Post-Game Talk: GM 7 | Habs def. Canucks - 5-2 (Pettersson, Hoglander)

[Byfield]

Fire Benning

Bring in Daryl Sutter as coach

 

[AwesomeInTheory]

Fire Benning

Bring in Daryl Sutter as coach

Well, that's certainly one way to make things worse.

 

[canuckking1]

Gallant on his way to save Vancouver season

 

[vanarchy]

It's becoming increasingly hard to get worked up about what happens in this gimmicky season.

Pettersson bumped his slump; Hoglander got his second.....as for the rest, whatever. They might finish ahead of Ottawa, but this season is all about finally ridding themselves of some of their anvil contracts; getting another high draft pick; and playing the kids to death to see what they have.

A coaching change is probable...at least at the end of the season. And the owner needs to seriously look at his hockey ops department, but sadly that probably won't happen.

I'm kind of embracing it too, to be honest. I'd rather this shortened season lead to the demise of Benning/Green/Baumgartner.

If you guys think about it, a mediocre team that just missed the playoffs wouldn't have been enough to get anybody fired. They would have blamed the gimmicky season.

An outright tire fire like the one we're seeing just might.

 

[AwesomeInTheory]

Gallant on his way to save Vancouver season

This might be the delusional optimist in me, but I don't think ownership is going to let Benning use the coach-as-scapegoat stratagem again.

 

[CherryToke]

Because you say so? Regardless of their start this is one of the most talented groups in the league. The time for tanking is over. Been there, done that. Hence the talent. Is a #5-10 pick vs. a #20-25 pick gonna make all the difference in this group competing for the next 5 years? Likely not.

 

[mriswith]

I can get behind people roasting Baumgartner because the defense has been a fire drill for years, but what is Green supposed to do with this:

Eriksson, Sutter, Roussel, Beagle, Benn, Baertschi, Spooner, Luongo=26 mil in cap or 30% of the cap.

None of them are better than an AHL call up.

That's a 30% disadvantage in the hand that Green gets dealt.

That's like playing with 8 forwards and 4 defenders in a game. Or playing 4v5 all game against a team that's cap neutral (every player roughly worth their cap hit) which coincidentally is what our series against Vegas looked like.

How is a coach supposed to look good with only 70% of a team?

 

[EpochLink]

This might be the delusional optimist in me, but I don't think ownership is going to let Benning use the coach-as-scapegoat stratagem again.

I don’t think so, he did the same thing with Desjardins and he was utter rancid. Ownership won’t stand another crappy fallout after a playoff run.

 

[Jack Burton]

I'm so glad Markstrom is no longer our goaltender. He masked sooooo many problems and those problems are on full display for everybody to see now.

Really coming home to roost is the 2019 offseason. Man, Benning blew his brains out with thoes Myers & Ferland contracts.

 

[4Twenty]

People might laugh but it’s blatantly obvious the lineup needs Loui Eriksson.

 

[Peen]

I'm so glad Markstrom is no longer our goaltender. He masked sooooo many problems and those problems are on full display for everybody to see now.

Really coming home to roost is the 2019 offseason. Man, Benning blew his brains out with thoes Myers & Ferland contracts.

Absolutely lucked the f*** out that ferland is ltir the rest of his career.

That contract is actually positive value to a cap team now too.

 

[AwesomeInTheory]

I don’t think so, he did the same thing with Desjardins and he was utter rancid. Ownership won’t stand another crappy fallout after a playoff run.

I agree on the latter, but I think that blame is going to shift to the front office, not the coach.

Again, the optimist in me, because I know the Aquilinis are fond of Benning,, but I have to think that he's on very thin ice this season.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

I also want to point out that we give Pearson too much of a pass for his contract for what he brings only because benning traded a worse contract in guds for him.

Pearson while not the biggest issue on the team is still an issue.

Pearson is - to me - still a moveable asset.
Do you get a great return for him? Likely not, but a team would likely still bring him on. He had 20+ goals last season, chipped in a bit in the playoffs, and is a defensively neutral streaky forward. He’s also on the last year of an expiring deal.

The other guys I mentioned (forgot Eriksson, too) are toxic assets I can’t see anyone taking on.

 

[Captain Bowie]

I think you're being too optimistic about your team, which is understandable.

No one on here wants the Canucks to suck. I'd rather be eating crow about Benning and seeing the team become a playoff contender.

But you can't let your enthusiasm or optimism blind you to the issues that are plaguing to this team.

I haven't really seen you manage to articulate an argument as to why this team is going to be good, just arguing with other folks for being "bad fans."

You'd be surprised how many people would rather be right than happy. It's a mental illness really.

Do I really need to go into deep detail on why this team can be good? Like it's not obvious at this point? When our good players are good, we're good. Our good players haven't been good consistently yet. I believe they'll get there before long.

Do I need to dwell on the issues we have right now?? I'm not blind. Sitting here posting "Bad turnover by Myers" for the 15th time is kinda unnecessary, no?

 

[Melvin]

33 goals allowed, lmfao.

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

Are we seriously forgetting the Canucks got outshot in just about every single game last year? What does that tell you?

They had a 5 game winning streak last year around this time, and I remember Markstrom carrying their ass.

Then they imploded and Markstrom gets injured and team proceeds to lose 11 of their last 17 regular season games.

 

[Baby Pettersson]

Absolutely lucked the f*** out that ferland is ltir the rest of his career.

That contract is actually positive value to a cap team now too.

Legit question. How is it positive?

 

[Royal Canuck]

Pearson is - to me - still a moveable asset.
Do you get a great return for him? Likely not, but a team would likely still bring him on. He had 20+ goals last season, chipped in a bit in the playoffs, and is a defensively neutral streaky forward. He’s also on the last year of an expiring deal.

The other guys I mentioned (forgot Eriksson, too) are toxic assets I can’t see anyone taking on.

Him and Virtanen have to be the biggest deadline pieces if the season goes this way.

Everyone else I don't think you're getting any value back (Myers, Edler, Sutter etc.)

 

[PG Canuck]

They had a 5 game winning streak last year around this time, and I remember Markstrom carrying their ass.

Then they imploded and Markstrom gets injured and team proceeds to lose 11 of their last 17 regular season games.

Yeah Markstrom was legit the backbone of this team. Everyone knew this though...well, not everyone I guess.

 

[Icebreakers]

I'm so glad Markstrom is no longer our goaltender. He masked sooooo many problems and those problems are on full display for everybody to see now.

Really coming home to roost is the 2019 offseason. Man, Benning blew his brains out with thoes Myers & Ferland contracts.

As bad as those contracts were I think 2018 was worse. Roussel + Beagle to 4 year foundational contracts and Schaller who made more on that contract than the rest of his NHL career combined.

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

Legit question. How is it positive?

I want to know this too.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Travis Green (and Nolan Baumgartner) really sewered this one tonight when the Canucks had momentarily put it back in reach. The brain dead challenge to the clearly on side play was bad. And the defensive pinches and turnovers and “system” is just awful. It’s not enough to say the favoured pariahs like Myers are to blame. Edler, Schmidt, and Hughes (our competent defenders) are falling victim to the same stuff.

I could be wrong, however it feels like everyone is being asked to play a different system than what they're accustomed to. Edler is far from the player he once was, but his gaffs were nowhere near this bad in the bubble. I can't buy into the notion he fell off a cliff in six months. Maybe Greene is trying to overcompensate for having such a pedestrian roster, or it could simply be his system was never good to begin with but stellar goaltending masked the flaws.

Which brings us to Benning. The cap and term he gave to Sutter, Beagle, Roussel, Myers (and Baertschi and Ferland) has hurt this team in a huge way. One, it played a part in costing us Markstrom, Tanev and Toffoli. But two, it’s going to handcuff us now from fixing our roster.

I have a hard time picturing a team out there that would be willing to take any of his contracts on period, never mind without commanding a steep price for it. They’re all negative value assets. Even if Benning gets fired, there’s no looking at even beginning to undo those contracts until this season ends and - mercifully - a few of them come due (Sutter, Baertschi).

What irks me to no end is we could have wiggled out of those contracts. Putting aside the rumor of Ottawa willing to take Eriksson for a price. I don't believe for a second there weren't other teams willing to eat bad contracts if we compensated them. While it sucks to lose assets for such boneheaded cap management. It would serve us better in the long term having Toffoli instead Virtanen; Tanev instead of Virtanen/Juolevi/Rafferty. My take is Benning simply couldn't swallow his pride and admit not only did he flub hard on signing players like Eriksson and Sutter to begin with, several of his draft selections have been bad enough they're arguably better used as compensation pieces to rid us of bad contracts. It's inexcusable we came into the season with every single one of them still here, and with no plan beyond "play the kids and pray." Heaven help us if Vegas wasn't obsessed with Pietrangelo.

 

[Jack Burton]

Absolutely lucked the f*** out that ferland is ltir the rest of his career.

That contract is actually positive value to a cap team now too.

?
Ferland is done?
He's not going to try and make a comeback?

 

[kanuck87]

Yeah Markstrom was legit the backbone of this team. Everyone knew this though...well, not everyone I guess.

Some people legit thought it was a lateral move from Markstrom/Demko to Holtby/Demko. Holtby is a former Vezina winner, ya know?

 

[Captain Bowie]

The same one that is now in 2021 - a team that lives and dies on it's few stars, has terrible depth that never chips in offensively and is bad defensively, a defense that is laughable and now missing a goaltender to mask everything about it.

Are we seriously forgetting the Canucks got outshot in just about every single game last year? What does that tell you?

If it's the same team, how is also a worse team?