the rebuild direction, Petey would leave in two years a la Matt Tkachuk. Demko and Hughes would be at or close to their contract expiration by the time this team got competitive again. Hoglander and Podkolzin - yes, they could stay in this hypothetical blow-up situation.

 

[BenningHurtsMySoul]

Bedard
Fantilli
Michkov
Carlsson
Yager

All of these players would go 1st or 2nd in the last 5-6 years. The top end of this draft is can't miss.

 

[Canuck Luck]

you're overestimating how far 8m goes when you have 8-9 roster spots to fill. you can't play that many league min guys and be competitive

if you give byram 3m (too little, imo, but for argument's sake) and newhook 2m (ditto) you need to fit at least 6 players into 3m which means 750k each. they currently pay their bottom six 5.2 mil and that's with helm (1.25) on IR. it's nearly 6m if you subtract jayson megna and insert helm. it's not realistic

Which is why I said realistically they have to move off Girard either now or in the off-season if they take on Miller. My proposal even had an option to be based around Girard which would clear another 5M.

Issue with Colorado isn't their immediate future. By the 2024-25 season they have $62.5m committed to 10 players, with Rantanen and Georgiev both pending UFA. Say the cap goes up to $100m, I can't see Rantanen taking less than 11.2% of the cap like he currently is, and Georgiev (or any decent starting G) will common at least $5m. With that bare minimum increase they are already at $78.6m. They still have to make room for Toews, a backup goalie, the complete bottom 6 and 3 more D's. And then we get to Byram. He is a premium D and will certainly be paid as one sometime during JTM's contract. You can bridge him for a couple years but eventually he'll commend $8m+. There is just no money for a moody player that is not defensively reliable. Miller would really only be an asset to the Avs this season, once his new contract kicks in he is an anchor, I would be shocked if Sakic doesn't see that.

If the industry see Boeser as a 2 way player...we'll all I can say is I disagree. I had preferred if we didn't qualify him last summer vs signing him to this extension, so he is negative value to me. If we can get assets for him, awesome, NHL GMs does some crazy things sometimes. Brock the person is top notch and I feel bad for his personal tragedy, but Brock the NHL player doesn't hold very much value at his cap hit.

I honestly think Dube and Puljujarvi might have more value than Garland currently. Cheaper AAV, shorter contract, younger etc. I would be happy to get a 1 for 1 without picks added on.

Again the valuations for me hinges mainly on the contract term and AAV, in a capped league those factors are just as important than the counting stats, if not more. Therefore these guys all have negative values IMO. Love to be proven wrong though.

For a team that just won the stanley cup last season and is in their contention window right now, why would they overtly care about having to maneuver cap for the 2026 season? They have 3 more years to win before that comes up. In a cap world theres no such thing as building a dynasty that lasts 5+ years like you could pre-cap. The only way that happens is you get extremely lucky drafting and developing players. If you look at any cup winner they have all followed the model of rebuilding until they had numerous assets, then going all in on their 3-5 year window, then going back into a rebuild. The only teams that has not really done that in the last 20 years is Boston and Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay I don't realy count because they move off most of their roster players when it comes time to pay unless they are franchise level players whereas no other team has been willing to do so until the window has closed. Colorado could do that by tarding guys like Nuke and Lehtonen when they need cap space but it remains to be seen.

If you look at Colorado's whole philosphy, they dont think you need more than an average goalie to win. They are betting on having such a stacked forward and d core that you can bail your average goalie out. As soon as Geo prices himself out, he's gone just like Keumper. They could take on almost any goalie to replace them and they wont be worse off. Geogriev is ass, not even a top 30 goalie IMO and most Rangers fans would agree. Keumper was carried by Colorado and is a bottom 15 NHL starter at best. It wont be hard to replace the goalie they won the cup with and the goalie they have today.

Id say this is where your pessimism is kicking in. Yes cap space has value but what good is that cap space if you have the player you're replacing will cost the same or more unless you downgrade? You saw similar level players to Garland/Boeser getting 4.5M+ for the same term or longer just a few months ago. Ryan Strome got 5M x 4 years, Andreww Copp got 5.625M x 5 years, Trochek got 5.625M x 7, Rickard Rackell got 5M x 6, Evander Kane got 5.125M x 4,
The Canucks themselves signed Ilya Mikeheyev got 4.75M x 4 and he is much much worse than Boeser/Garland.
So what good is the cap space to teams competing if they are going to have to spend the same term and dollars for similar or lesser players? With the cap going up, its going to be lesser and lesser players. The only teams that would value the cap space are rebuilding teams so they can weaponize it to take on bad contracts for assets like a Monahan or Kassian or take on some good players that are cap casualties like Buchnevich or Bjorkstrand or McDonagh at below normal trade market value.

There is no world where Boeser is negative value when he would get an even better contract on the UFA market than he has right now. Its also why NYI fans are 50/50 on giving up Pelech straight up for him.

Same thing with Garland. No way Puljujarvi holds anywhere near the value of Garland. You're seeing 2M in cap savings but 2M in cap savings doesn't replace what you just lost. Puljujarvi is a 40pt player when you play him with McDavid/Draisaitl. Imagine how little he will produce playing in Garland's role here. Probably 10-20 points. Connor Garland is a 50 point player. 2M cap savings won't do anything for anyone. Dube sure maybe because imo he's underultilzed in CGY and I think he could be Garland lite. Even then if you're trading Garland for a guy that is Garland lite and his potential is Garland, cap savings are pointless to do the downgrade unless you need the cap to re-sign your better free agents. Canucks don't have anyone to re-sign in this hypothetical situation. Calgary its a no brainer, they get a Dube at max potential signed to a reasonable long term deal they would end up giving Dube himself if he hits in 2 years.

 

[Ruthervin]

because our lazy management group kept the band together. You can’t keep the same team with all the same issue and expect a different result. Locker room issues with this group have been known for years and nothing has been done about it.

Or perhaps, "nothing has been done about it" because these so-called lockerroom issues were either completely fabricated or wildly exaggerated.

Big difference between a team having heated discussions behind closed doors when losing, and there being a Linden-Messier/Keenan type toxic situation.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Or perhaps, "nothing has been done about it" because these so-called lockerroom issues were either completely fabricated or wildly exaggerated.

Big difference between a team having heated discussions behind closed doors when losing, and there being a Linden-Messier/Keenan type toxic situation.

Its pretty obvious that is not the case.

 

[Ruthervin]

Its pretty obvious that is not the case.

You might be right but I'm not seeing any evidence of it so far.

People keep citing the Myers article but he didn't allude to a 'lockerroom rift' whatsoever. He did however state that the young guys need to be more vocal in the lockerroom while not getting so down on themselves after a loss. He spoke about the loss of Tanev and Markstrom and how their presence is sorely missed.

I truly apologize but I just am not seeing what you (and a number of others) are seeing. Hamonic wasn't liked in the lockerroom and so he was dealt. Gaudette was moved after be broke team protocol and spread covid onto the team and so he was moved immediately.

My point being this - if there is an actual toxic lockerroom and lockerroom rift going on, it would have been dealt with promptly. It's just common sense with all due respect.