Canucks Management and Ownership Thread v30.0 (Post #186)

[Peter10]

i thought it was a crazy signing and would blow up in his face.

but now i think it was among his best. playing lack and markstrom with the team we had/have in front of them would have been a disaster that ruined both goalies. miller stabilized our goaltending for 3 years when we sucked, and gave markstrom a chance to develop into a number one. and there is a good chance miller has decent trade value at the tdl. not to mention lack fetched some lottery picks.

the truly insane part is i think resigning miller is worth thinking about. not at $6 million but maybe at $3 or $4million. right now i think we could squeeze at least another year out of him and markstrom together.

Not sure if you are serious...

Läck is a disaster now since he got removed from where he felt comfortable and clearly did like it. Now he has got to deal with a ****** goalie coach, having a guy in front of him who will always be the #1 just by default (past performance and the issue within his family will always give Ward a + within the organization) and he clearly struggles right now. You cant tell me it would have been worse for him if Benning didnt sign Miller and kept him in Van? You couldnt have ruined Läck any more than Carolina did even if you tried very very hard.

As for Markstrom, yeah it might be nice for him to have Miller around but again no reason to pay Miller high end Starter money to be a mentor and teacher. Miller gets the kind of money which is normally reserved for clear cut no 1 goalies who usally get backed up by journeyman dude playing 15-20 games a year. Miller currently plays the role of a veteran mentor who is easing the young guy in. The only problem is that he is getting all star salary and preferred starts.

 

[banme*]

Yup.

My suggestion at the time was Thomas Greiss, who has actually been better than Ryan Miller over the past 3 years as a $1 million goalie.

You've also made various posts about going into the year with Lack and Markstrom being fine, which kind of conflicts with your desire to retool/ice a competitive roster. Unless those aren't connected, i.e. if you wanted to ice a competitive roster, you wouldn't have been fine going into the year with Lack and Markstrom.

Almost everyone here has said that signing a cheap veteran 1b type would have been just fine. Most of us didn't want to go into the season with lack and Markstrom. Markstrom especially had shown nothing at that point.

It's a red herring, a strawman and a false dilemma. I would have been fine with the contract Calgary gave Jonas Hiller at the time, even though he sucked in the second year.

Benning took the worst option - sign a proven vet for a term longer than any of the two remaining prospect goalies we had under contract (one of whom was a pending UFA & both weren't waiver exempt).

Jesus christ guys lol. I personally would have stuck with Lack and Markstrom and tanked the year, I hated the Miller signing. Yes Benning ****ing sucks, I get it.

 

[Peter10]

Benning on 1040 just said he watches highlight videos of Boeser's goals.... I wonder if those are WTG's clips?

Ok just listen to it...

"The fun part is drafting and developing players and watching them grow... we have seen that with the Ben Huttons, Bo Horvats, Sven Baertschis, Jakob Markstroms.."

Note to Mr Benning: You havent drafted a single one of them, 3 were already there when you joined the club, the other you traded for. How is the development going for Virtanen, McCann, Boeser...? are you watching them grow? No you dont? Oh yeah Virtanen is barely playing in the NHL then sent to the AHL, McCann is traded to Florida and Boeser you said you didnt even watch a game of him this year only saw some hightlights? Sorry but this is how i do my scouting for my FHL leagues and even i track better there without having any clue.

 

[MS]

i thought it was a crazy signing and would blow up in his face.

Ok, I'm with you so far.

but now i think it was among his best. playing lack and markstrom with the team we had/have in front of them would have been a disaster that ruined both goalies.

Based on what? Why would they have played worse with each other than with Miller?

Why couldn't both have succeeded? There are plenty of other young goalie tandems in the NHL. And they aren't even all that young - 24 and 26 years old at the time of Miller's signing. This wasn't a couple kids.

This is just complete and utter speculation based on absolutely nothing.

And again, why couldn't we have signed a Greiss at 1/6 the price to have the same effect?

miller stabilized our goaltending for 3 years when we sucked,

Again, how? By churning out below-average stats? How is spending $6 million on a goalie who doesn't make you better a good thing?

Again, this is a guy who hasn't been able to outplay his backups for 3 straight years. And he hasn't provided 'stable' goaltending. He's been all over the place like a yo-yo.

and gave markstrom a chance to develop into a number one.

Sorry, but this is ridiculous. All Miller has done is block Markstrom. Markstrom has looked ready to be handed the #1 spot since last Christmas and our coach is still starting Miller 75% of the time when healthy. It's a complete joke.

and there is a good chance miller has decent trade value at the tdl. not to mention lack fetched some lottery picks.

Doubt we get much, especially after the way he collapsed with St. Louis a couple years ago.

the truly insane part is i think resigning miller is worth thinking about. not at $6 million but maybe at $3 or $4million. right now i think we could squeeze at least another year out of him and markstrom together.

Why? So we can keep dressing a mediocre 37 y/o goalie for 50-60 starts/year instead of actually giving game time to players who can help us long term?

 

[MS]

You've also made various posts about going into the year with Lack and Markstrom being fine, which kind of conflicts with your desire to retool/ice a competitive roster. Unless those aren't connected, i.e. if you wanted to ice a competitive roster, you wouldn't have been fine going into the year with Lack and Markstrom.

I would personally have signed a Greiss as a safety net.

But I would have been fine with going into the season with Lack and Markstrom. Both guys are/were league average goalies, same as Miller. Nothing would have been different, except we would have had $6 million to improve our blueline or add scoring depth.

My issue with Miller has always been that he's been $6 million for a .910 guy who wasn't an upgrade on guys we had or guys we could have acquired for cheap and provided the same thing. And I've been proven completely correct on this.

 

[Huggy43]

Was it just a random quote or another full interview and if so...any other happenings during it?

Full interview, unfortunately I was at work so didn't catch it in its entirety. However the only other thing that I had issue with from that interview got brought up by another poster

 

[Peter10]

the truly insane part is i think resigning miller is worth thinking about. not at $6 million but maybe at $3 or $4million. right now i think we could squeeze at least another year out of him and markstrom together.

Insane indeed to be honest. If developt correctly Markstrom should be able by now to carry the load or at least by next season which would make another year of Miller at any price absolutely redundant. But yet again Miller got the majority of starts last year despite not being any better then Markström. Only after Miller got injured Marky caught up some starts. Similar to this year, if Miller doesnt get sick/injured after game two and doesnt get the flu do you really think he is anywhere close in terms of starts? From what i gathered the injuries early october kept Miller out for at least 3 games early in october and the recent flu caused him to miss 2 at least. So even if you are very conservative Miller would be at 14 games now and Markstrom at 7. This is not how you develop your future starter.

 

[RandV]

i thought it was a crazy signing and would blow up in his face.

but now i think it was among his best. playing lack and markstrom with the team we had/have in front of them would have been a disaster that ruined both goalies. miller stabilized our goaltending for 3 years when we sucked, and gave markstrom a chance to develop into a number one. and there is a good chance miller has decent trade value at the tdl. not to mention lack fetched some lottery picks.

the truly insane part is i think resigning miller is worth thinking about. not at $6 million but maybe at $3 or $4million. right now i think we could squeeze at least another year out of him and markstrom together.

Markstrom has been developed into a #1? I have a problem with this reasoning, yes Markstrom played great in Utica for the 2014-15 season then did well in the NHL in the 2015-16 season. But while it's possible it was the case there's nothing definitive to say the latter happened because of the former.

Markstrom wasn't a green rookie, he'd been bouncing back and forth between the NHL/AHL for 4 seasons with Florida. He was always highly talented, so perhaps all he needed was to get out of low budget Florida and start working with a great goalie coach like Rollie. And it's not like he got the full starters load in Utica... for the playoffs yes, and that was great for him, but in the regular season he only played 32 games. There was an injury along the way and he was otherwise splitting duties with Eriksson.

We don't know what the results would be if he got the chance to stay with Vancouver in 2014-15 and got 30-40 games playing with Lack. But like I said, he already had plenty of experience playing in the AHL, and a big thing he needed was getting out of Florida and working with a good goalie coach.

If you look at the whole situation from hindsight now, so far Miller has been the shoehorned 1A starter for all 3 seasons while he's been healthy in Vancouver. Nothing changed when Lack proved better when Miller was hurt, and the same thing last season with Markstrom. For all this supposed 'development time' Miller has afforded us, on the 3rd year of his contract 20 games into the season Markstrom is sitting with 10 starts, only that high because Miller had an injury, and a 0.897 sv%.

I don't see how this could possibly be better than having stuck with a Lack/Markstrom combo 3 years ago.

 

[Peter10]

Full interview, unfortunately I was at work so didn't catch it in its entirety. However the only other thing that I had issue with from that interview got brought up by another poster

Yeah thanks. Had a go for the stream on the TSN1040 twitter... Its just as terrible as expected. Just another moment of being embarrassed to be a Canucks fan. Over the last couple of years I spent in the lower 5 diget number in terms of dollars for vacations in Vancouver mainly to watch the Canucks (still great other stuff to do), merchandise and whatever. I love this team to no end and will never stop to do so but to be honest I am really disgusted by how the organisation is looking right now. We are the laughing stock of the league right now, what used to be Edmonton or Calgary or even Carolina...thats us right now and its brought to us by Mr Jim Benning and Mr Assclown Weisbrod. I still cant understand how you can employ people like this who obviously have no clue about whats going on or how to keep a franchise afloat.

All of this feels like having a wonderful girlfriend only to have her turn to some idiotic moron who tells her to pimp up her breasts with silicon, blow up the lips and the rear end. At first glance it might not look too bad until you move an inch closer and notice how terrible it is in reality. All of "good looks" are just fake and can barely stand the eye test, yet they are spending an insane amount of assets just to look good again for another minute or two but fail to notice that it will look incredible aweful in a month.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Not sure if you are serious...

Läck is a disaster now since he got removed from where he felt comfortable and clearly did like it. Now he has got to deal with a ****** goalie coach, having a guy in front of him who will always be the #1 just by default (past performance and the issue within his family will always give Ward a + within the organization) and he clearly struggles right now. You cant tell me it would have been worse for him if Benning didnt sign Miller and kept him in Van? You couldnt have ruined Läck any more than Carolina did even if you tried very very hard.

As for Markstrom, yeah it might be nice for him to have Miller around but again no reason to pay Miller high end Starter money to be a mentor and teacher. Miller gets the kind of money which is normally reserved for clear cut no 1 goalies who usally get backed up by journeyman dude playing 15-20 games a year. Miller currently plays the role of a veteran mentor who is easing the young guy in. The only problem is that he is getting all star salary and preferred starts.

it's pretty speculative to say lack would be better here than there because he was happier here.

i agree miller was overpaid. but at no point over the 3 years has that hurt anyone by aquilini's pocketbook. unless it causes a cap problem, who cares?

 

[krutovsdonut]

Markstrom has been developed into a #1? I have a problem with this reasoning, yes Markstrom played great in Utica for the 2014-15 season then did well in the NHL in the 2015-16 season. But while it's possible it was the case there's nothing definitive to say the latter happened because of the former.

Markstrom wasn't a green rookie, he'd been bouncing back and forth between the NHL/AHL for 4 seasons with Florida. He was always highly talented, so perhaps all he needed was to get out of low budget Florida and start working with a great goalie coach like Rollie. And it's not like he got the full starters load in Utica... for the playoffs yes, and that was great for him, but in the regular season he only played 32 games. There was an injury along the way and he was otherwise splitting duties with Eriksson.

We don't know what the results would be if he got the chance to stay with Vancouver in 2014-15 and got 30-40 games playing with Lack. But like I said, he already had plenty of experience playing in the AHL, and a big thing he needed was getting out of Florida and working with a good goalie coach.

If you look at the whole situation from hindsight now, so far Miller has been the shoehorned 1A starter for all 3 seasons while he's been healthy in Vancouver. Nothing changed when Lack proved better when Miller was hurt, and the same thing last season with Markstrom. For all this supposed 'development time' Miller has afforded us, on the 3rd year of his contract 20 games into the season Markstrom is sitting with 10 starts, only that high because Miller had an injury, and a 0.897 sv%.

I don't see how this could possibly be better than having stuck with a Lack/Markstrom combo 3 years ago.

i didn't intend to suggest markstrom was now a #1. i intended to suggest he was given a sheltered opportunity to do so that ends this april.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Ok, I'm with you so far.



Based on what? Why would they have played worse with each other than with Miller?

Why couldn't both have succeeded? There are plenty of other young goalie tandems in the NHL. And they aren't even all that young - 24 and 26 years old at the time of Miller's signing. This wasn't a couple kids.

This is just complete and utter speculation based on absolutely nothing.

And again, why couldn't we have signed a Greiss at 1/6 the price to have the same effect?



Again, how? By churning out below-average stats? How is spending $6 million on a goalie who doesn't make you better a good thing?

Again, this is a guy who hasn't been able to outplay his backups for 3 straight years. And he hasn't provided 'stable' goaltending. He's been all over the place like a yo-yo.



Sorry, but this is ridiculous. All Miller has done is block Markstrom. Markstrom has looked ready to be handed the #1 spot since last Christmas and our coach is still starting Miller 75% of the time when healthy. It's a complete joke.



Doubt we get much, especially after the way he collapsed with St. Louis a couple years ago.



Why? So we can keep dressing a mediocre 37 y/o goalie for 50-60 starts/year instead of actually giving game time to players who can help us long term?

i have noticed we disagree on nearly everything. but, to summarize...

-i base my assessment of how lack/markstrom would have worked out based on how lack and markstrom have played since miller was signed, plus general experience watching goalies who are not starters thrown to the wolves and/or watching two non starters try to equal one starter as a tandem. neither lack nor markstrom has shown starter qualities to this day.

-markstrom does not look like an emerging #1 even today. he might be if given the chance but i will be holding my breath if they hand him the keys

-miller would have better stats in front of a better team. he might not win anyone a cup, but he has been more than good enough for what we have fielded in front of him.

bottom line, there has been zero goaltending drama here for three years. that's on miller.

 

[Peter10]

it's pretty speculative to say lack would be better here than there because he was happier here.

i agree miller was overpaid. but at no point over the 3 years has that hurt anyone by aquilini's pocketbook. unless it causes a cap problem, who cares?

I dont really care about Lack in that case to be honest.

If you say "as that hurt anyone by aquilini's pocketbook" well yeah i could say I give a damn about his pocketbook but this is not how it works. Obviously you could isolate him and his contract and say it didnt hurt that much but honestly $6m in caproom is an incredible assett to have nowadays. Normally extra space will be spend on extensions what so ever but to have it as your only backup to remain cap complaint is beyond stupid. Unfortunatly this is what the current regime is doing.

 

[Peter10]

it's pretty speculative to say lack would be better here than there because he was happier here.

i agree miller was overpaid. but at no point over the 3 years has that hurt anyone by aquilini's pocketbook. unless it causes a cap problem, who cares?

This is the whole problem here. Its like saying this homeless dude didnt have a shelter tonight...

Honestley I give a rats ass on saying whether Lack or Miller would have been better (tending to Lack but it doesnt really matter)

My point is that is was useless to spent that much of money on Miller when you could have gotten a similar performance on another average goalie running hot. Agreeing to a straight 18m over 3years is beyond any negotiating at all. Its just like we need a goalie and are ready to pay! It has nothing to do at all with negotiating whatsoever

 

[Rotting Corpse*]

This is the whole problem here. Its like saying this homeless dude didnt have a shelter tonight...

Honestley I give a rats ass on saying whether Lack or Miller would have been better (tending to Lack but it doesnt really matter)

My point is that is was useless to spent that much of money on Miller when you could have gotten a similar performance on another average goalie running hot. Agreeing to a straight 18m over 3years is beyond any negotiating at all. Its just like we need a goalie and are ready to pay! It has nothing to do at all with negotiating whatsoever

I completely agree with you and yet he may be right that it's one of Benning's better moves.

Let that sink in.

 

[Snatcher Demko]

I just hope there are no delusions of grandeur and that we can somehow skin Dallas out of a 1st round pick for Miller.

Or at least a 2nd.

 

[racerjoe]

We also insisted on getting Bonino who was far more valuable to them than he could ever be to us. Now that one may have been on ownership, but regardless Bonino was basically becoming their Alex Burrows.

I think Bonino had lots of value, and probably of a first league wide, and probably a higher first to the ducks.

He is the reason I came around to the actually value on the deal, even though it was the exact wrong package to go after.

 

[PRNuck]

I just hope there are no delusions of grandeur and that we can somehow skin Dallas out of a 1st round pick for Miller.

Or at least a 2nd.

Do they have any prospects worth talking about? How's Faksa developing?

 

[Hit the post]

I just hope there are no delusions of grandeur and that we can somehow skin Dallas out of a 1st round pick for Miller.

Or at least a 2nd.

Because trading a player to the Stars with a NTC worked so well for us last season at the trade deadline....

 

[Jimson Hogarth*]

Eddie Lacknhas been one of the poorest goalies over the past two seasons. Numbers don't lie. Carolinas coach doesn't trust him.

 

[Jimson Hogarth*]

This is the whole problem here. Its like saying this homeless dude didnt have a shelter tonight...

Honestley I give a rats ass on saying whether Lack or Miller would have been better (tending to Lack but it doesnt really matter)

My point is that is was useless to spent that much of money on Miller when you could have gotten a similar performance on another average goalie running hot. Agreeing to a straight 18m over 3years is beyond any negotiating at all. Its just like we need a goalie and are ready to pay! It has nothing to do at all with negotiating whatsoever

Lack was a one year wonder, lots
Of goalies are. It really isn't a big deal.

 

[racerjoe]

Lack was a one year wonder, lots
Of goalies are. It really isn't a big deal.

And Miller is really a has been, if he ever even was a anything to begin with. He has been average his entire career, and now as started to slide backwards.

It's really not a big deal... our GM just sucks and signed him to a giant contract for no reason.

 

[Jimson Hogarth*]

And Miller is really a has been, if he ever even was a anything to begin with. He has been average his entire career, and now as started to slide backwards.

It's really not a big deal... our GM just sucks and signed him to a giant contract for no reason.

Maybe so, but he's miles better than lack, and the numbers show it.

I couldn't imagine this team with .890 Lack...

 

[Hit the post]

I couldn't imagine this team with .890 Lack...

Third last place last season & tied for third last place this season....with Miller.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Maybe so, but he's miles better than lack, and the numbers show it.

I couldn't imagine this team with .890 Lack...

Their numbers over a 3 year span, both with the Canucks and without, were nearly identical.

Do you have an explanation for this?