Canucks Managerial Thread | Part 19 | Maybe we are in on Tallon, maybe not? *Post #61

[rune74]

There is some very bizzare stat manipulation to make arguments in this thread. Long story short, Lack didn't do well this year. Changing the games you use as examples to bolster your argument is not factual.

Regardless, he is playing for Carolina now. He isn't the fish that got away here folks. Luongo and Schneider definitely are though.

 

[Nucker101]

There is some very bizzare stat manipulation to make arguments in this thread. Long story short, Lack didn't do well this year. Changing the games you use as examples to bolster your argument is not factual.

Regardless, he is playing for Carolina now. He isn't the fish that got away here folks. Luongo and Schneider definitely are though.

Agreed. I get ripping on the Miller contract, but goalies like Lack wil be available every year as UFA's or via trade.

But I do agree with the "we'd be better off with Lack + cap space than Miller" argument.

 

[drax0s]

I was responding directly to your claim that he only had good numbers over an 8 game sample. I am not limiting his numbers to 22 games, just contradicting your false claim.

It is clever of you to bait me in this fashion though. Good job.

Coincidentally though, his save% over those 22 games is very close to his career save% over all 116 games in his career, and bang on identical to the 107 games outside the disaster zone. How weird!!

Why are you still clinging to this 22 game sample as if it's relevant?

 

[thenextone]

Long enough to know that it will never stop.

There are only two truths for the Canucks fan:

1. You will be disappointed at the end of the season (levels of disappointment vary on a scale of 0 to 2011)

2. The goalie blew it/sucks/overpaid

 

[WhoseLainesItAnyway]

It was a massive opportunity of the sort that players with his resume and production simply never get normally, and he stunk.

And again, it wasn't just that he 'didn't produce', it was that he was completely invisible and was so obviously small and slow relative to this level.

He looked like Baertschi did in his first 15 game stretch with the team.

What happened to Vey's family is sad.

But he had his breakout AHL season (and the season that convinced us to trade for him) AFTER his father was arrested in the summer of 2013.

That it wouldn't have affected him at that point but only affected him after we traded for him is ... suspect at best.

He seems like a good guy and I wish him well, but he failed here because he wasn't good enough to play at this level. End of story.

*whoosh*

Speculating on what a player must be going through based on 5% of the information is better than 0% I guess.

 

[MS]

He looked like Baertschi did in his first 15 game stretch with the team.



*whoosh*

Speculating on what a player must be going through based on 5% of the information is better than 0% I guess.

I'm actually impressed.

I'd been saying that it was hilarious how every Benning acquisition needed excuses made for them.

Now we're at the point where we can't think of an excuse, well, there must be some excuse we don't know about!

Players are judged on the skills they display and the results they get from those skills. If we have to assume that every failing player has SO MUCH GOING ON THAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT then we might as well fold up these boards because there's no point even having a discussion.

Granlund is a small, slow player who stunk with two organizations last year and didn't show any sort of tools or ability to suggest he'd do anything other than stink in the future.

 

[Peter10]

Agreed. I get ripping on the Miller contract, but goalies like Lack wil be available every year as UFA's or via trade.

But I do agree with the "we'd be better off with Lack + cap space than Miller" argument.

Thats the whole point. The problem is not that Läck was traded, the problem is that Miller was kept (or even signed). Nobody here is saying that Läck is a star goalie like Lou or Schneids but rather a decent goalie that would have been all we needed at that point. The main arguement is that Läck could have provided a similar or at least only a slightly worse performance than Miller, combine that with the dollars that could have been spend where they were needed more and you know why people keep coming back to this.

 

[RandV]

Agreed. I get ripping on the Miller contract, but goalies like Lack wil be available every year as UFA's or via trade.

But I do agree with the "we'd be better off with Lack + cap space than Miller" argument.

I think more to the point is that goalies can be volatile from year to year. You can assign reasons to it but still overall last season Eddie Lack wasn't nearly as good as he was the prior two years, from a black and white perspective you can't really argue that.

...But so what? This doesn't mean that last season will be the goalpost for Lack's career moving forward. With a few rare elite exceptions like Luongo or Lundqvist pretty much every NHL goalie has up and down years.

 

[Pip]

There is some very bizzare stat manipulation to make arguments in this thread. Long story short, Lack didn't do well this year. Changing the games you use as examples to bolster your argument is not factual.

Regardless, he is playing for Carolina now. He isn't the fish that got away here folks. Luongo and Schneider definitely are though.

I don't think many are claiming that he was the next great goalie on the level of Luongo or Schneider. He was simply a cheap effective goalie who was already in our system and that it was a mistake to go out and spend big money on (at best) a marginal upgrade in Miller. In fact, I think Lack + a 4-6 million dollar defenseman would make us a much stronger team. Miller was an unnecessary acquisition that prevented us from upgrading our roster elsewhere.

 

[arttk]

I think more to the point is that goalies can be volatile from year to year. You can assign reasons to it but still overall last season Eddie Lack wasn't nearly as good as he was the prior two years, from a black and white perspective you can't really argue that.

...But so what? This doesn't mean that last season will be the goalpost for Lack's career moving forward. With a few rare elite exceptions like Luongo or Lundqvist pretty much every NHL goalie has up and down years.

I hate the fact people tend to ignore with Lack, at worst we will get what we paid for and the extra cap space could be spent to mask that by improving our defensive or offensive depth.

 

[MS]

I hate the fact people tend to ignore with Lack, at worst we will get what we paid for and the extra cap space could be spent to mask that by improving our defensive or offensive depth.

Yeah, there's a continual attempt to mask the issue by comparing Miller directly with Lack, which isn't the point.

It's Miller vs. Lack + $5 million.

Also, I love how a .90x fluctuation from Lack in a small sample size is 'HE SUCKS!' but a .90x fluctuation from Miller over 1.5 seasons is 'who cares, great veteran presence!'.

 

[StrictlyCommercial]

You guys keep forgetting that cap space doesn't matter for re-building teams. Might as well overspend on scrubs instead of increasing flexibility.

 

[rune74]

Yeah, there's a continual attempt to mask the issue by comparing Miller directly with Lack, which isn't the point.

It's Miller vs. Lack + $5 million.

Also, I love how a .90x fluctuation from Lack in a small sample size is 'HE SUCKS!' but a .90x fluctuation from Miller over 1.5 seasons is 'who cares, great veteran presence!'.

You once again are moving goal posts here to have feigned outrage. One point people were stating that we lost the better goalie, which in reality he just isn't.

That has nothing to do with his contract. Of course having more money available due to less contract requirements would be better, however management was not willing to have two goalies in the system that they could not rely apon(martkstrom and lack) and wanted the net experience. You can see why they did it and in hindsight it probably shouldn't have been done.

But, like other things posters opinions on having the team tank obviously differs from what the owners wanted. Not very often do you see business owners want their business to fail, but note how they changed their tune when this year went the way it did....perhaps now they are going to push more in that direction especially with the marketing campaign to bring in a new core.

Edit: Also love how you minimalized the bad play of lack and over dramaticized miller....that tends to happen in a lot of arguments on here

 

[Peter10]

Yeah, there's a continual attempt to mask the issue by comparing Miller directly with Lack, which isn't the point.

It's Miller vs. Lack + $5 million.

Also, I love how a .90x fluctuation from Lack in a small sample size is 'HE SUCKS!' but a .90x fluctuation from Miller over 1.5 seasons is 'who cares, great veteran presence!'.

He is just another example of a player getting paid for past achivements rather than actual performance. Its one of the worst things you can do in a salary cap league. Its forgivable if its on a long term deal where you get at least a few good years out of it but its atrocious if you do that via free agency where you dont get the benefit of the early good years in exchange for the later bad year.

That ~4.5m saved on Miller if Läck was kept, could have provided some much needed depth like a defenseman and forward. But hey, cap space doesnt matter if we are rebuilding and have the best drafts ever.

 

[Canucker]

You once again are moving goal posts here to have feigned outrage. One point people were stating that we lost the better goalie, which in reality he just isn't.

That has nothing to do with his contract. Of course having more money available due to less contract requirements would be better, however management was not willing to have two goalies in the system that they could not rely apon(martkstrom and lack) and wanted the net experience. You can see why they did it and in hindsight it probably shouldn't have been done.

But, like other things posters opinions on having the team tank obviously differs from what the owners wanted. Not very often do you see business owners want their business to fail, but note how they changed their tune when this year went the way it did....perhaps now they are going to push more in that direction especially with the marketing campaign to bring in a new core.

Edit: Also love how you minimalized the bad play of lack and over dramaticized miller....that tends to happen in a lot of arguments on here

A lot of people didn't need the power of hindsight to see it was a dumb move.

 

[MS]

You once again are moving goal posts here to have feigned outrage. One point people were stating that we lost the better goalie, which in reality he just isn't.

Why is that reality based on this season instead of the season prior, when Lack easily outplayed Miller?

That has nothing to do with his contract. Of course having more money available due to less contract requirements would be better, however management was not willing to have two goalies in the system that they could not rely apon(martkstrom and lack) and wanted the net experience. You can see why they did it and in hindsight it probably shouldn't have been done.

Um, that's kind of the point.

Management's unwillingness to rely on two younger goalies, or bring in a cheaper insurance plan, was a major mistake. End of story.

And it isn't hindsight for those of us here who literally called exactly what would happen at the time.

But, like other things posters opinions on having the team tank obviously differs from what the owners wanted. Not very often do you see business owners want their business to fail, but note how they changed their tune when this year went the way it did....perhaps now they are going to push more in that direction especially with the marketing campaign to bring in a new core.

Edit: Also love how you minimalized the bad play of lack and over dramaticized miller....that tends to happen in a lot of arguments on here

Are you denying that Lack's fluctuation was over a smaller sample size?

The Miller signing has been a bad move for this franchise in ways that were completely predictable. Period. I'm still amazed that anyone can argue otherwise.

 

[WhoseLainesItAnyway]

I'm actually impressed.

I'd been saying that it was hilarious how every Benning acquisition needed excuses made for them.

Now we're at the point where we can't think of an excuse, well, there must be some excuse we don't know about!

Players are judged on the skills they display and the results they get from those skills. If we have to assume that every failing player has SO MUCH GOING ON THAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT then we might as well fold up these boards because there's no point even having a discussion.

Granlund is a small, slow player who stunk with two organizations last year and didn't show any sort of tools or ability to suggest he'd do anything other than stink in the future.

Not pretending to know everything about what a player has to deal with is making excuses now?

Granlund isn't small or slow. He has average physical tools and a high hockey IQ - he's basically the anti-Virtanen (they work well together on a line). In his career he will be good 3rd liner at worst. Obviously there will be no convincing you of this so I'll wait until next season to be vindicated.

 

[MS]

Not pretending to know everything about what a player has to deal with is making excuses now?

Granlund isn't small or slow. He has average physical tools and a high hockey IQ - he's basically the anti-Virtanen (they work well together on a line). In his career he will be good 3rd liner at worst. Obviously there will be no convincing you of this so I'll wait until next season to be vindicated.

The average NHL forward weighs 199.2 lbs. Granlund is 178. And it's a 'small' 178 with no physical game and little ability to win puck battles. To claim he's isn't small is just ... I don't even know what to say. Your head is so far in the sand it's beyond belief.

And yeah, he's a below-average skater for a small skill forward.

Good 3rd liner at worst. What do you base this on? Solely the fact that Benning traded for him?

Next season you'll probably end up being right on 1 of the 10 longshot odds you're staking yourself to and will then crow about it endlessly.

And yeah, saying 'we don't know what he had to deal with!' when there's no evidence he had to deal with anything is absolutely making excuses. Is it that hard to say that he was awful and the trade looks bad right now?

 

[Pip]

Not pretending to know everything about what a player has to deal with is making excuses now?

Granlund isn't small or slow. He has average physical tools and a high hockey IQ - he's basically the anti-Virtanen (they work well together on a line). In his career he will be good 3rd liner at worst. Obviously there will be no convincing you of this so I'll wait until next season to be vindicated.

in your opinion, why has he been unable to translate his good AHL production to the NHL?

 

[Peter10]

You once again are moving goal posts here to have feigned outrage. One point people were stating that we lost the better goalie, which in reality he just isn't.

That has nothing to do with his contract. Of course having more money available due to less contract requirements would be better, however management was not willing to have two goalies in the system that they could not rely apon(martkstrom and lack) and wanted the net experience. You can see why they did it and in hindsight it probably shouldn't have been done.

But, like other things posters opinions on having the team tank obviously differs from what the owners wanted. Not very often do you see business owners want their business to fail, but note how they changed their tune when this year went the way it did....perhaps now they are going to push more in that direction especially with the marketing campaign to bring in a new core.

Edit: Also love how you minimalized the bad play of lack and over dramaticized miller....that tends to happen in a lot of arguments on here

I think either side is dramaticing the other side to support their arguement. It obviously is rather counter-productive but a common pattern in discussion, even moreso if both sides are rather fixed on their position.

Its probably more the way how you see it. If you just go by performance I dont think there would have been much difference between Miller and Läck but its the surrounding effects that would have made Läck the better option. If you wouldnt have to care about the salary cap and a budget Miller probably is the better option (unless your coach is Willie who kept on playing Miller all the time) but if you consider all the requirements the we have in the league right now, its tough to justify.

I actually applaud the idea of having good veterans on the team to ease in the rookies, its the execution of it that really bothers me. Having a good expierenced goalie around to show the young guy the ropes and teach him how to prepare is a good thing, paying a slightly above average guy (current performance) a high end salary for that is a bad idea.

Seeing Linden live at the townhall meeting telling the fans around that they dont really care about Dorsetts on ice performance because he is such a great guy in the room that he deserves the 2.5m and even more is just ridiculous. He pretty much said that he is the best leader in the room. Better than the Sedins, better than Burrows who had to one of the toughest ways into the NHL. Better than Bieksa who dropped little baby orcas when going for a dump. Yeah this is your guy Dorsett, your protypical 3-4th line energy who over the course of his career will likely play for 4-6 teams.

 

[Alan Jackson]

The average NHL forward weighs 199.2 lbs. Granlund is 178. And it's a 'small' 178 with no physical game and little ability to win puck battles. To claim he's isn't small is just ... I don't even know what to say. Your head is so far in the sand it's beyond belief.

And yeah, he's a below-average skater for a small skill forward.

Good 3rd liner at worst. What do you base this on? Solely the fact that Benning traded for him?

Next season you'll probably end up being right on 1 of the 10 longshot odds you're staking yourself to and will then crow about it endlessly.

And yeah, saying 'we don't know what he had to deal with!' when there's no evidence he had to deal with anything is absolutely making excuses. Is it that hard to say that he was awful and the trade looks bad right now?

To this point, there's not much evidence that Granlund will be an effective NHL player, but I think it's premature to suggest he's got no room to grow or improve.

There's a pretty decent pedigree there, but I will concede that there's not much to be encouraged about thus far.

 

[WhoseLainesItAnyway]

The average NHL forward weighs 199.2 lbs. Granlund is 178. And it's a 'small' 178 with no physical game and little ability to win puck battles. To claim he's isn't small is just ... I don't even know what to say. Your head is so far in the sand it's beyond belief.

And yeah, he's a below-average skater for a small skill forward.

Good 3rd liner at worst. What do you base this on? Solely the fact that Benning traded for him?

Next season you'll probably end up being right on 1 of the 10 longshot odds you're staking yourself to and will then crow about it endlessly.

And yeah, saying 'we don't know what he had to deal with!' when there's no evidence he had to deal with anything is absolutely making excuses. Is it that hard to say that he was awful and the trade looks bad right now?

NHL.com has him listed at 178 which is out of date. Several other sources (AHL.com, Yahoo sports) list the correct 185.

199 lbs is the very tip of the bell curve.. in his prime he'll probably add another 5-10lbs bumping him up to 190-195 which falls decidedly into the average range.. I don't think I have to tell you where I think your head is on this..

"And yeah, he's a below-average skater for a small skill forward. " - What? His skating is average. Why compare him with small forwards just because they are usually speedy? He's not even small. He's over 6 ft.

Good 3rd liner at worst based on what his skillset projects to be.. His hockey IQ, shot, and vision are all good enough to be effective in the top 6 as a complimentary player IMO. He's good defensively. His deficiencies aren't that much and can be worked on. He won't drive the play or be a PP QB but that's not a requirement for a good 3C. You're embellishing his board play, in my viewing of this player he has shown the tenacity to engage and win battles in front of the net and along the boards.

Yes the trade might feel bad because we've been following Hunter for years and were excited about him finally producing at the AHL level. But other than that, yes it's too hard for me to judge a trade involving a 20 year old and a 22 year old this early.

 

[MS]

To this point, there's not much evidence that Granlund will be an effective NHL player, but I think it's premature to suggest he's got no room to grow or improve.

There's a pretty decent pedigree there, but I will concede that there's not much to be encouraged about thus far.

Like all things Benning, it's banking on an unlikelihood.

I wouldn't be *shocked* if he turned into a useful player next year, but based on what we've seen so far that's definitely not the most likely outcome.

Last year there were 7 or 8 of these longshot outcomes that Benning supporters (and Benning himself I assume) were banking on, and I said at the time that yeah, I fully expected 1 or 2 to come through. But most not. And that's exactly what happened, and exactly why it's bad management and why this team is a mess right now.

 

[MS]

NHL.com has him listed at 178 which is out of date. Several other sources (AHL.com, Yahoo sports) list the correct 185.

199 lbs is the very tip of the bell curve.. in his prime he'll probably add another 5-10lbs bumping him up to 190-195 which falls decidedly into the average range.. I don't think I have to tell you where I think your head is on this..

Good 3rd liner at worst based on what his skillset projects to be.. His hockey IQ, shot, and vision are all good enough to be effective in the top 6 as a complimentary player IMO. He's good defensively. His deficiencies aren't that much and can be worked on. He won't drive the play or be a PP QB but that's not a requirement for a good 3C. You're embellishing his board play, in my viewing of this player he has shown the tenacity to engage and win battles in front of the net and along the boards.

Yes the trade might feel bad because we've been following Hunter for years and were excited about him finally producing at the AHL level. But other than that, yes it's too hard for me to judge a trade involving a 20 year old and a 22 year old this early.

185 is still 15 lbs. smaller than the league average. And he plays small. To try and claim that this isn't a small player is just ludicrous.

Small, slow, soft bottom-6 centers who can't win faceoffs aren't a thing in the NHL. I'm having trouble even thinking of any.

And I was hardly attached to Shinkaruk. Didn't love him as a prospect, but recognized he had value and that value should have gone into improving the team, not acquiring a completely redundant, replacement-level asset.

 

[Alan Jackson]

Like all things Benning, it's banking on an unlikelihood.

I wouldn't be *shocked* if he turned into a useful player next year, but based on what we've seen so far that's definitely not the most likely outcome.

Last year there were 7 or 8 of these longshot outcomes that Benning supporters (and Benning himself I assume) were banking on, and I said at the time that yeah, I fully expected 1 or 2 to come through. But most not. And that's exactly what happened, and exactly why it's bad management and why this team is a mess right now.

I can't say I don't know where you're coming from. Most of the guys that Benning has brought in to fill out the roster have been...underwhelming, to be generous.

But to suggest that this team is a mess because players like Vey, Bartowski and Granlund haven't worked out is a little simplistic.

This team went *years* without adding any young talent, especially up front. That takes time to recover from.

Has Benning done enough to improve the team? No. He hasn't. But the job is much bigger than some admit.

This was not a great situation that he inherited, but Benning's job is to fix it. This is a massive year for him.