Canucks & NHL News, Rumours, and & Fantasy GM | Summer Doldrums

[rypper]

Everyone hates Quebec French and they hate everyone else even more.

Go to Le Louvre, wait for any of the seemingly endless beautiful women to talk to you in real French.... you'll bring more than souvenirs home to meet your parents.

Truss.

Went to Paris on holiday can confirm.

Well I'm married so I didn't bring anything back, but still the menu had a lot of nice options on it to look at.

 

[Bleach Clean]

If he implodes when he hits the AHL, he won't be tradeable anymore. It's still a decent gamble for Edmonton but if Buffalo really doesn't believe in Savoie (who is more of a boom/bust player) now is the perfect time to cut bait.

Savoie is still just 20 years old...

I could see it if it were Hotlz/Cotter, where you have 2 years of further data complete with NHL struggles. This is not that. Savoie hasn't done anything to appreciably change his value.

Anyway, this was the year to deal a bottom6 centre it seems.

 

[SelltheTeamFrancesco]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1809364212143067641

 

[LandfiII]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1809364212143067641

I was gonna say this is the ot thread, but that would be incorrect. I'm only reading travel experiences and whatnot so clearly this is one of our hardcore hockey threads.

 

[oceanchild]

anyways, preten you're trading Hoglander to Buffalo, which young player or prospect to do you want from them the most?

Benson

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

it's in the last thread and i don't know how to quote but someone said they'd be upset if they got mcleod for lekkerimaki

i wouldn't. that's the kind of move this roster needs to get over the top

Agree, and Lekkerimaki is a better asset today than Savoie IMO.

McLeod is exactly the player I would like to see the Canucks target - a guy who is an unquestioned upgrade at 3C but with enough upside that you can see them sliding up to 2C once Miller starts to decline.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

anyways, preten you're trading Hoglander to Buffalo, which young player or prospect to do you want from them the most?

Ideally? Kulich.

Realistically? Krebs.

More realistically? Sabres wouldn't and shouldn't have any interest in Hoglander.

 

[Paulinbc]

Everyone hates Quebec French and they hate everyone else even more.

Go to Le Louvre, wait for any of the seemingly endless beautiful women to talk to you in real French.... you'll bring more than souvenirs home to meet your parents.

Truss.

I wouldn't be bringing those souvenirs home to my parents... but that's just me. Some families are much, much closer.

 

[LandfiII]

I wouldn't be bringing those souvenirs home to my parents... but that's just me. Some families are much, much closer.

Are we talking Vezina contenders here?

 

[Bleach Clean]

Agree, and Lekkerimaki is a better asset today than Savoie IMO.

McLeod is exactly the player I would like to see the Canucks target - a guy who is an unquestioned upgrade at 3C but with enough upside that you can see them sliding up to 2C once Miller starts to decline.

Lekkerimaki for a McLeod equivalent? I hope not.

McLeod's shot rate is good, but his skill level is not. He's 150th in P/GP among centers and 96th (edge of 3rd/4th line) in EVPs. This is with good SAT counts.... He's of the Mikheyev/Lafferty mould where they will seduce with EVP spikes and speed, but ultimately, fall short due to an inability to execute.

I'm not even sure he's an upgrade on Blueger, let alone Suter.

 

[Nick Lang]

Hey does anyone have an avatar from the playoffs? @mriswith maybe, Lafferty laugher. Arguing with my brother about AI.

sorry if wrong place but distinctly recall a roaring bandwagon covered with Canucks players riding to bet all hell.

 

[Hodgy]

This is the exact type of trade that HF always over reacts on. You’ve got a pretty good defensively centre that has scored at around a 30 point clip in the NHL over his 21-24 seasons for a very small all offensive recent top ten pick. McLeod is likely to continue to improve throughout his 24-30 year seasons and had a good chance of being a middle six centre during that time which is a good asset.

Savoie is a real boom or bust prospect, and I think Buffalo probably felt they had too many small offensive forwards in their top six.

 

[Hodgy]

Lol Irish folks don't usually like hearing this one. There's this routine from an Irish comedian that circulates social media every so often and it inevitably leads to Irish folks getting smug in the comments about the fictitious suggestion Ireland did not participate in North American colonialism.

Obviously tons of Irish emigrated, but a lot of that emigration resulted from the potato famine that was a result of English colonialism of Ireland. Ireland was effectively England’s first colony and was firmly a colony of England at the time of North America colonization. While many Irish emigrated to North America, Ireland wasn’t an imperial power, it was a colony of England. England was the imperial power that dictated policy to the Irish and it would be overly simplistic and incorrect to imply that Ireland participated in colonialism in the same manner as the English, Spanish or Portuguese.

 

[bossram]

The Mcleod/Savoie trade is very interesting. I think it reveals who's really thinking about the league in a smart way.

I get that the main purpose of trading away Mcleod is for cap purposes. So from that sense, mission accomplished.

The return, Savoie, is not nearly as good as most EDM fans are making him out to be. As usual, many people vastly overrate prospects. He's really maybe BUF's 5th best prospect. I'd put all of Kulich, Ostlund, Helenius, and Benson (who was in the NHL so not a "prospect" I guess, but is still 19 and 16 months younger than Savoie) ahead of him. They've also already got Peterka and Quinn on the roster, so there really was never going to be any place for him to play. His realistic NHL upside is a softish, smallish 2nd line winger. Those assets, we see time and again now, don't really have much value in the NHL. At the lower end of his upside, he's a Kailer Yamamoto, that could be had for at league minimum by any team right now.

BUF get a reliable two-way C that is an upgrade on Krebs for the ostensible 3C spot (a big hole since trading Mittelstadt). At $2.1M, bringing 25ish ES points with ++ defensive value and ++ PK value is a good deal.

It's a peculiar trade for EDM. You don't usually see a team that is (or should be) in all-in contention mode (especially during the last years of Bouch/Drai's contracts) trade for a prospect. Honestly, the best argument for this deal from an EDM POV is that they've found themselves an upgraded trade chip for this year's trade deadline. Savoie is not going to help the team this season, or even appreciably help them in the last year of McD's contract, so turning Savoie into another piece to help them in the post-season makes the most sense.

 

[Bleach Clean]

The Mcleod/Savoie trade is very interesting. I think it reveals who's really thinking about the league in a smart way.

I get that the main purpose of trading away Mcleod is for cap purposes. So from that sense, mission accomplished.

The return, Savoie, is not nearly as good as most EDM fans are making him out to be. As usual, many people vastly overrate prospects. He's really maybe BUF's 5th best prospect. I'd put all of Kulich, Ostlund, Helenius, and Benson (who was in the NHL so not a "prospect" I guess, but is still 19 and 16 months younger than Savoie) ahead of him. They've also already got Peterka and Quinn on the roster, so there really was never going to be any place for him to play. His realistic NHL upside is a softish, smallish 2nd line winger. Those assets, we see time and again now, don't really have much value in the NHL. At the lower end of his upside, he's a Kailer Yamamoto, that could be had for at league minimum by any team right now.

BUF get a reliable two-way C that is an upgrade on Krebs for the ostensible 3C spot (a big hole since trading Mittelstadt). At $2.1M, bringing 25ish ES points with ++ defensive value and ++ PK value is a good deal.

It's a peculiar trade for EDM. You don't usually see a team that is (or should be) in all-in contention mode (especially during the last years of Bouch/Drai's contracts) trade for a prospect. Honestly, the best argument for this deal from an EDM POV is that they've found themselves an upgraded trade chip for this year's trade deadline. Savoie is not going to help the team this season, or even appreciably help them in the last year of McD's contract, so turning Savoie into another piece to help them in the post-season makes the most sense.

This isn't an even analysis.

The low end case for Savoie is Yamamato, sure. The upper end case is what, Keller? Nylander? Quite valuable. For McLeod, who is 1 year away from prime age, his current case is what, a mid20s Faksa/Dickinson? And his upside is Malhotra? These players get moved or signed with frequency. The Canucks just recently signed Suter and Blueger as an example. (To reference their effectiveness, not that they are big and fast)

Value to the team does not equate to value league wide. A winger like Boeser probably doesn't have good league-wide value, but he's valuable to the team (same with Garland).

You did hit on something with the trade chip closing: Savoie is more valuable as a trade chip specifically because of his top end upside. Not because other teams see him as an equal chance to become Yamamoto. He's too young for that and hasn't thrown up any clear red flags... yet. Which is different than the Holtz/Cotter swap.

As an aside: The Sabres PR staff outlining his metrics is so on the nose for this trade. It's how I would be selling it right now.

 

[Wisp]

Obviously tons of Irish emigrated, but a lot of that emigration resulted from the potato famine that was a result of English colonialism of Ireland. Ireland was effectively England’s first colony and was firmly a colony of England at the time of North America colonization. While many Irish emigrated to North America, Ireland wasn’t an imperial power, it was a colony of England. England was the imperial power that dictated policy to the Irish and it would be overly simplistic and incorrect to imply that Ireland participated in colonialism in the same manner as the English, Spanish or Portuguese.

Nothing you say is incorrect, but I would say most of my comments are a reaction to some moral high-horsing that Irish folks tend to take when colonialism is discussed on the internet. There's nothing wrong with Irish folks holding a more nuanced view of history - as a people's who were very much a victim of colonialism while gently reminding them that Irish people's were also perpetrators of it.

I don't think aboriginal folks who were displaced, exploited (and yes even genocided) by Irish colonists and Irish Catholic missionaries give much a shit of the distinction from them and their French and British counterparts.

And certainly I don't need to remind folks of the Catholic Church's own hellish role in our country's history, nor that Catholic Ireland's role in it as the Church's english speaking arm (in English speaking colonies).

I could go on and discuss how European countries in general are very bad about teaching their own country's legacy in colonialism and prefer to blame it on the colonial nations that they profited from and helped create, but that's getting even MORE off topic.

Anyways, that's the last I'll say on this. Really has nothing to do with the Canucks.

 

[Nick Lang]

The Mcleod/Savoie trade is very interesting. I think it reveals who's really thinking about the league in a smart way.

I get that the main purpose of trading away Mcleod is for cap purposes. So from that sense, mission accomplished.

The return, Savoie, is not nearly as good as most EDM fans are making him out to be. As usual, many people vastly overrate prospects. He's really maybe BUF's 5th best prospect. I'd put all of Kulich, Ostlund, Helenius, and Benson (who was in the NHL so not a "prospect" I guess, but is still 19 and 16 months younger than Savoie) ahead of him. They've also already got Peterka and Quinn on the roster, so there really was never going to be any place for him to play. His realistic NHL upside is a softish, smallish 2nd line winger. Those assets, we see time and again now, don't really have much value in the NHL. At the lower end of his upside, he's a Kailer Yamamoto, that could be had for at league minimum by any team right now.

BUF get a reliable two-way C that is an upgrade on Krebs for the ostensible 3C spot (a big hole since trading Mittelstadt). At $2.1M, bringing 25ish ES points with ++ defensive value and ++ PK value is a good deal.

It's a peculiar trade for EDM. You don't usually see a team that is (or should be) in all-in contention mode (especially during the last years of Bouch/Drai's contracts) trade for a prospect. Honestly, the best argument for this deal from an EDM POV is that they've found themselves an upgraded trade chip for this year's trade deadline. Savoie is not going to help the team this season, or even appreciably help them in the last year of McD's contract, so turning Savoie into another piece to help them in the post-season makes the most sense.

What if they have four centers McDavid, Drai, Nuge, and Henrique (who they just signed), and they need cap space, which you mentioned? It must be part of the master pan to get under the cap. A trade chip, that seems weird. Having a good young player in any system is not.

I'm curious @Vector who else would have been the target for a Savoie trade? I think he's a good player but not sure what type of value he holds.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

Just been catching up on the last 4 or 5 days of this thread and was observing the conversation around the Yzerplan.

Just thought it's funny that the most vociferous defense of him currently is, 'hey, that could happen to other GMs too!'

Which is like, nobody is saying he isn't an NHL GM. But if your defense of this 'genius' is that he might occasionally reach the level of middle of the pack at his job, you've already lost the war.
-

On the Canucks, I would really love if we could acquire Ehlers. I know this isn't popular, but I would be willing to consider dealing Garland, a 2nd, and one of the young tweeners for him. He's a zone entry machine and I think he and Petey and Debrusk could have some serious chemistry and be an incredible transition line.

 

[Hodgy]

This isn't an even analysis.

The low end case for Savoie is Yamamato, sure. The upper end case is what, Keller? Nylander? Quite valuable. For McLeod, who is 1 year away from prime age, his current case is what, a mid20s Faksa/Dickinson? And his upside is Malhotra? These players get moved or signed with frequency. The Canucks just recently signed Suter and Blueger as an example. (To reference their effectiveness, not that they are big and fast)

The low end for Savoie is total bust that doesn’t ever establish himself as an NHL player. And there isn’t an insignificant chance that he busts. Perhaps similar to Lekkerimaki.

And neither of Nylander or Keller are similar or high end results. Nylander is 6’ and had NHL and AHL success, as well as SHL success, by his draft plus two season. He’s also always been considered a good defensive player. Keller is 5’11” and scored sixty five points in his draft plus two season.

Savoie is 5’7” and not projected to be a strong defensive player at the pro level. And he basically had zero pro experience as of his draft plus two season. It’s extremely unlikely that he will play centre at the NHL level.

Value to the team does not equate to value league wide. A winger like Boeser probably doesn't have good league-wide value, but he's valuable to the team (same with Garland).

You did hit on something with the trade chip closing: Savoie is more valuable as a trade chip specifically because of his top end upside. Not because other teams see him as an equal chance to become Yamamoto. He's too young for that and hasn't thrown up any clear red flags... yet. Which is different than the Holtz/Cotter swap.

Savoie doesn’t have a ton of value as a trade chip as demonstrated by this trade.

 

[Aqualung]

Seems like poor asset management to me by Buffalo, even if you aren’t as enamored with Savoie. Edm was desperate to get cap compliant.

 

[Hodgy]

The low end for Savoie is total bust that doesn’t ever establish himself as an NHL player. And there isn’t an insignificant chance that he busts. Perhaps similar to Lekkerimaki.

And neither of Nylander or Keller are similar or high end results. Nylander is 6’ and had NHL and AHL success, as well as SHL success, by his draft plus two season. He’s also always been considered a good defensive player. Keller is 5’11” and scored sixty five points in his draft plus two season.

Savoie is 5’7” and not projected to be a strong defensive player at the pro level. And he basically had zero pro experience as of his draft plus two season. It’s extremely unlikely that he will play centre at the NHL level.


Savoie doesn’t have a ton of value as a trade chip as demonstrated by this trade.

As an additional point @Bleach Clean , who was the last offensive centreman in the NHL that was not taller than 5’7”?

 

[Peter Griffin]

I think the biggest shock factor with the Savoie/McLeod trade is because Savoie was a recent top 10 pick, but I think it’s starting to look like Buffalo may have drafted him a bit high there. Their next two picks at #16/28, Noah Ostlund and Jiri Kulich, have both arguably passed him on the prospect lists just 2 years later.

That said, I still think this was a pretty boneheaded move by Buffalo.

 

[Peter Griffin]

As an additional point @Bleach Clean , who was the last offensive centreman in the NHL that was not taller than 5’7”?

Savoie is listed at 5’9”, but who says he has to play center at the NHL-level to be effective? We’d all kill to have 5’8” Logan Stankoven right now.

 

[SelltheTeamFrancesco]

Agree, and Lekkerimaki is a better asset today than Savoie IMO.

McLeod is exactly the player I would like to see the Canucks target - a guy who is an unquestioned upgrade at 3C but with enough upside that you can see them sliding up to 2C once Miller starts to decline.

Yes scoring at a lower rate than Blueger at 5 on 5 rate in both ppg and p/60, while playing 37% of his minutes with one of McDavid or Draisaitl. That sounds like a big upgrade. Most of his points came from him playing on the wing along side Draisaitl and Foegele. He is super soft, on a losing puck battles and avoiding hits per 60 ranking he would be very high. I have no qualms about trading Savoie, I just think McLeod is pretty to close to what Blueger is with a little more upside.

 

[bossram]

This isn't an even analysis.

The low end case for Savoie is Yamamato, sure. The upper end case is what, Keller? Nylander? Quite valuable. For McLeod, who is 1 year away from prime age, his current case is what, a mid20s Faksa/Dickinson? And his upside is Malhotra? These players get moved or signed with frequency. The Canucks just recently signed Suter and Blueger as an example. (To reference their effectiveness, not that they are big and fast)

Value to the team does not equate to value league wide. A winger like Boeser probably doesn't have good league-wide value, but he's valuable to the team (same with Garland).

You did hit on something with the trade chip closing: Savoie is more valuable as a trade chip specifically because of his top end upside. Not because other teams see him as an equal chance to become Yamamoto. He's too young for that and hasn't thrown up any clear red flags... yet. Which is different than the Holtz/Cotter swap.

As an aside: The Sabres PR staff outlining his metrics is so on the nose for this trade. It's how I would be selling it right now.

LOL. I guess if we all just want to assume that all prospects reach their ceiling, that's what passes for good "analysis" to you.

I don't see his upper end as a Nylander or Keller. Those players were much more accomplished at Savoie's age/D+2. Nylander already dominated the AHL and SHL, and Keller was already a 1st line NHLer. We need to move past the 9th overall pick on his HockeyDB page. I think you're making an incorrect evaluation here. It's a lot more likely now he's a Yamamoto than a Keller. Most people in the prospect space I follow aren't that enamoured with Savoie.

The ceiling vs. floor equation with Savoie is not as wide as some seem to think. BUF selling a team on his upside is smart on their end, because they've correctly identified it's not as high as some think. If EDM can do that to another team, it will be a shrewd move as well.

I'm higher on Mcleod than most though. I would have time for a guy already in the NHL, excellent defensively, still fairly young, and has at least one elite tool (speed).