Canucks & NHL News, Rumours, and & Fantasy GM | Urge to Frenzy…fading.

[F A N]

You don't sign a 7th defenceman for $1.5M. Forbort's either going to start the season as the third-pair LD or he's going to get traded.

$1.5M is definitely steep for a 7th Dman so I think you're absolutely right here. But I don't think it's price prohibitive if he ends up being an insurance policy / 7th Dman if we find an upgrade.

 

[Brock Boeser Laser Show]

Nashville is sure going to be interesting to watch this year. Stamkos, Marchessault and Skjei are three big additions.

But who is gonna get them the puck? Old man O'Reilly? They put a bunch of money into a car that doesn't have an engine. Same issue Washington will deal with.

Stamkos also plays the same spot on the PP as Forsberg so not sure how they sort that out

 

[DFAC]

I guess we're all worried about the defensive depth and puck moving ability. Hopefully we're all wrong again. I do worry that Allvin thinks Forbot abd Desharnais can make a good quick first pass, he mentioned that during the presser.

I wonder if we take a flyer on a guy like Boqvist or Brannstrom if we're looking for a low risk, high reward PMD.

 

[quat]

Pretty certain Pettersson is adaptable as a player, and healthy he should be able to thrive with a variety of linemates.

I agree that this group of players have elements they feel can be developed into and effective squad. They had to be careful with their signings and I think they've come up ahead.

Repeating myself here, but the coaching staff have to earn their paychecks with this roster, and as a fan it should be interesting to watch.

Obviously not everything will hit, but they've created an environment that's conducive for players to improve and excel.

A comment on Highlander, but given his struggles in the playoffs after a season where he really improved, I think he comes back with a chip on his shoulder and a lot to prove.

Garland seems to make those around him better, and he seems to be settling I to a leadership role. I think he embodies a lot of what Tocchet wants from his players. Barring a substantial drop in his play, I don't see him being moved.

This season will be about building or solidifying the way they approach and play the game. 2025 - 2026 will be fine tuning a run for a cup. I do think they'll make the playoffs this coming season, just not confident they'll do better than what we saw in the playoffs this year.

A lot of variables for sure. Enjoying this management group.

 

[Jovofan]

I've been looking at it all day and I can't get over how much I love our forwards right now. This is no exaggeration my favorite collection of forwards since the 2011 Finals team. I don't see any passengers amongst this group and everybody has their role to play. We're versatile, have tons of utility, and will be a force to play against in the playoffs. This is the deepest group of forwards I've seen on this team in over a decade.

 

[God]

as an aside, it's really funny to me seeing Zboril, Debrusk, and Kylington as UFAs because of how long ago the "Oh shit, Boston could get Connor, Barzal, Kylington here" tweet was.

 

[Izzy Goodenough]

The Canucks let walk a former Selkie finalist, who it is safe to say, rescued their playoffs last year when Pettersson faltered.

Who is going to save them this year against a stronger Oilers team?

They better be in on Necas.

 

[HockeyWooot]

$5.5m for someone who's 27 and scored 27 goals twice and 25 goals once is pretty on point in terms of value.

If he can pot 30+ alongside Petey and help with PP1, you're laughing and that's very possible.

Good signing by Alvin. Only move I didn't like from him today was the Desharnais one.

Defo. I meant he was the only pickup of substantial commitment in terms of $ and term.

Everyone else was relatively small $ at 1 or 2 years max.

If you can bolster your side without digging a hole in terms of cap space that’s a win imo

 

[Vector]

If they waive someone like Desharnais at camp, do they have the space to bring up Poolman for the day 1 roster so that we can toll daily space if we were to move on?

Like is that a hedge option @Vector ?

I’m not sure what you mean. What are you trying to accomplish by doing that?

They just need to be under the cap without utilizing LTIR to can daily cap space. They are already doing that with the current roster.

 

[rea]

The Canucks let walk a former Selkie finalist, who it is safe to say, rescued their playoffs last year when Pettersson faltered.

Who is going to save them this year against a stronger Oilers team?

They better be in on Necas.

Weird way of looking at it. They were always going to score, so they got more scoring. Their defense didnt get better, and their goaltending is still the same.

We didn't have lindholm for 2/3 of the year we did just fine without him, and as of right now I feel the depth is better to start than it was last year. This is literally end of day 1 of offseason, I don't think there's any need to panic

Also, gettin necas won't change that imo if you feel he's somehow the needle mover in beating Oilers. We went to game 7 without our starting goalie, and our stars not scoring. I'd say this team would be ok playing them again.

My only real concern is that d core, I really hope they can upgrade that moreso than anything else as year goes on

 

[vancityluongo]

very happy with how the day shaked out. they basically hit my wishlist (debrusk in - didn't think we'd get him tbh - and no buchnevich... yet): Canucks & NHL News, Rumours, and & Fantasy GM | Chaos Undivided

zadorov has been a bottom pairing defenseman for the last decade. a dozen game playoff run has given some of you jim benning brain. would much rather make two bets on forbort and desharnais than to put everything on zadorov. the defense is not massively different from what it was, although i would like to still see an upgrade for the middle pairing.

as for upcoming targets; saw nils lundqvist signed with dallas for a year after he didn't get qualified but wonder if dallas has any intention of shopping him. would you guys consider a lundqvist for hoglander base (+/- as needed) swap?

 

[crazychimp]

Been out of the loop for a few weeks, what was the verdict on those rumours of Necas?

 

[Peen]

I’m not sure what you mean. What are you trying to accomplish by doing that?

They just need to be under the cap without utilizing LTIR to can daily cap space. They are already doing that with the current roster.

Oh, I hadn’t looked at that. I thought we were over. Just to confirm, you have to be compliant on day 1 and then utilization of LTIR after that has no bearing on the ability to toll daily space, correct?

In which case, the current cap picture mitigates the impact of Poolman completely?

 

[MS]

Various thoughts :

- it was disappointing that the two big fish in Guentzel and Reinhart signed so tantalizingly close to the deadline. Both of those guys could really have changed the dynamic of the team up front with another legitimate weapon.

- given what they were left with, I think management did a really good job pivoting on the forwards and the three signings today are good fits both in terms of production to cap hit and in terms of Tocchet's system. We now have 11 guys who you could realistically expect to score 30 ES points next year which is ... crazy. As much as adding a star winger was the preferred option, 'insane depth' is a quality plan B.

- as for the blueline, like everyone else I'm fairly confused. We lost two guys in Cole and Zadorov who were 4-5 types but played a lot of high-leverage top-4 minutes last year. Plus Myers is now a year older. We needed to add at least one guy who could play 20 minutes of leverage and we did not. We also needed to improve our transition game on the back end and we went the opposite way, if anything. I wouldn't hate Desharnais and Forbort as our 6-7 guys but we already had Juulsen who is the same type of player and a competent #7 and just a whole bunch of similar players. The Forbort signing in particular just ... doesn't seem to fit.

- was surprised we didn't go with a more veteran 3rd goalie option although I like Patera and there's some upside there.

- Abbotsford needs more signings. Gotta replace Dries - you need 1 or 2 legitimate top-6 AHL veterans and right now we have 0.

- prices had been marginally sane for a few years but today was just absolutely stupid, especially in terms of old average players. $5 million for Jason Zucker? A $25 million commitment for a declining Toffoli? Just a lot of contracts that are going to age really, really badly. Happy our guys were looking for the value signings that might not have the same pedigree while the rest of the league went Full Benning.

- UFA vs. trade markets are weird. I feel like if Jonathan Kovacevic was a UFA he would have got $3x3 but he's basically traded for free. Same with Chychrun.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

Looks like both Nashville and Ottawa will need to shed some salary - I wonder if anyone interesting shakes loose.

 

[604]

Do they start with a 21 man roster, including Poolman on day 1, then call up three after purting him on LTIR (using up the space)?

If so, who can be papered down on day 1 without being claimed?

 

[Nick Lang]

Out:
Zadorov
Lindholm
Lafferty
Mikheyev
Cole

In:
DeBrusk
Forbort
Desharnais
Sherwood
Heinen

Think we’re better or worse? At forward we’re clearly better, I just dont know what to make of our blue line.

Forbort was BOS 4D when looking at overall ice time, but he was used heavily on the PK, his 5v5 ice time is less than we played any of of top 6D. Desharnais is very similar. So unless these guys are going to thrive in our system, it kinda feels like we lost two top 4 D in Zadorov and Cole and replaced them with bottom pairing D. So, that seems a bit problematic..

I agree our forwards are better.

As far as the D goes Zadorov played 17:04 and Cole played 18:41. Forbort played 17:47 and Desharnais played 15:43., Really only short 2:15 which both them and Myers/Soucy can partially absorb.

I would imagine they will thrive in the system as they obviously would have targeted players who they think can. Cole was really showing signs of fatigue as the season went on unfortunately. Our new guys are slightly younger and will play a lot of PK. I think it's very possible this D can be just as good. You know Tocchet will push their conditioning.

It really depends on if the third pairing can be safe options that don't bleed chances. If so we are only missing out on 11 points between Zadorov's 20 in 75 games, and Forbort's 9 (pro-rated to 75 games). Cole and Desharnais both had 11 in 78. Not sure that difference matters all that much. I would say both Cole for sure and Zadorov are #5's, Zadorov is a 4 in a pinch.

 

[Vector]

Oh, I hadn’t looked at that. I thought we were over. Just to confirm, you have to be compliant on day 1 and then utilization of LTIR after that has no bearing on the ability to toll daily space, correct?

In which case, the current cap picture mitigates the impact of Poolman completely?

Anytime you are on LTIR, you don’t get daily cap space. When you start does not matter.

Right now they don’t need to go on LTIR. They are about 0.3m below the limit. That’s with a full 23/23 roster, Patera as the back-up, Aman waived, and PDG as the spare forward. There’s no one on the roster that’s free to go up and down so they can’t do the daily shuffle either.

 

[Rowlet]

Do we have anyone on the roster who's won the cup before? Just Blueger sort of?

Some winning experience may be a nice target.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

Missed the Lyubushkin and Dumba contracts today. Damn, Myers probably left 1 year and $1.5M in AAV on the table with his extension.

 

[Bankerguy]

Justin Schultz anyone?
good size and a Puck moving RHS Dman - He's an offense first guy but surprisingly a strong even-strength Fenwick Rel Rating (shots and misses For vs against). Really bad even strength PDO too, this suggests the top line stats should be better than what he produced (23 points)
Not much of a physical game to speak of but some puck moving ability outside of the top pairing could be good, especially when the puck is generally moving toward the opponents net rather than his own when he's on the ice 5v5
I wonder what he's looking for.

 

[God]

Of the remaining UFAs on defense, I think Schmidt and Kylington probably fit the best. I sort of doubt that Schmidt would be apprehensive about signing here given that we've completely flipped the team culture since he was here.

Of trade options, I think Mario Ferraro makes the most sense. Signed for two more years at 3.25M and has experience playing tough minutes (although they're tained with how bad the sharks are). I wouldn't want to give a 1st round pick, but dangling someone like Podz or Hoggy wouldn't be the worst thing. But San Jose also has like... a pathetic amount of players signed, and it's probably because none of the free agents want to play for a surefire bottom 5 team in the league.

 

[arttk]

If they waive someone like Desharnais at camp, do they have the space to bring up Poolman for the day 1 roster so that we can toll daily space if we were to move on?

Like is that a hedge option @Vector ?

I talked about this two days ago but one worry I had was the inability to pivot if we gave out deals with protection… only DeBrusk can’t be pivoted from.

A lot of salary that can be used to match and none with significant term.

I don’t think you can send the player to the AHL if he is injured… the only way to send that contract down will be for Poolman to be healthy

Justin Schultz anyone?
good size and a Puck moving RHS Dman - He's an offense first guy but surprisingly a strong even-strength Fenwick Rel Rating (shots and misses For vs against). Really bad even strength PDO too, this suggests the top line stats should be better than what he produced (23 points)
Not much of a physical game to speak of but some puck moving ability outside of the top pairing could be good, especially when the puck is generally moving toward the opponents net rather than his own when he's on the ice 5v5
I wonder what he's looking for.

Apparently he burned the bridge with JR back in Pitts

 

[bossram]

Nashville is sure going to be interesting to watch this year. Stamkos, Marchessault and Skjei are three big additions.

They'll be more interesting to watch in 2-3 years. A zombie roster of albatross contracts.

Like, what is the actual organizational direction here? Did Trotz see the Lou Lamiorello Islanders philosophy of team-building and say, "that's the model, we gotta do that"?

Nashville is locking into a very old and expensive core. In 2-3 years, they will have several poor-value contracts and likely a couple complete albatrosses on their hands. They've capped their upside by committing so much money/term and roster space to guys who will be declining shortly. Do they think they are a legit contender right now? It's the only way it makes sense.

 

[lawrence]