Management Thread Blurst of Times

[theguardianII]

The dumb thing is that Francesco is inherently a fan. He grew up a fan, still is, has been quoted that some of his influence in team direction is such that he wants the team to win before his dad passes.

If he could just back off and let the adults do their thing as opposed to him being a billionaire child playing real life nhl 25 they might just get a sniff.

I think anytime the team has had a modicum of success in the last 15 years, it's been when he's been hands off. (With the exception of maybe the bubble playoffs.)

Do you think he is less informed than most fans?
He probably knows what is needed but the people he hires are more concerned for their futures than wins. They are more concerned with filling the arena in the regular season at the minimum.
They all know this gig is just one of many they could have.
As soon as you hear things like "fans deserve a playoffs" you know it is the GM building his resume. Making the playoff should not be a big accomplishment, half the league makes it.
Aquilini was very hands on when he first bought the team, he hired one of the best ever GMs outside of the box.

If there was ever a choice I would take the Griffiths and Aquilini over McCaw any day. McCaw's tenure almost had the team moving, he hired an accountant to run the team and made ony about three appearances and two interviews, just the guy some fans seem to want, that baffles me.

 

[SeawaterOnIce]

Do you think he is less informed than most fans?
He probably knows what is needed but the people he hires are more concerned for their futures than wins. They are more concerned with filling the arena in the regular season at the minimum.
They all know this gig is just one of many they could have.
As soon as you hear things like "fans deserve a playoffs" you know it is the GM building his resume. Making the playoff should not be a big accomplishment, half the league makes it.
Aquilini was very hands on when he first bought the team, he hired one of the best ever GMs outside of the box.

If there was ever a choice I would take the Griffiths and Aquilini over McCaw any day. McCaw's tenure almost had the team moving, he hired an accountant to run the team and made ony about three appearances and two interviews, just the guy some fans seem to want, that baffles me.

He wasn't hands on. He hired one of the best GM's in Canucks history....thanks to stupid luck where they (him and his brothers) met and proceeded to hire him after 5 days with no additional interviews. It wasn't until 2013 where the meddling begun due to two underwhelming playoff runs where Francesco Aquilini elected to hire a coach that didn't fit Gillis MO (this was hinted during Gillis' interview in Victoria a few years ago).

 

[PuckMunchkin]

He wasn't hands on. He hired one of the best GM's in Canucks history....thanks to stupid luck where they (him and his brothers) met and proceeded to hire him after 5 days with no additional interviews. It wasn't until 2013 where the meddling begun due to two underwhelming playoff runs where Francesco Aquilini elected to hire a coach that didn't fit Gillis MO (this was hinted during Gillis' interview in Victoria a few years ago).

If you read the book Ice Storm by Dowbiggin it is made pretty clear that Aqua was really excited and rather handsy during Gillis' era and was fully on board with the whole secular science based approach to pro sports.

How he was after that convinced by our Talent Whisperer Benning GM that all that needs to go, I will never know.

 

[andora]

You need to tank for elite talent but it has to be an orchestrated tank and not accidental because that's how you end up like we did. The elite guys are the guys that you build/retool around and you need at least 2. We got lucky with Hughes but he was still picked in the top 10. Those Shotgun and Juolevi busts is what killed this core.

That has nothing to do with planned or unplanned tanking it has to do with shitty scouting and picks

 

[arttk]

You need to tank for elite talent but it has to be an orchestrated tank and not accidental because that's how you end up like we did. The elite guys are the guys that you build/retool around and you need at least 2. We got lucky with Hughes but he was still picked in the top 10. Those Shotgun and Juolevi busts is what killed this core.

nobody is/should justify what Benning did, he f***ed up hard. Regardless of what he did, we still have Petey, Hughes, Demko right now and a pretty damn solid D core and bottom 6 unit and we shouldn't just tank tank tank just because Benning didn't do it properly years ago.

Adding to the core without tanking is like basically what every cup team did. Florida is the prime example, Forlsing, Reinhart, Bennet, Verhaege, Bob. Sign a bunch of 2nd liners if possible and then when the opportunity comes, package them along with our 1st and add in a prospect to trade for better players.

 

[Bleach Clean]

Yes and it took them 10 years since they finished tanking to win a cup, it’s not as simple as tank -> profit. You are basically assuming all the steps in between will marginally happen because of tanking when tanking is basically the circle of life for all hockey teams in a closed no relegation environment.

We finished basically at the basement for6/8 years when Benning was here, yeah he didn’t purposely tanked the team but tank we did. Yea he also f***ed up a lot of high draft picks but that doesn’t change the fact we actually have a core now that includes the best dman in the league.

We had probably the worst season possible in terms of injuries and we are a couple points away from the last WC spot. Sorry this team is not a top line winger and 2C away from a WC spot, we are a top line winger and 2C away from finishing top 2 in our division.

Disclaimer: It's too late for this team to tank now. It's even too late to re-tool slower now. It's re-tool fast or bust.

Finishing poorly is not tanking. Tanking is an intentional act that supports finishing lower. It collects assets by selling aggressively around a falling team. Benning never did this.

I get the point about injuries, but the truth is that they are a bubble team. High side or low side, They finished tops in the division last year, but their true talent lagged behind EDM. They also would not have been favoured against DAL or FLA. That's the reality of the situation.

 

[Bleach Clean]

100%.

It's like people don't understand there are 32 teams and their players and executives get paid too.

The best bet is to be relevant for a long time, and hope that in the right year you can have the right young guy develop and/or the right ufa who fills a need and/or a couple of guys have career years at the same time.

Hilarious that you don't know the difference between good fortune after a bad run for the franchise and a 'tank'.

Chicago, Pittsburgh, Tampa, and Colorado were all some variation of ownership problems that led to the team being rather hopeless for awhile (Colorado wasn't ownership but a convergence of a bunch of things).

Pittsburgh almost moved, Chicago became loathed by their own fans, Tampa had joke ownership of a horror movie producer who almost tried to trade Stamkos for pennies on the dollar before being stopped by others.

None of these are the same as 'tanking' where a 'competent' braintrust just throws in the towel.

I don't think many here really understand group psychology or how hard it is to 'unquit' once you've pulled the plug.

Going through brutal adversity and getting lucky enough to draft franchise players is one thing. But quitting is how you ruin a franchise.

Anaheim is maybe sort of pulling out of their tailspin after 7 years, Utah has been a joke forever, Buffalo is a national joke, Chicago has people speculating that Bedard will want to leave and that's WITH them winning what was perceived as a once in a generation lottery, Columbus has been bad forever, Detroit is looking pathetic and rudderless, Edmonton and Florida were lost in the wildnerness for like 12 and 20 years respectively.

I could go on and on and on.

And including Washington is hilarious since they are an example counter. They recycled cores while staying relevant literally 15 years after their 'tank' before winning their cup.

Tampa also got incredibly lucky in later rounds in an impossible to reproduced manner.

All of this is video game thinking where dumb A.I. sits there while your team accrues a trillion draft picks and tricks the A.I. while you draft multiple franchise players. It just doesn't happen without a confluence of bad franchise luck/ownership and crazy fortune in drafting.

It's not a replicable 'system' and there are like 15 teams we can point to as direct evidence.

That any system is not 100% replicable does not exclude it from being the most viable due to probability. Tanking could bear out a great roster in 20% of occurrences and result in 7 of the last 10 cup winners. That's still a fantastic result relative to the myriad of configurations tried. IF the goal is to win a cup.

Framing asset accrual as video game thinking is one of the dumbest pejoratives used here in some time imo. Imagine the cognitive dissonance it takes to look at what has produced 7 of the last 10 cup winners and say that that method is not reality? But that this method producing a middling bubble team is the ONLY reality. I'd call that a strained myopia.

That said, I completely understand it if the goal is not to win the cup. In such a case, have at it.

 

[theguardianII]

He wasn't hands on. He hired one of the best GM's in Canucks history....thanks to stupid luck where they (him and his brothers) met and proceeded to hire him after 5 days with no additional interviews. It wasn't until 2013 where the meddling begun due to two underwhelming playoff runs where Francesco Aquilini elected to hire a coach that didn't fit Gillis MO (this was hinted during Gillis' interview in Victoria a few years ago).

You have to wonder how bad Torts was. He said the core was stale, tired, old and needed to be replaced. Linden after a few years of being fired admitted that they knew the team needed to be rebuilt.

Torts went on to coach CBJ, a team filled with very young players and won the Adams trophy.
Think on a bit, if the Canucks had done a rebuild they already had a coach that had previously led two other teams that were filled with very young players to winning seasons, Tampa to a cup and NYR to a cup final.

The team was set for a rebuild, they had no goaltending in the NHL, they did have Markstrom in the AHL so the future goal tending was set.
So a planned tank for the next year without trading away or ruining the room and culture giving them a chance at a top 5 player or better.
They had most of the veteran defence already signed to add stability.
They still had Burrows and Hansen as examples of hard work, grit and determination.
The rumor for the draft was Larkin not injured Virtanen.
They had already drafted Horvat, a Kessler replacement.
Without the goal tending they didn't need to decimate the 2012 team, they would have finished at the bottom of the league and got a top pick.
They could have traded the Sedins at the TDL and then re-signed them the next year for retirement but would have got a treasure chest of prospects/picks. Or kept them as mentors for Horvat, Larkin and the next year's draft pick. They might even got the twins to sign for one additional year for the PP if nothing else.

This team would then have Markstrom, Horvat, Larkin, 2014 1rst, Tryamkin, with most of the 2012 president's cup team as mentors/ That 2015 pick could have been any of the top 3 or 4 players all superstars.

That could have been a one year tank, retool, it was set up for that, they had all the pieces in place without demolishing the team and had extra cap space for notable FAs.

A team perfect for Torts and Sullivan.

 

[arttk]

Disclaimer: It's too late for this team to tank now. It's even too late to re-tool slower now. It's re-tool fast or bust.

noted

Finishing poorly is not tanking. Tanking is an intentional act that supports finishing lower. It collects assets by selling aggressively around a falling team. Benning never did this.

Yes he did not purposefully tanked but when we ended up like around bottom 5 for like 3-4 seasons straight, the net effect is the same. We should be clear, the main purpose of tanking is to get that high high high pick, it's just that for most teams, as part of the process to get to the bottom, you would need to sell off assets because it's really really hard to hit rockbottom if you have quality players around.

There are teams that accidentally tanked due to insane amount of injuries or unforeseen circumstances and didn't sell off assets because the plan was never to be shit. Those

I get the point about injuries, but the truth is that they are a bubble team. High side or low side, They finished tops in the division last year, but their true talent lagged behind EDM.

The point is we would be a WC team if not for the massive amount of injuries. Hell we are literally a bubble team right now despite the injuries.

They also would not have been favoured against DAL or FLA. That's the reality of the situation.

I am not arguing that we are a contender. I am saying that if we get like a 2C and/or a top line forward, we should be a playoff team (like we make playoffs every year as 2nd or 3rd in the division). Contender is a different level that would require more.

 

[Hodgy]

This is so wrong… you guys just have this very narrow vision of ways to get a cup which is to tank tank tank, amass a ton of assets and then leverage that when the reality is every team that has won the cup in the last 10 years have done it in different ways.

You are mischaracterizing my position. My point is that an intentional tank (or even an unintentional one where the management responsible for it is fired at the right time) has a higher likelihood of resulting in a Stanley Cup than any other method. The point isn't that its impossible to win the Stanley Cup unless you tank. No one is making that argument. But history is pretty clear that teams who have tanked have a way higher likelihood of winning the Stanley Cup than those that haven't.

If we are actually objective about where we are at, when healthy, and this is not the Benning era where one player down leads to the house falling apart, we are talking about when our 1C, 2C, 1G, 1W, 2D, 3W are not all out to extensive period of time, we have one of the best goalie tandem, best blue line and bottom 6 forwards in the league. The plan is to keep plugging away and try to get 1 more top6 guy every single f***ing year.

I understand what the plan is. It just seems pretty unlikely to succeed at this point. You've got a bottom five offense in the league with your highest paid player, and only credible top six centre that is signed beyond this year, playing like a 50-60 point player over the last 14 months or whatever. And your "second line" centre has sustained his, what, third or fourth or whatever serious concussion, and is looking like may actually be a negative asset at this point. And you've got a "number one" goalie that hasn't proven to be able to stay healthy at all, and can't be currently relied to do so moving forward, coupled with an average goalie that's currently riding a sub 900svp this year. And you think this is a good situation? Certainly things can turn around, but that's true for most teams. And the plan to chip away at things and just get better year to year is basically the same plan that 70% of the teams in the NHL have. But yet we actually have less cap space than most other teams in the NHL heading into a free agency where we are going to likely see an increase inflation of salaries.

Somehow that’s that part where you guys’ brain fizzle out because if you can’t imagine us being a contender next year, you guys just assume there is zero path forward.

No one is saying that. If Pettersson and Hoglander rebound to form, and if Demko and Chytil find their health, and if management beats the odds and acquires a top six centre and top six (preferable top line) winger this year, then I can see the Canucks be a contender. But that's a lot of "ifs".

 

[TruGr1t]

No one is saying that. If Pettersson and Hoglander rebound to form, and if Demko and Chytil find their health, and if management beats the odds and acquires a top six centre and top six (preferable top line) winger this year, then I can see the Canucks be a contender. But that's a lot of "ifs".

I'll buy playoff team, but holy smokes you gotta be smoking the hopium to talk about this team contending for anything next year.

 

[Ernie]

Do you think he is less informed than most fans?
He probably knows what is needed but the people he hires are more concerned for their futures than wins. They are more concerned with filling the arena in the regular season at the minimum.
They all know this gig is just one of many they could have.
As soon as you hear things like "fans deserve a playoffs" you know it is the GM building his resume. Making the playoff should not be a big accomplishment, half the league makes it.
Aquilini was very hands on when he first bought the team, he hired one of the best ever GMs outside of the box.

If there was ever a choice I would take the Griffiths and Aquilini over McCaw any day. McCaw's tenure almost had the team moving, he hired an accountant to run the team and made ony about three appearances and two interviews, just the guy some fans seem to want, that baffles me.

wow, found an Aquilini stan. Must be Aquilini himself right? I'd say a family member but that's unlikely because he's an abusive f*** who (allegedly) threw his kid across a room.

 

[Hodgy]

I'll buy playoff team, but holy smokes you gotta be smoking the hopium to talk about this team contending for anything next year.

Ya, I'm with you. There are probably like 4 - 6 significant things that have to break their way in order for them to be a contender next year.

1. Pettersson returns to his 90-100 point form;
2. Demko plays 40-50 games plus playoffs;
3. Chytil is able to consistently play regular season games plus playoffs;
4. Canucks acquire a top line winger (may get away with a top six one);
5. Depending on 3, Canucks sign a top six centre);
6. Hoglander returns to form; and
7. Tocchett re-signs or the Canucks find a different new, above average coach.

 

[F A N]

Disclaimer: It's too late for this team to tank now. It's even too late to re-tool slower now. It's re-tool fast or bust.

In reality likely yes. Technically no. I believe that guys like Petey, Hronek, M-Petey, they can still be traded before their no moves kick in.

 

[arttk]

You are mischaracterizing my position. My point is that an intentional tank (or even an unintentional one where the management responsible for it is fired at the right time) has a higher likelihood of resulting in a Stanley Cup than any other method. The point isn't that its impossible to win the Stanley Cup unless you tank. No one is making that argument. But history is pretty clear that teams who have tanked have a way higher likelihood of winning the Stanley Cup than those that haven't.

You can't select from a population where every single team has basically intentionally tanked and then say yeah, intentionally tanking = increased odds of winning a cup. There is zero correlation. If all the cup winning teams exhibit a similar behavior that majority of non cup winning teams don't , then you can make that connection.

Chicago, did that do an intentional tank? No, they had f***ing shitty ownership that forced them into a decade plus of just being utter shit.

Florida, they had an incompetent GM that plunge them into a rebuild and even then, it took them 10+ years from the rebuild before they won a cup.

Pitts, they had ownership issues and was on the brink of being sold and they had a singular event that cannot be replicated by any team which is to get a generational talent in Sid by winning a all team with equal odds draft lottery.

Washington intentionally tanked for Ovie and then it took them 13 years to win a cup. How do you even correlate something you did 13 years ago as, oh look that tank 13 years ago lead to higher odds of them winning a cup.

St Louis intentionally tanked and then basically was a middling team for 10+ years until the stars finally aligned for them.

Boston actually never tanked at all and basically relied on a couple of good drafts and Chara joining when the cap contracted?

VGK never tanked.

LA Kings was an intentional tank and the only one where they came roaring out of a rebuild into winning a cup.

Avs was a rebuild of a rebuild and if you measure when they actually started the 1st rebuild, it took them 10+ years to get a cup.

TBL intentionally tanked but they also went through ownership transition/chaos and even then, it took them like 10+ years to get their 1st cup and had to continue to build.

The thing is, regardless of whether or not you "properly" tanked or not, it still takes a lot of time to build on top of what you have and if you look at all the teams that won, majority of the team outside of like the core 3-4 pieces are acquired outside of the tanking period and came from the boring 10+ years of continual building.

 

[TruGr1t]

VGK never tanked.

If we could withdraw from the league and re-enter and nail a heavily biased expansion draft, that could work. Probably also result in new ownership ... win-win.

 

[arttk]

If we could withdraw from the league and re-enter and nail a heavily biased expansion draft, that could work. Probably also result in new ownership ... win-win.

if only, problem would be we will be Canucks-less for like .. at least 3-5 years.

 

[Goatlender]

You can't select from a population where every single team has basically intentionally tanked and then say yeah, intentionally tanking = increased odds of winning a cup. There is zero correlation. If all the cup winning teams exhibit a similar behavior that majority of non cup winning teams don't , then you can make that connection.

Chicago, did that do an intentional tank? No, they had f***ing shitty ownership that forced them into a decade plus of just being utter shit.

Florida, they had an incompetent GM that plunge them into a rebuild and even then, it took them 10+ years from the rebuild before they won a cup.

Pitts, they had ownership issues and was on the brink of being sold and they had a singular event that cannot be replicated by any team which is to get a generational talent in Sid by winning a all team with equal odds draft lottery.

Washington intentionally tanked for Ovie and then it took them 13 years to win a cup. How do you even correlate something you did 13 years ago as, oh look that tank 13 years ago lead to higher odds of them winning a cup.

St Louis intentionally tanked and then basically was a middling team for 10+ years until the stars finally aligned for them.

Boston actually never tanked at all and basically relied on a couple of good drafts and Chara joining when the cap contracted?

VGK never tanked.

LA Kings was an intentional tank and the only one where they came roaring out of a rebuild into winning a cup.

Avs was a rebuild of a rebuild and if you measure when they actually started the 1st rebuild, it took them 10+ years to get a cup.

TBL intentionally tanked but they also went through ownership transition/chaos and even then, it took them like 10+ years to get their 1st cup and had to continue to build.

The thing is, regardless of whether or not you "properly" tanked or not, it still takes a lot of time to build on top of what you have and if you look at all the teams that won, majority of the team outside of like the core 3-4 pieces are acquired outside of the tanking period and came from the boring 10+ years of continual building.

It’s kind of strange that this long winded response is negated by the previous post including unintentional tanks as a part of their argument.

8/10 of the last 10 Cup winners included multiple top picks as core contributors to the Cup run:

Florida - Ekblad (1st overall), Barkov (3rd overall), M. Tkachuk acquired by trading away Huberdeau (3rd overall)

Colorado - MacKinnon (1st overall), Landeskog (2nd overall), Makar (4th overall), Byram (4th overall), Rantanen (10th overall),

Tampa - Stamkos (1st overall), Hedman (2nd overall), Sergachev (9th overall but acquired by trading a 3rd overall prospect in Drouin).

Washington - Ovechkin (1st overall), Backstrom (4th overall)

Penguins - Crosby (1st overall), Malkin (2nd overall), Fleury (1st overall), along with acquiring Bonino which follows a trade tree from Jordan Staal (2nd overall).

The only examples that run counter to this are Vegas (extremely unique expansion draft that was extremely mishandled by some GMs) and St. Louis (who still had Pietro at 4th overall as their #1 D).

Basically the vast majority of recent cup winners have multiple top picks as part of their core, usually in key positions (#1 D or #1 C).

 

[Hodgy]

You can't select from a population where every single team has basically intentionally tanked and then say yeah, intentionally tanking = increased odds of winning a cup. There is zero correlation. If all the cup winning teams exhibit a similar behavior that majority of non cup winning teams don't , then you can make that connection.

As a different poster pointed out, I am not excluding unintentional tanking. Ultimately, the most important part is acquiring high end assets in the top five picks or so of the draft. This can be done intentionally or unintentionally, although the former is going to have a higher likelihood of ending up with a Stanley Cup for obvious reasons. But if the management team that unintentionally tanked is fired swiftly and replaced with a competent management team then the unintentional tank can yield good results.

The problem is that posters critical of "tanking" almost always point to some shit organization with shit management that unintentionally tanked and never got good management. And ya, if your management is incompetent (e.g., Benning) it doesn't really matter how many high picks you get. But that isn't an indictment of the tanking method, its and indictment of shit management.

Chicago, did that do an intentional tank? No, they had f***ing shitty ownership that forced them into a decade plus of just being utter shit.

Unintentional tank followed with competent management yielded great results.

Florida, they had an incompetent GM that plunge them into a rebuild and even then, it took them 10+ years from the rebuild before they won a cup.

That's because it took them a while to get good management. Once they got good management they started getting good results.

Pitts, they had ownership issues and was on the brink of being sold and they had a singular event that cannot be replicated by any team which is to get a generational talent in Sid by winning a all team with equal odds draft lottery.

They tanked hard, and also got Malkin, Staal and Fleury from tanking. Sure, they got luck in the draft lottery, but if they didn't have Malkin, Staal and Fleury they aren't winning a Stanley Cup.

Washington intentionally tanked for Ovie and then it took them 13 years to win a cup. How do you even correlate something you did 13 years ago as, oh look that tank 13 years ago lead to higher odds of them winning a cup.

Because their best player and number one centre were both drafted because they tanked? Why does it matter that they took a long time to actually win? Its not like it changes the fact that arguably there two most important pieces were obtained through tanking. They also made the playoffs nine of the preceding ten years. If anything, the Capitals are a text book example of why tanking is worth it.

St Louis intentionally tanked and then basically was a middling team for 10+ years until the stars finally aligned for them.

Boston actually never tanked at all and basically relied on a couple of good drafts and Chara joining when the cap contracted?

VGK never tanked.

The point isn't that you can't win the Stanley Cup without tanking. No one is making that argument.

Avs was a rebuild of a rebuild and if you measure when they actually started the 1st rebuild, it took them 10+ years to get a cup.

Again, why does the timing matter? Pretty clearly the tanking that resulted in the Avalanche getting Mackinnon, Landeskog and Makar were conditions precedent to the Avalanche winning the Stanley Cup.

TBL intentionally tanked but they also went through ownership transition/chaos and even then, it took them like 10+ years to get their 1st cup and had to continue to build.

Again, the timing isn't overly relevant and more points to when organizations have bad management for periods.

The thing is, regardless of whether or not you "properly" tanked or not, it still takes a lot of time to build on top of what you have and if you look at all the teams that won, majority of the team outside of like the core 3-4 pieces are acquired outside of the tanking period and came from the boring 10+ years of continual building.

No one is arguing that your top picks acquired through tanking will be your only important pieces.

 

[nowhereman]

It’s kind of strange that this long winded response is negated by the previous post including unintentional tanks as a part of their argument.

8/10 of the last 10 Cup winners included multiple top picks as core contributors to the Cup run:

Florida - Ekblad (1st overall), Barkov (3rd overall), M. Tkachuk acquired by trading away Huberdeau (3rd overall)

Colorado - MacKinnon (1st overall), Landeskog (2nd overall), Makar (4th overall), Byram (4th overall), Rantanen (10th overall),

Tampa - Stamkos (1st overall), Hedman (2nd overall), Sergachev (9th overall but acquired by trading a 3rd overall prospect in Drouin).

Washington - Ovechkin (1st overall), Backstrom (4th overall)

Penguins - Crosby (1st overall), Malkin (2nd overall), Fleury (1st overall), along with acquiring Bonino which follows a trade tree from Jordan Staal (2nd overall).

The only examples that run counter to this are Vegas (extremely unique expansion draft that was extremely mishandled by some GMs) and St. Louis (who still had Pietro at 4th overall as their #1 D).

Basically the vast majority of recent cup winners have multiple top picks as part of their core, usually in key positions (#1 D or #1 C).

Yes but, if Pettersson rebounds to his old form, the Canucks have the pieces that teams would be looking for out of a rebuild (#1C, #1D, 1#G). Why blow it all up just to try and hope you can land another 90+ point center, Norris-winner and Vezina-caliber goaltender? They could rebuild for the next decade and not line up that kind of talent. Also, keep in mind that all of those teams listed built their core before the recent lottery changes, where you can finish last and still not draft top 2 (or get pushed down by an expansion team, of which there are more coming). Tanking is not a guaranteed path to success and could land you in purgatory.

But you also have to look beyond Cup-winners, if the discussion is regarding "contenders". None of Dallas, Winnipeg, Carolina and Washington (even with OV) are as good as they are now because of rebuilding but, rather, retooling and tinkering. In a league with as much parity as we've ever seen (and that will increase with expansion), there are several paths to being a contender.

The Canucks have enough pieces that rebuilding just isn't in the cards. They need to hope that they can bolster their roster with smart moves and get lucky with some trades/picks. And all of that hinges on how Pettersson and Demko rebound, if at all.

 

[arttk]

As a different poster pointed out, I am not excluding unintentional tanking. Ultimately, the most important part is acquiring high end assets in the top five picks or so of the draft. This can be done intentionally or unintentionally, although the former is going to have a higher likelihood of ending up with a Stanley Cup for obvious reasons. But if the management team that unintentionally tanked is fired swiftly and replaced with a competent management team then the unintentional tank can yield good results.

The problem is that posters critical of "tanking" almost always point to some shit organization with shit management that unintentionally tanked and never got good management. And ya, if your management is incompetent (e.g., Benning) it doesn't really matter how many high picks you get. But that isn't an indictment of the tanking method, its and indictment of shit management.

yeah and we all recognized we had shit management and they were here for so long that we missed the opportunity to continue to rebuild. ship has sailed and you can't really go back to it without losing the pieces that teams hope to get when they tank.

Unintentional tank followed with competent management yielded great results.That's because it took them a while to get good management. Once they got good management they started getting good results.

yes if shit management didn't f*** the team over in every conceivable way. Benning is essentially the anti GOAT considering what he left behind( Petey on a short term contract, Hughes in semi long term contract, zero depth, zero picks, zero prospects, zero cap, a bunch of cap anchors, and all good player past their "I am fine with sucking" stage).

That's because it took them a while to get good management. Once they got good management they started getting good results.

Look at every team that had shit management, almost every one of them at least hit the baseline of, we suck but at least we have picks and prospects. Somehow Benning was able create a truly shit team that outside of like 5 guys had absolutely nothing. I've said this consistently, this is not the standard fix it up job and we either go full rebuild and give up on Petey and Hughes and everybody else or we try to build on top of that and that will take years to actually build up.

They tanked hard, and also got Malkin, Staal and Fleury from tanking. Sure, they got luck in the draft lottery, but if they didn't have Malkin, Staal and Fleury they aren't winning a Stanley Cup.

If they didn't get Sid, the probably won't win a cup either. You do know having THE generational superstar makes a big ass difference.

Because their best player and number one centre were both drafted because they tanked? Why does it matter that they took a long time to actually win? Its not like it changes the fact that arguably there two most important pieces were obtained through tanking. They also made the playoffs nine of the preceding ten years. If anything, the Capitals are a text book example of why tanking is worth it.

It proves that tanking and grabbing a ton of assets is just a starting point, once you have your guy, it still takes absolutely forever for those teams to get enough around that guy to have a winning team. They got Ovie and even with him being the GOAT scorer, it still took 10+ years to build a team that can win.

We already have Hughes, hes basically playing like a generational D. The odds of getting somebody that elite would require to basically finish dead last for the next 5-8 years and we might get 1 if the stars align. What's the f***ing point of tanking if you already have the guy you would tank for? It makes no f***ing sense. It's like, oh .. we have a generational D? Oh that's not enough, we need a generational C and W as well, so let's give up on the generational D and then tank for like what, 8 more years and see if we get lucky and get that guy. it makes no f***ing sense.

Yeah tanking is necessary when you don't have that elite piece, but once you have it, you still need to build. that's the f***ing point. every team that gets their elite piece through tanking still had to go through like 5-10 years of building before they win a cup. yes we didn't get the massive amount of assets when we tanked, but at the end of the day, we still have Hughes, Petey and actually a pretty good D core right now. We need to continue to build, not strip it down because you guys got blue balled hard by Benning.

 

[rypper]

Do you think he is less informed than most fans?

100%. I think he's the Jim Benning of ownership.

 

[Diablo2020]

It only took a month and like 5 posters to keep parroting how we're actually in a bottom 10 cap position for fans to wake up to reality. Props to you all I dont see daily Ehlers and Bennett assumptions anymore.

Now we're at the "you only tank to get elite talent, we have Quinn therefore you need to build around him" mode while thinking up RFA offersheet targets. Props again team, your still slowly getting there.

Next up, and I cant believe its theguardian leading the charge with reality, but he's right. We actually are in a bottom 10 position leaguewide in general, with zero assets to "build around Quinn" and the only actual path to building a team, is in fact by trading Quinn Hughes.

Its a 23 man playing roster. Its an upto 50 man contract roster. We have ONE player worth a damn. Alllll this talk, from going allin around him, to keeping the coach he likes, to trading for his friends, is ******* nonsense. One player does not make a franchise, even one as great as Quinn.

We fell arse backwards into Quinn, and Ep40. Why cant we find these players intentionally? Ya'll are delusional if you see a championship team in the immediate 2 yr future. The only path to fixing everything, is by trading the only thing that could actually singlehandidely rebuild this team, and as much as it hurts, thats Quinn.

The sooner people just admit to themselves that we will waste Quinn Freaking Hughes, is the the day the healing can start.

But at this rate, the delusional fans might wake up by seasons end. Ya'll are progressing so well lately. And if you dont, its ok, July1 will definetly be the wakeup call you need to see the light when we brick on everything and see the players we are vying for, get traded for each other again while we hold our junk on the sidelines with zero assets to play with.

 

[Diablo2020]

And here's my proposals.

to Nashville - Quinn Hughes
to Vancouver - Tanner Molendyk, #3, #26, #30

*Nashville then sends Huggy to NJD for Hamilton, Nemec, Casey and whatever else. All the RHD they need that we dont.

to Pittsburgh - Elias Pettersson
to Vancouver - Tristan Jarry, #8, NYR 2026 1st

*If Ep40 cant bounce back with Malks and Croz he is doomed. Dubas cab point at Ep40 as the sucession plan.

to Detroit - Thatcher Demko, #15
to Vancouver - Michael Rasmussen, Ben Chariot, #11

*Wings can trade Talbot to whoever. We get two stopgaps and move up to guarantee the better center option.

 

[Slapshot_11]

This year has set the franchise so far back that it'll probably take 10+ years to be back to a cup contender

Alvin and Rutherford need to be fired