Management Discussion | Just Have a Plan

[iFan]

if we buyout OEL he’s on the books for 8 years… damn that’s horrible! Might be best to wait it out. f***ing Benning and our stupid owners for doing that dumb trade. Then this new management groups goes out and inks Miller to 8 million for 7 years wtf is wrong with these people.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

if we buyout OEL he’s on the books for 8 years… damn that’s horrible! Might be best to wait it out. f***ing Benning and our stupid owners for doing that dumb trade. Then this new management groups goes out and inks Miller to 8 million for 7 years wtf is wrong with these people.

INTERIOR: Rogers Arena ThinkTank by Pepsi Live

A hush falls over a bunch of old men sat at a long table.

FA: We were bad last year. What's your plan?
JB: Well, I-
FA: What about this OEL guy? He had 23 goals, he can score from the back end.
*Examines hockey card*
FA: He was drafted 6th overall. People seem to know him around the league. And this Garland guy doesn't seem that bad either. This trade is an absolute win.
Stunt Scout #4: The contrac-
FA: SHUT UP! BRING IN THE KID!
*JB looks worriedly at Weisbrod while a Rogers Arena employee goes outside, a small child emerges, who begins to get punched repeatedly in the stomach*
FA: Ok look, our defense is bad so I'm told. It could use some veteran presence and also synergy. Make it happen. I'm getting a call.
*FA steps out of the room in excitement*
FA: Tom, how's it going? Yeah, I've been giving the team that concussion water I think we could win this year!

 

[sandwichbird2023]

If you are a roofer and your boss saids the roof is leaking and the preparation before the roofing was done is subpar, is that humiliating?
JR in his interview said the pre-season was bad and the team system is not there. What part of that is humiliating? The fact the results line up with what he said and what we see?
It seems like you guys can’t separate valid criticism with personal attacks. It’s like it’s not even allowable now days to come out and critique the actual results, that’s f***ing insane. If JR came out and said oh BB sucks, he is sloppy or whatever, sure that crosses the line. But he underperformed when the team came out and lost 7 straight. I actually appreciate it when there is some honesty about it after losing 7 straight rather than just sugar coating something that we all see.

Actually in my line of work, my output goes through pretty harsh critique and as long as it’s about the work it’s fine. Because that’s how you improve. So when I see JR coming out saying the system is not implemented the way they want it, yeah that checks out. There is nothing factually wrong or personally insulting with that statement.

I really don’t understand how you all bought into this dumb narrative.

Does the roofer gets his job performance posted online? Does your boss critique your work in public, plastered for all to see? I'm not sure what part of "publicly and repeatedly" you missed. It's one thing to critique his work behind closed doors, fire him if you want. To march him out daily while the whole world knows he isn't wanted and make him guess everyday whether today's the day he gets fired is pretty bush league.

The 70 year old man is near tears today in public, and you are here telling us he deserves it and there's nothing wrong with his treatment, that's pretty messed up man, where do you draw the line?

 

[Canucker]

Does the roofer gets his job performance posted online? Does your boss critique your work in public, plastered for all to see? I'm not sure what part of "publicly and repeatedly" you missed. It's one thing to critique his work behind closed doors, fire him if you want. To march him out daily while the whole world knows he isn't wanted and make him guess everyday whether today's the day he gets fired is pretty busy league.

The 70 year old man is near tears today in public, and you are here telling us he deserves it and there's nothing wrong with his treatment, that's pretty messed up man, where do you draw the line?

Wow...are we this soft? The guy has been a professional coach for over 30 years, makes millions of dollars, has tons of fans around the league and we're throwing a "pity party" for him? Talk about first world problems. Is it a shitty situation that he doesn't really deserve? Sure...but I'll bet if his results were better, we wouldn't be having this conversation, we'd be hearing "Bruce there it is!" and having a grand ole time. Bruce is a good guy but he knows this is the job and its a performance based job and the performance isnt good enough. Unfortunate to see him go out like this, but it is what it is.

 

[TruGr1t]

if we buyout OEL he’s on the books for 8 years… damn that’s horrible! Might be best to wait it out. f***ing Benning and our stupid owners for doing that dumb trade. Then this new management groups goes out and inks Miller to 8 million for 7 years wtf is wrong with these people.

I don't think they give a damn about the long-term cap implications (have they ever). I really don't think, however, Aquilini will pay OEL all that cash not the play for the Canucks.

 

[Toss it to Tanti]

Hindsight isn't 20/20 when we were posting months in advance what we wanted them to do, and they didn't, and now that it didn't pan out we're commenting on what we had wanted them to do at the time.

His QO didn't walk him to free agency, he was still going to be an RFA next summer. His QO was supposed to be the worst case scenario if he wouldn't sign a team friendly deal, which he didn't. If he had recovered and was pacing 30/30 that would have been great, we could have sold him with retention at the deadline for a good return, and if he bombed then we had more leverage this summer or sufficient information to be more comfortable with him walking. Win/win.

You can't let your fear of players walking push you into making unforced errors like the Boeser and Miller deals. When you look at what teams like Seattle and Vegas can do with players more or less deemed disposable, the logical conclusion is that you have to prioritize deals that make sense with the cap over fear of losing good players because they want too much term.

Hindsight is absolutely 20/20; I’m not arguing on behalf of the roster decisions that were made; the original poster singled out Emilie Castonguay as doing a poor job; so I’m arguing in her behalf.

Any contract that Boeser would have had to sign he would have had to agree to, his market value was 4.5 million-5.0 million on a bridge deal, but why would he take that considering he was owed 7.5 in QO.

The thing I struggle with on this board is that people argue the point from a world of fantasy opinion. Not real life. If we QO’d him last year, he would have been owed the same QO this year. Meaning that we would be in the exact same situation, sure, maybe we could flip him at the deadline at that point at 1/2 retained for a 2nd or 3rd, but you’re also risking a breakout this year and him taking us to Arb and him being awarded his 7.5 or even higher.

Again, why would Boeser take any less when at worse he’d be making 14 million over the next two years if we just qualified him x2.

 

[VanJack]

This Boudreau fiasco is proof positive, that Aquilini is still meddling in the day to day operations of this team.

I would assume that Rutherford has hired and fired a dozen coaches during his time with Carolina and Pittsburgh. If it was up to him, I suspect this coaching mess would have been resolved by the 20-game mark.

But here he is, dragging his butt into game #45 with still no decision. He admits to interviewing coaches, which almost completely undermines the guy who's still here. Rutherford is looking like a guy trying to unstick flypaper from his shoe.

Meantime the guy the owner picked as the interim coach last December still shows up for practice every day, until somebody tells him not to.

You can't make this stuff up....... it's just 'the Canuck way'.

 

[F A N]

Seeing an emotional Boudreau… this isn’t right. And this isn’t the media speculating. We have our POHO talking about having interviewing HC candidates.

I don’t think I have ever seen something like this. A POHO or GM openly criticizing the coaching and then openly talking about having talked to potential replacements?

Aquilini was able to talk to Boudreau and Rutherford basically without it being reported. Clearly there is an ability to keep these discussions under wraps until just before the move is announced.

 

[arttk]

There is nothing to debate. You won’t even acknowledge why people are being critical…..”he’s the coach that’s his job” shows this.

The whole league knows he’s getting replaced but he’s basically being publicly shamed here.

It’s bush league.

I just addressed you so called point of them trotting him out. It’s gameday and league requirement for them to let media talk to the coach. That’s a thing you know. You can criticize them for not firing him yet but until that happens, that’s his job.

Every coach that is on the hot seat or performing the same degree as BB bad knows that they will be replaced. Hell all coaches knows they will be replaced because 90% of all coaches ends up getting fired and an insanely small amount of them gets to go through their contracts.

Green was going through the exact same shit last season and I don’t see the media saying that was disgraceful and ironically BB was the rumored coach while Green was still coaching. It’s not like it was surprising that BB ended up being the guy, the same rumors you see now worked out for him then.

Ask yourself, did we see the media throw up and do what they are doing now? Hell did you come out and say omg I can’t believe they are treating Green like that, how could they be looking for another coach while they let Green coach. I am pretty sure that’s a no.

 

[mriswith]

Hindsight is absolutely 20/20; I’m not arguing on behalf of the roster decisions that were made; the original poster singled out Emilie Castonguay as doing a poor job; so I’m arguing in her behalf.

Any contract that Boeser would have had to sign he would have had to agree to, his market value was 4.5 million-5.0 million on a bridge deal, but why would he take that considering he was owed 7.5 in QO.

The thing I struggle with on this board is that people argue the point from a world of fantasy opinion. Not real life. If we QO’d him last year, he would have been owed the same QO this year. Meaning that we would be in the exact same situation, sure, maybe we could flip him at the deadline at that point at 1/2 retained for a 2nd or 3rd, but you’re also risking a breakout this year and him taking us to Arb and him being awarded his 7.5 or even higher.

Again, why would Boeser take any less when at worse he’d be making 14 million over the next two years if we just qualified him x2.

I understand why Boeser wouldn't take a fair deal. I'm saying that the worst case scenario was supposed to be his QO, not what we did, and I was saying that here before we signed it. Even if he scored 30/30 he's not worth 7.5 so there was no real additional risk in giving him his QO, but if he did that and we retained he'd be worth more than a 2nd. There was no real cost to leaving all our options open and bumping the problem to next year other than the opportunity cost of one year of his cap.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

Wow...are we this soft? The guy has been a professional coach for over 30 years, makes millions of dollars, has tons of fans around the league and we're throwing a "pity party" for him? Talk about first world problems. Is it a shitty situation that he doesn't really deserve? Sure...but I'll bet if his results were better, we wouldn't be having this conversation, we'd be hearing "Bruce there it is!" and having a grand ole time. Bruce is a good guy but he knows this is the job and its a performance based job and the performance isnt good enough. Unfortunate to see him go out like this, but it is what it is.

You're missing the point by a country mile..Nobody is saying that he doesnt deserve to lose his job..Its a results based business after all, Boudreau is well aware of that.

However, having him being ridiculed publicly by the President, and leaving him (a respected veteran coach) twisting in the wind like he is right now is bullshit...Right now, that bullshit smell is permeating all-around the league for all to witness (staff, agents, players, media ,fans..and not just ours)...Good luck in having Vancouver as destination for players to play in.

Bad move...There will be repercussions.

 

[valkynax]

My problem of the situation initially was, why would they keep Bruce on the seat that he knew he was going to lose? Then someone said Bruce wanted to coach to the last minute. That would be OK, if this was his choice. But then the follow up would be...

Why did these clowns not handle the situation in a way that does NOT make them look like sacks of human shit?

Firing of a coach is normal, it's...as routine as it can get. But for some reason our organization found a way to mess it up. Right now the whole league is saying Orca management and ownership are a bunch of snakes, and it fits the overall reputation of the organization that's been built up over the last decade - a petty pathetic mess of a team that does not have a clue as to how to treat its people properly.

 

[arttk]

I understand why Boeser wouldn't take a fair deal. I'm saying that the worst case scenario was supposed to be his QO, not what we did, and I was saying that here before we signed it. Even if he scored 30/30 he's not worth 7.5 so there was no real additional risk in giving him his QO, but if he did that and we retained he'd be worth more than a 2nd. There was no real cost to leaving all our options open and bumping the problem to next year other than the opportunity cost of one year of his cap.

Ummm if we have Boeser is QO and retain to trade him, his value is still going to be bad because the acquiring team will need to deal with the subsequent 7.5M QO the following year.

Getting his value down to 6.6 makes it easier to retain and trade.

 

[Canucker]

You're missing the point by a country mile..Nobody is saying that he doesnt deserve to lose his job..Its a results based business after all, Boudreau is well aware of that.

However, having him being ridiculed publicly by the President, and leaving him (a respected veteran coach) twisting in the wind like he is right now is bullshit...Right now, that bullshit smell is permeating all-around the league for all to witness (staff, agents, players, media ,fans..and not just ours)...Good luck in having Vancouver as destination for players to play in.

Bad move...There will be repercussions.

lol...He wasn't "ridiculed", he was criticized publicly...lol...its getting deep in here...Yes, they should have replaced him in the summer, and if not then, earlier this year...but he's not stupid, he's going to do the job, he's going to get paid and he's going to likely get another job after this...he gets a little emotional over it and everyone goes bananas. There won't be any "repercussions" over this nonsense, people have short memories when multi-million dollar jobs are on the line.

 

[mriswith]

Ummm if we have Boeser is QO and retain to trade him, his value is still going to be bad because the acquiring team will need to deal with the subsequent 7.5M QO the following year.

Getting his value down to 6.6 makes it easier to retain and trade.

His value on the QO would have been the same as a rental since for all intents and purposes that's what he'd have been.

It's way harder and less desireable for us to retain a 3 year deal than an expiring deal.

 

[rypper]

If the Canucks bought out OEL this summer what would be the amount that would count against our cap?

Happened to have it saved for some reason.

 

[pitseleh]

Ummm if we have Boeser is QO and retain to trade him, his value is still going to be bad because the acquiring team will need to deal with the subsequent 7.5M QO the following year.

Getting his value down to 6.6 makes it easier to retain and trade.

The new team doesn’t have to qualify him. Boeser on an expiring contract at $7.5 million is worth more right now than Boeser on his current contract.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

If you go and read any of the replies in this thread that’ll tell you the leverage Boeser had.

You don’t think Columbus, Detroit, Philadelphia, etc would have given him a long-term contract if he walked to UFA? Those teams are desperate for younger scoring talent.

What if we didn’t resign Boeser, and he put up 30/30? This board would have been rife with “experts” talking about how we should have kept him and how bad we are at wasting assets. Hindsight is always 20/20 and this management group was dealt a dud by Benning with his QO.

Finally, this is all speculation right? I don’t have Emilie’s contract in front of me, but I run a business and have a pretty good understanding of what the different faction of my business do, and how the report to me to make the decisions.

Emilie’s job is the role of the accountant essentially, trying to find the most efficient way of staying under budget, finding creative ways to do so, and providing her opinion on long term outlook. She may have been against the JTM/Boeser/Mikehyev signings or maybe she was in staunch support of them. I’m not in her life so I have no inside information on that.

All I know is that like in regular business the decision is made from the top, you can argue in this case who the top is (FAQ or JR), all your underlings do are provide their opinion, but if JRs opinion differed, they would still just go with JRs plan.

I'm pretty sure Columbus is near the cap after signing Grudeau, Philly is also capped out and I don't believe Yzerman is stupid enough to give term to Boeser. 1 year Klingberg-type redemption contract, sure. What other team is there lining up to sign Brock to these stupid contracts? And if they are going to anchor themselves, let them. Just like if a team is willing to go 9x8 for Horvat this summer, go ahead. You don't jump in on a stupid contract just because another team is also going to do it. What sense does that make!?

And after last 2 seasons, I have no doubt Brock wouldn't be a 30/30 player this season. Maybe if he is tethered to McDavid, there's an outside shot. But on his own, no way. That should be painfully obvious to management, who watch this player day in, day out.

Your last 2 paragraphs basically confirmed that Castonguay is here to fill in blanks on contracts. And that's fine, in that sense she's doing an ok job. Again, I just thought based on the emphasis on her education and background, she would be more of a capologist like Gilman, and has some say. Evidently I misunderstood her role, my bad.

 

[me2]

Ummm if we have Boeser is QO and retain to trade him, his value is still going to be bad because the acquiring team will need to deal with the subsequent 7.5M QO the following year.

Getting his value down to 6.6 makes it easier to retain and trade.

Not if they see him as a rental

 

[Frankie Blueberries]

View attachment 638715

Happened to have it saved for some reason.

Not great aside from next season. His replacement will likely have a cap hit around $5-6 mill (assuming no ELC players), which means the same or slightly higher cap hit but hopefully a bigger improvement. 2025-2027 is rough.

 

[arttk]

His value on the QO would have been the same as a rental since for all intents and purposes that's what he'd have been.

It's way harder and less desireable for us to retain a 3 year deal than an expiring deal.

I don’t know what kind of value he would have as a trade deadline rental. Even with half retained, 3.5 prorated is still quite expensive and you might get uhh a 2nd or a 3rd?

If we trade him at trade deadline now and retain 1-1.5, I imagine we can get a 2nd and a prospect because Boeser at 5.1-5.6 for 2 more years is actually good value.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

lol...He wasn't "ridiculed", he was criticized publicly...lol...its getting deep in here...Yes, they should have replaced him in the summer, and if not then, earlier this year...but he's not stupid, he's going to do the job, he's going to get paid and he's going to likely get another job after this...he gets a little emotional over it and everyone goes bananas. There won't be any "repercussions" over this nonsense, people have short memories when multi-million dollar jobs are on the line.

Again..right over your head..you just don’t get it.

Good organizations don’t treat employees like this..You can be Mr Hardass and say it’s all about the money and results yada yada…but it isn’t..The NHL community isn’t that big.,and teams spend years striving for their organizations to be respected ,and an honor to play for..

Not happening.

 

[Peen]

pom is spitting facts

 

[Canucker]

Again..right over your head..you just don’t get it.

Good organizations don’t treat employees like this..You can be Mr Hardass and say it’s all about the money and results yada yada…but it isn’t..The NHL community isn’t that big.,and teams spend years striving for their organizations to be respected ,and an honor to play for..

Not happening.

No, I’m just not buying what you’re selling.

I do agree that good organizations handle their business better than this, cleaner than this, but this is a blip that will be forgotten in no time if they pull their shit together…if its a continued gong show there will be some short term repercussions.

 

[TruGr1t]

No, I’m just not buying what you’re selling.

I do agree that good organizations handle their business better than this, cleaner than this, but this is a blip that will be forgotten in no time if they pull their shit together…if its a continued gong show there will be some short term repercussions.

Seems like you’re in a pretty small minority that views it this way.