Sprong on the top line is not a good look. Especially with EP.
Sorry but the Canucks absolutely can risk losing PDG or Aman on waivers. Useful players but also replaceable.
I know people don't love the D but I'm fine with seeing what they can do and feel Juulsen is being underrated now.
The bolded is relatively true. I think Aman probably slips through waivers easily enough. He's got literally zero offense to him at the NHL level and other teams out of camp will prefer their own guys get a look. Problem is...if they send him down to the berry Farm, the NHL club only has 4 NHL caliber Centers on it. That's a real problem if say...one of those 4 gets banged up for a game or two on a road trip or something. Double shift everyone else? Force someone who isn't a natural center at the NHL level to play there? How do you fill that critical role down the middle without calling someone up, which is cumbersome?
I do wonder about PDG though. Better than decent chance he clears, but he's a player Tocchet obviously likes and trusts. Would he do that to the guy, after he finally sorta "broke through" last year? Right back to being a journeyman mostly AHLer?
The other part though...everyone's just assuming we carry 8D. Which, given Soucy is injured half the time, Myers brain takes vacations, Forbort kinda sucks and can miss lots of time himself...isn't outlandish thinking.
But...looking at what we have and most are projecting, do we really need 2 spare RHD? I think Hronek-Myers-Desharnais is more solid than Hughes-Soucy-Forbort. And assuming Juulsen is kept around, they've already got a spare RHD.
Friedman is
also the sort of player you could slip through waivers just like PDG and even if you lose him for some reason, oh well.
More importantly however, is looking at what we have in terms of available cheap depth down on the farm. Where we've actually got some potentially decent options this year.
-Wolanin is probably better anyway.
- Hirose has already played games.
-McWard is a guy they've talked up as expecting a lot from this year and gave a loooong look at last camp.
-Woo is probably ready for a Cup O' Coffee.
-"Gilliam" is an old standby if healthy, who can play a few games probably.
-D.Petey might even be ready for a look at some point.
-Felton...who knows with College dudes, but being an older NCAA guy he might be able to play a game earlier too.
So...there's actually a lot to draw from there. Including Friedman if you sent him down and don't lose him (which i really don't think you do).
So i'd actually lean toward an 14F - 7D Lineup, personally. Given what we have and everyone's status at this point. I think Aman and Podkolzin's waiver status kind of forces the hand a bit on things from a roster management standpoint.
Some scattered lineup thoughts.
I'm a little skeptical of the Sprong - Pettersson - DeBrusk thing, to be honest. It's very tempting, but if it were that easy, Sprong would have been a top sixer on other teams already. And while Pettersson and DeBrusk are strong defensively, it's not like they're Malhotra - Hansen or anything. Mikheyev and Pettersson still mightily struggled with covering for Kuzmenko's poor defense. Willing to try it initially anyways, though. I have concerns about someone with bad habits playing anywhere near Pettersson, too, since his own consistency can be so volatile.
I'd be tempted to try him with Miller - Boeser, since it seems like they don't strictly need a third linemate to be good/reliable and can completely carry the line at both ends. Offensively, he could be like the Tanguay to their Sakic/Forsberg - Hejduk. That intrigues me a lot, although you couldn't use it as a shutdown line anymore. Also, Miller seems a lot more likely to at least somewhat hold his feet to the fire defensively. (the guy arguably needs a scolding)
Also, while I have been staunchly against moving Blueger off of the Garland line in the past, and argued that he was getting underrated for his contribution to it, I am very tempted to try swapping Suter/Blueger this time. They COULD end up being similarly effective in that Joshua-Garland role, but Blueger fits Hoglander/Sherwood's identity much more than Suter does, IMO (and Hoglander ideally should have someone cover for him defensively, and Blueger is more suited to that). He's much closer to a far superior Aman. I also feel like Suter's smart plays in tight spaces offensive game would be underutilized playing with a totally tunnel-vision straight line player like Hoglander.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but while Suter's been solid defensively, I feel like people have somewhat blown that out of proportion. I would not consider him a shutdown forward even though he played that role with Miller (but I mean, so did Di Giuseppe-- worse, but still). He was never the catalyst of that line's shutdown ability-- just a good third man support guy in that regard.
While I wouldn't go as far as to call it my ideal line-up, I'd be tempted to experiment with mixing it up like this:
Sprong - Miller - Boeser
Heinen - Pettersson - DeBrusk
Joshua - Suter - Garland
Hoglander - Blueger - Sherwood
There's a decent chance that'd click and completely blow us away, IMO.
All really good points imo. Agree with pretty much everything there. Except for kind of contradicting your one really good point about JT Miller as a matchup line and poor fit with Sprong...but penciling him in there anyway.
As well as looking at him as a Tanguay to anybody's anything. Tanguay was a legitimately top flight playmaker in his day - which Sprong is not. But otherwise, really astute observations all around.
Thanks. The Hoglander/Sprong thing is such a weird dynamic to me. They'd both ideally be on the 4th line generating everything on their own, but putting them both there would be too much of a liability (and I feel like they stylistically don't mix, either).
I generally don't like Hoglander with Pettersson. It's such a bad fit, and was only ever necessary because Pettersson was playing so poorly and unable to do anything on his own. It reminds me of when Mason Raymond was the only viable option with late-career Sedins after the wheels fell off. You reluctantly accept it due to the circumstances where they just need absolutely anything to at least keep them in the offensive zone, but you hope for something more optimal for both parties. I also feel like DeBrusk's game already accomplishes the help that Pettersson needed from Hoglander without the drawbacks, so I really don't see why Hoglander is necessary there anymore.
You would have to completely give up on the Miller line being given high leverage defensive responsibilities if Sprong were on it, but I feel like the tradeoff of them potentially clicking offensively could be worth it, provided that the other two are able to at least saw off his defensive issues and break even. Again, it reminds me of the Tanguay effect on the Colorado top lines, where Tanguay himself was pretty abysmal defensively (but with those guys, it didn't really matter).
More really good observations.
That weird dynamic with Hoglander is why the Sprong signing seems to peculiar to me. They're very much "same same - but different" players. Both really a sort of, "wind 'em up on the 4th line and let 'em do their own thing and score their goals in those limited softer minutes". Which...maybe they
do try to run something like that, put Suter between them and call it like, "Babby's First Scoring Line" or something. Give them baby poop soft leftover minutes for babies and hope they can just absolutely decimate them? Which
is entirely possible if they mesh.
As above, i don't think Suter is this defensive whiz that he's painted as here for some reason. But he's smart and savvy enough to i think just sit back and play "3rd man high" to those two a lot and if they click, maybe that's good enough to keep it afloat defensively?
It's just a bit weird having slightly different duplicates of the same weird "4th line scoring winger with warts".
100% agree on the Pettersson + Hoggy thing though. I just don't like it. On paper, it should maybe work somehow. But on the ice, it just doesn't. Hoglander plays with zero continuity or flow and thrives in it. Whereas Pettersson's entire offensive game is predicated on clever puck control and possession and working to dangerous prime opportunities that way. It just doesn't mesh between them. I don't get what the fixation with continually trying to force that square peg into a round hole is about...other than...Hoglander scored a good number of goals (largely playing
not with Pettersson) and they're both Swedish or something, so it's supposed to work like magic?
