Grub's Canucks & NHL News, Rumours, and & Fantasy GM | It's All Gone Pete Tong

[SeawaterOnIce]

I think this is right.

You are more likely to keep Quinn Hughes if you show a willingness to adjust the core around him until you get it right—rather than foolishly try the same players over and over.

The Miller-Pettersson-Boeser-Demko core has had their shot. It would be insanity to try again and hope for a different outcome in the fifth, sixth, or seventh try.

I will be glad when we shift away from this core and finally get rid the Benning stink from this franchise. They are all decent players but 2018-2022 was just such a loser period for these guys and it's ultimately led to a loser mentality.

lt's a total shame the Sedin core didn't overlap with this core. This franchise really needed GOOD veteran leadership in the late 2010's. Instead, you had LOSERS or washed up veterans mentoring this group.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

I still don’t know why many are so hung up on acquiring a RHD.

If mgmt really believes in Willander (and they should), to me the focus should be on a Top 4 LHD.

LHD are also easier to acquire.

So if it’s the Isles, I’d be looking at Barzal + Romanov.

Its also Lou, so I’d be looking at a pick as well.

 

[Dana Murzyn]

No way on earth they trade both. Just a spectacularly ridiculous premise.

 

[kanucks25]

I still don’t know why many are so hung up on acquiring a RHD.

If mgmt really believes in Willander (and they should), to me the focus should be on a Top 4 LHD.

LHD are also easier to acquire.

So if it’s the Isles, I’d be looking at Barzal + Romanov.

Its also Lou, so I’d be looking at a pick as well.

Well it depends on how far away Willander is from legitimately stepping into the top-4 of a team that wants to make noise in the playoffs.

I know there are people here that think Willander will be ready to do that in a few months' time but I'd be very skeptical of that and I imagine management isn't banking on that.

 

[Bankerguy]

the only reason why i think Dobson and Barzel MIIIIGHT be an option, is that NYI doesnt like to pay players...remember the comments their GM made after Horvat was signed....
wait till Dobson is asking for 9.5 million or whatever... he'll blow a gasket

 

[kanucks25]

You're not getting both Barzal and Dobson for just Petey, they will ask for Willander.

I don't believe they are seriously considering trading Petey anyway, likely just for leverage in the Miller talks.

 

[krutovsdonut]

would the islanders play spoiler to help another team negotiating with the rangers?

 

[StickShift]

I still don’t know why many are so hung up on acquiring a RHD.

If mgmt really believes in Willander (and they should), to me the focus should be on a Top 4 LHD.

LHD are also easier to acquire.

So if it’s the Isles, I’d be looking at Barzal + Romanov.

Its also Lou, so I’d be looking at a pick as well.

Whether it is Pettersson and/or Miller, they should be focused on getting back the individual player with the highest upside—regardless of position.

I’d rather get back a player who could be a star and adjust our roster accordingly than trade now for a solid center and solid defender who simply fills a gap this season.

 

[VanillaCoke]

Barzal & Romanov is an ideal return, with lou lam and the islanders sinking the timing for a big deal gets better and better.

 

[Nick Lang]

Looks like there’s gonna be “major surgery”

Trade both Miller and Pettersson. Boeser will want too much money, so traded at deadline.

Demko traded because he’s not reliable and appears to be injury prone

Quite the shakeup

I see this quite a bit but I think the chances all 3 are traded is very close to zero.

My guess:

All three traded 1 % chance.
Boeser traded 20 %
Miller traded 35 %
Petterson traded 10% (or less)
Demko traded 0% (this one is unrealistic, injured and we're not going with Silovs)

Unless Miller is traded I doubt anything happens unless we get an absolutely staggering offer for Petey. Miller traded could still return assets where we maintain the same level of competitiveness and would be a move with the future in mind as well as his contract will likely not age well.

I see us re-signing Boeser. If not we'd get cap space but for what? We could beef up the D but I don't see many ways to replace Boeser's scoring which we're already sorely lacking. Probably a lateral move at best.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Whether it is Pettersson and/or Miller, they should be focused on getting back the individual player with the highest upside—regardless of position.

I’d rather get back a player who could be a star and adjust our roster accordingly than trade now for a solid center and solid defender who simply fills a gap this season.

the question is, do you have a better chance of winning the cup in this core window with ep40 plus a return from miller or vice versa? that obviously depends in part on the return each can bring back as well as the individual players and how the dressing room lines up behind both players. those are your known unknowns.

 

[Diablo2020]

Glass half full, this is all a blessing and we're lucky we're in the position we are today even if its messy as heck.


1. Star goalie injured and will never fully recover?

- we somehow nabbed Lankinen for free and can probably sign him to a reasonable deal

2. Best goalscorer is a UFA to be and has some issues with giving a longterm deal to?

- we have the best prospect RW we've had SINCE boeser and he's pretty much NHL ready

3. Franchise center has checked out for over a year now and might have wrist, knee and a mental block in his head issues?

- we conveniently have a window before his NMC kicks in and 31 NHL teams that still see a 100 point 25 yr old.

4. Our 100 point center has gone off the rails and is fueding with his teammates?

- Jt Miller at age 33 or 34 or 35 is probably a cap dump but today at 31 one year removed from 100 points we can actually trade him for some value.

5. With the stars aligning we WERE probably on track to trade our only picks and prospects for roster upgrades in season?

- we have a chance to dump huge amounts of future salary, keep our picks/prospects, add to them, then turn around and use that cap.

6. Over half the NHL teams are in purgatory with their own set of cap issues, location issues and question marks?

- we're vancouver canada. Its beautiful. We can attract any name in the league except for some homegrown americans. Marner UFA, Rantanen UFA? We're not kidding ourselves when on July 1 IF those types were available we can say we can be in the mix.


Sell all our question marks WHILE they have top value and before we commit longer term to a bunch of them, use that space on a Marner or Rantanen in UFA (give them the 14m if you have to) and come back stacked as an orginization!

 

[PavelBure10]

I really like Barzal and it would be cool to bring the hometown player home, but he will be turning 28 this year and is quite prone to injuries. Add it Romanov and it seems like a fair deal but it will still leave me wanting more.

I get the feeling everyone is right, we're not going to win a Pettersson trade.

 

[Peen]

You're not getting both Barzal and Dobson for just Petey, they will ask for Willander.

I don't believe they are seriously considering trading Petey anyway, likely just for leverage in the Miller talks.

There’s 95% of me that thinks this but the 5% of me that doesn’t is the part where the criticisms of practice habits and mentality come across as very serious given the organization they came from and how Crosby, Letang etc were..

 

[StickShift]

I see this quite a bit but I think the chances all 3 are traded is very close to zero.

My guess:

All three traded 1 % chance.
Boeser traded 20 %
Miller traded 35 %
Petterson traded 10% (or less)
Demko traded 0% (this one is unrealistic, injured and we're not going with Silovs)

Unless Miller is traded I doubt anything happens unless we get an absolutely staggering offer for Petey. Miller traded could still return assets where we maintain the same level of competitiveness and would be a move with the future in mind as well as his contract will likely not age well.

I see us re-signing Boeser. If not we'd get cap space but for what? We could beef up the D but I don't see many ways to replace Boeser's scoring which we're already sorely lacking. Probably a lateral move at best.

RE: Demko
I think there is a very real chance that Vancouver evaluates Lankinen as their long-term starter if they believe Demko’s health makes him unsignable long-term.

If that is the case—I think there is a real window to trade him at this deadline. There are a number of contending teams like Carolina, Colorado, Minnesota, Edmonton, etc that could really value him this year.

Silovs already seems to be out of the picture. He had a fun short run last year but he does not seem able to read the puck at an NHL level to be considered a reliable option. Even for backup.

 

[David71]

if brian burke was the GM of this team he would have dealt with this miller/petterson drama a long time ago and move on. the longer it takes, the toxicity of the media will continue. hell i think brian burke would take the crybaby miller and soft ass petterson in a room. tie them up and let them duke it out or hes gonna take matters into his own hands and deal with them personally.

 

[Ernie]

Are there posters that are overly critical of Pettersson but are praising Or otherwise not criticizing Miller right now? Because if there are I’m not really noticing them. Seems obvious both are playing very poorly at this point, albeit for different reasons. But in fairness to Miller, Pettersson has been playing poorly for like twice as long as Miller and did so through two rounds of the playoffs, while Miller was at least good last year and through the playoffs. So from that perspective, you’d actually expect, and reasonably so, for the market to be harder on Pettersson at this point.

And the whole narrative that this market is harder on Pettersson than Miller is just entirely false. Posters here, by and large, absolutely hated Miller two years ago after he signed his contract. I’ve never seen this market come anywhere close to disliking Pettersson as much as everyone disliked Miller two years ago. And in fact, the fans have literally chanted Pettersson’s name in sympathy during Canucks games during his slump as a means of trying to support him and help him out of this funk.

Miller deserves double the criticism because he's downright lazy at times and is a dick to his teammates. Add to that the unprecedented 10 game mental health break that didn't appear to have any kind of professional treatment involved. He comes back and his play has seemed to be even worse. This is a loose cannon that you want to cash out on ASAP before his 100 pt season fades into memory.

We saw what Pettersson can do with the minutes that Miller gets. Perhaps there's a good argument that Pettersson should play away from Hughes given how he can tilt the ice on his own, but it's becoming clear that Hughes' dominance has hidden a lot of Miller's warts and if you trade for a generic 2nd line center to play those minutes you're probably not losing a lot.

 

[Vector]

I like the thought behind asking for Barzal but he’s not a player I’m particularly interested in.

 

[StickShift]

Miller deserves double the criticism because he's downright lazy at times and is a dick to his teammates. Add to that the unprecedented 10 game mental health break that didn't appear to have any kind of professional treatment involved. He comes back and his play has seemed to be even worse. This is a loose cannon that you want to cash out on ASAP before his 100 pt season fades into memory.

That mental health break sounds like a carefully orchestrated way for the team to suspend a player with pay for HR reasons (done so in such a way as to not trigger the NHLPA).

 

[bossram]

Yeah for like one season we actually had a competitive window.

Then our star goalie got an injury he will never recover from..

Then our franchise center checked out for the last calendar YEAR..

Then our 100 point center has now gone off the rails..

Meanwhile our best sniper and longest tenured Canuck is a UFA to be wanting a longterm deal, with his own health concerns..

We traded our captain for a guy with previous shoulder issues, who has since had yet another shoulder issue..


Thats 5 outta 6 core players with huge question marks around them.

"Huggy competitive window" is too shortsighted. We're an absolute mess today and have holes everywhere and not many assets to address them.

I want a contender every year for the next decade not just for this year and the next two because we fear that Quinn might leave us.

Meanwhile we have a chance to reshape the team around Hughes and three years to build a championship calibre team so he wants to stay.

Not whatever THIS is..

Look, I've been saying since Allvin took over that the Canucks really don't have much of a shot at being a true contender - which is why I was more pro "reset/rebuild" when Allvin took over. But with the moves Allvin has made, he gave the Canucks a small (but real) chance of being a team that could make noise. Not a true contender, but a team that could go on a run if they get all the breaks. I was in favour of "going for it" last season because I thought that last season was likely their best chance at a Cup in the Quinn Hughes window. Demko getting injured dashed that, though.

But let's be real. You don't want a contender "every year for the next decade". What you're advocating for, in the best case, is a complete rebuild. They will have no high-end players and lose their MVP calibre captain. They won't be a contender for at least 5+ years. Probably closer to a decade. That's the bull case. The bear case is you doom the team to being the next Buffalo, just in a perpetual retool/rebuild but forever circling the drain.

i don't really see how they ice a competitive team if they move out pettersson and miller. you're not getting comparable centers back and you're not contending with blueger, suter and sasson in the middle. even if you get something like zibenajad (and he rebounds) and i dunno shane wright or matty beniers or something you're in rough shape

100%. If you trade both you are admitting you are entering a full rebuild. There will be no hopes of being competitive for at least 5 years. Might as well trade Quinn before he walks to NJ in that scenario.

 

[David71]

Look, I've been saying since Allvin took over that the Canucks really don't have much of a shot at being a true contender - which is why I was more pro "reset/rebuild" when Allvin took over. But with the moves Allvin has made, he gave the Canucks a small (but real) chance of being a team that could make noise. Not a true contender, but a team that could go on a run if they get all the breaks. I was in favour of "going for it" last season because I thought that last season was likely their best chance at a Cup in the Quinn Hughes window. Demko getting injured dashed that, though.

But let's be real. You don't want a contender "every year for the next decade". What you're advocating for, in the best case, is a complete rebuild. They will have no high-end players and lose their MVP calibre captain. They won't be a contender for at least 5+ years. Probably closer to a decade. That's the bull case. The bear case is you doom the team to being the next Buffalo, just in a perpetual retool/rebuild but forever circling the drain.


100%. If you trade both you are admitting you are entering a full rebuild. There will be no hopes of being competitive for at least 5 years. Might as well trade Quinn before he walks to NJ in that scenario.

decades of mediocrity seems to be the Motto for this team. us fans are used to it. if hughes bolts to jersey or another team. no playoffs for the foreseeable future.

 

[bossram]

That mental health break sounds like a carefully orchestrated way for the team to suspend a player with pay for HR reasons (done so in such a way as to not trigger the NHLPA).

Yeah. I mean, in some ways it is a "mental health break". But it is very obvious the team was just sick of Miller's toxic presence and basically told him to go away for a month and evaluate his behaviour.

He didn't change it though.

 

[Jerry the great]

Yeah. I mean, in some ways it is a "mental health break". But it is very obvious the team was just sick of Miller's toxic presence and basically told him to go away for a month and evaluate his behaviour.

He didn't change it though.

it sounds a lot more grown up than being put in a time out.

 

[Diversification]

That mental health break sounds like a carefully orchestrated way for the team to suspend a player with pay for HR reasons (done so in such a way as to not trigger the NHLPA).

In retrospect, it looks a lot like that's what happened. Maybe an incident where Miller took things way over the line or maybe it was a culmination of many smaller episodes. I'd guess it was the former since Miller was willing to address the media that he was stepping away and it seems unlikely that he would do that if something didn't jar him into it.

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

I get the feeling everyone is right, we're not going to win a Pettersson trade.

He would be a huge cost controlled asset that would garner a ton of interest had our previous stupid GM signed him to that 8 year x 64 mil deal in 2021...

11.8 mil for 7 more seasons after this one is absolutely painful for many teams that are either contending or looking to improve.You are certainly limited to where you can move him. Do tanking or rebuilding teams want to bother paying up assets for him when they will waste 2-3 more years of his prime?