Madden is a decent prospect, but fact is most prospect fail. The Canucks C depth is not great.
That’s all well and good, but if that’s the approach that we’ve chosen to take, then we shouldn’t have double standards (ie praising the prospect pools and subsequent organizational depth of other teams while choosing not to list our own prospects as assets).
Markstrom is going to want around 5 million at least if he plays like he did at the end of last year, unless Benning manages to clear some crap of this rooster it will not be easy to sign Markstrom.
I agree that 5 million will be the asking price if Markstrom duplicates last season. If the Canucks are serious about winning in the “here and now,” they will have to pony up the cash. Tanev money will likely have to go to Markstrom (and we would obviously walk from Tanev). Some other RFA’s that will need to be re-upped, would have to be traded for picks unfortunately (Virtanen).
Dipietro is an total unknown, goalies takes time and a lot of them fail miserably when they hit AHL.
This great goaltending depth you are talking about is all about Demko, who still is an unknown.
Again, I never said otherwise. You seem to have an issue with me in listing certain Canucks prospects as “assets” and “organizational depth,” but you have zero issue in praising the prospect pools of other teams......and how they’ve apparently done things the right way. So which is it?
A) Prospects (after they’ve had atleast one good year after being drafted) count as assets? OR
B) Prospects don’t count as assets unless they’ve made the NHL in a regular role.
We can’t pick and choose and have double standards here.
Pearson is a 40 pt player when playing with elite players.
By your own admission, Bo Horvat is an excellent center. Pearson produced fairly well with Horvat last season (although it was a relatively small sample size). Pearson is a 2nd line winger. Period.
Hoglander is a nice prospect and I think he will be a fine top 6 player in a few years. Atill having 2 2nd line LW, a prospect with upside and players like Leivo, Beartshi, Roussel , none of them is great but decent is not some kid of great depth, its still missing a first liner.
J.T. Miller is a good player to have on your first line, and is a proven producer on a 1st line when given the role.
Canucks have to sign Boeser, Leivo, Motte that will take most of 9 million that's left of our caproom, My guess is Baertschi/Leivo is the guys thats starts a 2nd line RW.
Fair points. My guess is that it will be Leivo since neither Pearson nor Baertschi have a lot of experience playing on their off-Wings.
So overall the Canucks forward lineup still needs a lot of work before they are even close to being a cup contender.
I would argue that it’s their bottom 6 that needs to step up more than their top 6. Their top 6 looks like it’s really coming along. My hope is that Gaudette and Virtanen can really take leaps in their games this up coming season.
Also every summer you come in here and try to talk up this team like its going to be great when they fall off and miss the playoffs you are nowhere to be seen.
Uhhhh.....no. I may have done this back in the Summer of 2015 and the Summer of 2016, but I’ve always tried to paint a realistic picture of where this team is at. There’s a difference between attempting to be positive (which is what I try and do), and having a “Sky is falling” loser mindset (which perhaps some other fans choose to have).
Last year at this time, I predicted that the Canucks would have a season similar to their 2007-2008 season (85-88 points). The Canucks finished with 81.
For the last few years, I have been saying the following:
2017-2019: miss playoffs
2019-2020: make the playoffs + 1st round blowout.
2020-2021: Canucks being a contender.
I do look like I will be wrong about my predictions, but I don’t think we’re that far either. I say we make the playoffs in 2020-2021 (1st round blowout), and then join the elite ranks (2nd round caliber team+) in 2021-2022.