Management Threads | Structure. Standards. Habits.

[iceburg]

Going into the season of 21/22, before the management changes, it was very clear to everyone remotely following the team that the defense needed to be fixed. There was a complete lack of NHL calibre defensemen in the organization, and an even bigger deficit in defensive prospect depth. Benning had just swung for the fences with the OEL trade, acquiring a declining asset for futures, with the goal of making the playoffs. One of their NHL calibre defensemen, Hamonic, wasn’t even sure he wanted to play hockey.

It was a train wreck of epic proportions. New management was brought in with the objective to fix everything: the team culture, the balance, improve the skill, improve depth, etc. They had to believe that fixing the D was at the top of their priorities. Their tools for taking on this herculean task; negative cap space with aging “assets” in OEL and Myers taking up a huge percentage of that allocated to the D.

With all this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to simply list the D-men in the organization as of Fall 2021 to projected in the fall of 2023. There could very well be additional changes between now and the start of the season. If I've missed anything let me know.

There have been some misses, no doubt (e.g. Stillman). But overall colour me impressed at what they have accomplished to date.

Fall 2023 (projected)
[TABLE=collapse]
[TR]
[TD]Top 7
(by games played)[/TD]
[TD]Depth[/TD]
[TD]Prospects
<24 y.o. & fewer than NHL 30 games[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Hughes
Hronek
Soucy
Cole
Wolanin
Myers
Irwin[/TD]
[TD]Juulsen
Rathbone
Brisebois
Poolman (injured)[/TD]
[TD]Hirose*
Willander
Pettersson
Brzustewicz
McWard
Woo
Johansson
Kudryavtsev
Truscott
Mynio
Jurmo
Celebrini
Persson
Gabrielson
Dorrington
Myrenberg[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
*Hirose will be 24 years old but common sense says he’s still a prospect.



Fall 2022
[TABLE=collapse]
[TR]
[TD]Top 7
(by games played)[/TD]
[TD]Depth[/TD]
[TD]Prospects
<24 y.o. & fewer than NHL 30 games[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Hughes
OEL
Myers
Schenn
Bear
Burroughs
Stillman[/TD]
[TD]Brisebois
Wolanin
Juulsen
Dermott (injured)
Poolman (injured)[/TD]
[TD]Pettersson
Rathbone
Woo
Johansson
Kudryavtsev
Truscott
Jurmo
Persson
Gabrielson
Dorrington
Myrenberg[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


Fall 2021
[TABLE=collapse]
[TR]
[TD]Top 7
(by games played)[/TD]
[TD]Depth[/TD]
[TD]Prospects
<24 y.o. & fewer than NHL 30 games[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Hughes
OEL
Myers
Schenn
Hunt
Poolman
Burroughs[/TD]
[TD]Bowey
Brisebois
Juulsen
Sautner
Hamonic/Dermott[/TD]
[TD]Rathbone
Woo
Truscott
Jurmo
Persson
Gabrielson
Myrenberg[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Diogenes92]

The injury history stuff I can find indicates that this is the first time in his career he's missed games due to a shoulder issue.

He has had 2 concussions which is actually more of a concern to me. The shoulder isn't at all.

I was going off of information gathered at the time the trade went down.

I read multiple posts which stated he has hurt the same shoulder previously (Red Wings fan). Possibly twice.

I'll have to see if I can track anything down.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

the canucks have a decent cap situation going forward. myers and beauvillier expire this year and boeser the following year. only garland (edit: and the oel buyout) is really a problem long term. they do need to avoid any big mistakes like extending beauvillier or potentially hronek to inflated deals before they've earned them or signing a big ticket free agent who doesn't live up to their deal but every team needs to do that

the real problem is they have limited ability to add high end talent to the roster. what they've got is basically what they have to work with. if miller, kuzmenko, pettersson, hughes and hronek isn't a stanley cup contending core then they are in tough to make a tkachuk or eichel style deal to add a player to put them over the top. they don't have a tage thompson or huberdeau to build a deal around and they aren't likely to see a player of that calibre come out of their prospect pool

I agree with you, re: our way out of cap trouble, but the problem is that it does make the team slightly worse YoY. And if you re-sign these players, you aren't getting better anywhere, likely worse. I think a 5-year window is incredibly optimistic. I see it closer to a 2-3 year window, all things equal. It would take masterful work to extend it beyond that.

One scenario that comes to mind is that Podkolzin and Hoglander break out next season, a wonderful occurrence! Great problem to have, but where does that money go? You may just have to dump them for picks, which again doesn't help the short-term goal, and can end up pricing us out of future 3C + D needs.

I'd like to reiterate I don't think punting on Petey and Hughes is a good idea, I just think one way or another, that's where this is headed unfortunately. Again, would love to be proven wrong.

 

[rypper]

Here's Filip Hronek's injury history that I can find:

- 2/16/20 - head (took a point shot to the head.)
- 11/30/21 - covid.
- 2/10/22 - covid.
- 12/14/22 - head (big open ice hit from Ryan Reaves.)
- 1/13/23 - upper body, listed as day to day didn't miss any games.
- 2/28/23 - shoulder.
- 4/11/23 - shut down by canucks due to previous shoulder injury.

 

[MarkMM]

But all three of Soucy, Cole and Blueger have been telegraphed here and almost no other player. It’s not like there were fifteen guys connected and we landed three. Inversely, basically no other signing today was telegraphed more than a day or two ago, aside from Lucic.

Anything's possible, including that the Canucks were in early and hot on those guys and their agents leaked it to see if anyone would beat the bid.

so is anyone else bothered by the fact the three big signings are alumni of our management's previous teams? the signings all look ok in isolation, but i am not happy with the pro-scouting implications of the fact you can see cole as jr's guy, blueger as allvin's guy, and soucy as cammi's guy.

Not necessarily, it might be a risk if they're being biased against other opportunities for sure, on the other hand, it might be that they used their connections as an advantage and got those guys to sign here where they have gone elsewhere for a better deal. At a minimum, if previous relationships gave them a data advantage on knowing the character of the players then that would be a plus.

 

[credulous]

I agree with you, re: our way out of cap trouble, but the problem is that it does make the team slightly worse YoY. And if you re-sign these players, you aren't getting better anywhere, likely worse. I think a 5-year window is incredibly optimistic. I see it closer to a 2-3 year window, all things equal. It would take masterful work to extend it beyond that.

One scenario that comes to mind is that Podkolzin and Hoglander break out next season, a wonderful occurrence! Great problem to have, but where does that money go? You may just have to dump them for picks, which again doesn't help the short-term goal, and can end up pricing us out of future 3C + D needs.

I'd like to reiterate I don't think punting on Petey and Hughes is a good idea, I just think one way or another, that's where this is headed unfortunately. Again, would love to be proven wrong.

i don't disagree with you; i think they already blew their window and the best they can hope for now over the next three years is to scrape into the playoffs once or twice and maybe win a round. i just don't think cap space is really the issue anymore. their tradeable assets are willander, some distressed prospects like podkolzin, hoglander and lekkerimaki, future draft picks and a bunch of overpaid wingers. that's just not gonna cut it if they want to get any better

 

[Diogenes92]

Here's Filip Hronek's injury history that I can find:

- 2/16/20 - head (took a point shot to the head.)
- 11/30/21 - covid.
- 2/10/22 - covid.
- 12/14/22 - head (big open ice hit from Ryan Reaves.)
- 1/13/23 - upper body, listed as day to day didn't miss any games.
- 2/28/23 - shoulder.
- 4/11/23 - shut down by canucks due to previous shoulder injury.

So it seems oike maybe he hurt his shoulder in January and it lingered for the remainder of the season until the Canucks shut him down.

I was wondering if maybe the Feb 2020 upper body injury was a shoulder as it is stated as undisclosed on CapFriendly. But apparently it was a puck to the head.

Nagging shoulder injuries do kind of scare me with a defenseman as they are more prone to taking big hits in the corners.

 

[rypper]

So it seems oike maybe he hurt his shoulder in January and it lingered for the remainder of the season until the Canucks shut him down.

I was wondering if maybe the Feb 2020 upper body injury was a shoulder as it is stated as undisclosed on CapFriendly. But apparently it was a puck to the head.

Nagging shoulder injuries do kind of scare me with a defenseman as they are more prone to taking big hits in the corners.

Besides that, I don't even think you can call the most current injury "nagging."

He injured it, took some time off, played a few games for his new team, new coach etc, then shut down for the season. It wasn't like he re-injured it.

Like @MS said I'm more concerned about the previous head/concussion injuries, 2 in the last 3 or so years, then anything to do with his shoulder. If it was really bad he would have just sat out after the trade.

 

[Diogenes92]

View attachment 726192

Besides that, I don't even think you can call the most current injury "nagging."

He injured it, took some time off, played a few games for his new team, new coach etc, then shut down for the season. It wasn't like he re-injured it.

Like @MS said I'm more concerned about the previous head/concussion injuries, 2 in the last 3 or so years, then anything to do with his shoulder. If it was really bad he would have just sat out after the trade.

It never really made sense why they traded for an injured player when his value was inflated to begin with. I wish they'd have waited to poach him from Detroit at the draft.

But, it is what it is.

 

[arttk]

I think there's a truth to this, but suppose we make the playoffs next year, how do we build on that?

We definitely have space for EP + Hronek, but what else? We have ~$15M coming off the books, but then effectively $2.2M of that goes to OEL buyout, additionally $2M the next year. That's pretty well $13M to spend on damn near an entire bottom 6, and half a D-corps. Sure, we may get a cap increase but *everyone* benefits from that, so it doesn't move the needle enough.

I think, trying to optimistic here, but a shorter window doesn't mean we'll even be able to make noise in the playoffs. It just means we'll be one of 16 teams in the playoffs. Hopefully I'm wrong. But I think if everything goes right, it can be a WCE-comparable team. Who do we have the best chance of jumping next season out of VGK, SEA, EDM, LA? I don't even know if we can jump Calgary.

Entire bottom 6? They are going to ice guys on min for the whole 4th line so that’s like 2.2m? You really only need to spend money on a 3C and if you can spend find a guy for like 4-5M you can have that guy carry a rookie + line Pod who would be like max 2M.

Like 2 year from now this is what we project to see.

5.5 Kuz - 11M Petey - 4.75M mik. ~21.5M
4.9 garland - 8M Miller - 6.65M Boeser ~ 19.5M
???? - ???? - ????
850k - 850k - 850k. ~ 2.5M

7.85 Hughes - ????
3.25M Soucy - 6.75 Hronek ~ 10M
787k Hirose - 787K min 1.5M

5M Demko
1M Silovs

That’s 68M total, add in OEL 4.7, that’s 73M.
Cap is expected to go up another 4M that year so that’s like 92M cap? So we have 18M to spend on the 3rd line and ok Hughes partner. Hell spurge a little and spend more in a 2nd line C.

Edit: I don’t think we’ll keep Garland or Boeser but if Pod and Hog replaces them, that that should cost a lot less for us.

 

[Hoglander]

It never really made sense why they traded for an injured player when his value was inflated to begin with. I wish they'd have waited to poach him from Detroit at the draft.

But, it is what it is.

How was his value inflated, and how much cheaper do you really think we could have got him for? I don't see why there would be a discount at the draft. At that point I would imagine there would be a number of other teams interested, driving the price up to at least what we paid.

 

[arttk]

Here's Filip Hronek's injury history that I can find:

- 2/16/20 - head (took a point shot to the head.)
- 11/30/21 - covid.
- 2/10/22 - covid.
- 12/14/22 - head (big open ice hit from Ryan Reaves.)
- 1/13/23 - upper body, listed as day to day didn't miss any games.
- 2/28/23 - shoulder.
- 4/11/23 - shut down by canucks due to previous shoulder injury.

Seems like he’s prone to Covid eh.

 

[VanillaCoke]

Apparently now multiple months long, season ending injuries are simply brushed aside as unimportant, standard 4 to 6 week every player goes through it nbd.

I'm not quite as casual about shoulder injuries, can easily be an ongoing/recurring issue.

 

[rypper]

Apparently now multiple months long, season ending injuries are simply brushed aside as unimportant, standard 4 to 6 week every player goes through it nbd.

I'm not quite as casual about shoulder injuries, can easily be an ongoing/recurring issue.

He basically missed a month.

Injured at the very end of February. Played 4 games near the end of March, sat out the rest of April. The season ended April 13th.

And it wasn't season ending, as in if the canucks had made the playoffs, he would have played.

 

[Diogenes92]

How was his value inflated, and how much cheaper do you really think we could have got him for? I don't see why there would be a discount at the draft. At that point I would imagine there would be a number of other teams interested, driving the price up to at least what we paid.

The Canucks shut him down with injury after only a few games which he likely should never have played in. If Detroit would have kept him it seems reasonable that they would have also shut him down at some point.

Trading for a player that was shut down with injury for the remainder of the season sounds like a bargaining chip to me.

The Canucks paid a huge price for a player in a sling at the TDL when they had zero chance to make the playoffs. It was a weird, impatient sort of trade.

 

[MS]

Apparently now multiple months long, season ending injuries are simply brushed aside as unimportant, standard 4 to 6 week every player goes through it nbd.

I'm not quite as casual about shoulder injuries, can easily be an ongoing/recurring issue.

He missed 23 days with the injury and came back and looked good, and would have continued playing if we had remotely anything to play for.

There is absolutely zero reason to think it is any sort of serious problem going forward.

And yes, basically every player has a couple shoulder/groin/knee sort of tweaks over their career where they miss a month or whatever.

 

[rypper]

 

[bossram]

I think there's a truth to this, but suppose we make the playoffs next year, how do we build on that?

We definitely have space for EP + Hronek, but what else? We have ~$15M coming off the books, but then effectively $2.2M of that goes to OEL buyout, additionally $2M the next year. That's pretty well $13M to spend on damn near an entire bottom 6, and half a D-corps. Sure, we may get a cap increase but *everyone* benefits from that, so it doesn't move the needle enough.

I think, trying to optimistic here, but a shorter window doesn't mean we'll even be able to make noise in the playoffs. It just means we'll be one of 16 teams in the playoffs. Hopefully I'm wrong. But I think if everything goes right, it can be a WCE-comparable team. Who do we have the best chance of jumping next season out of VGK, SEA, EDM, LA? I don't even know if we can jump Calgary.

The Canucks are in a rather unique position since the farm system is so bloody devoid of talent that they really can't rely on any sort of impact players emerging on ELCs to cushion the salary cap crunch as the core players hit their prime earning years. It makes building an actual contender nearly impossible due to the waterfall impact of renewing contracts, the over-reliance on free agency, and the various issues with positional scarcity around the league at the moment.

The only real thing that could change the fortunes materially is some sort of miraculous pop-off in the farm system where you have a bunch of later draft picks break out across the line-up.

I'd argue people who think this team can open a meaningful window are just as delusional as anyone expecting a full-on teardown in a gate-driven market. Both are probably not happening.

It has been known for a long time you simply can't build a great team through free agency. I'm not sure why anyone thinks the Canucks are going to succeed at this when it's virtually impossible in a hard-cap league. The situation is compounded when you don't even have assets outside of draft picks to make impact trades.

They're basically stuck tinkering around the edges and praying to God some type of internal improvement leads to at the most a consistent playoff team.

Agreed with both. This is why despite generally liking what Allvin has done this offseason, and believing they've levelled themselves up to "should be in the playoffs consistently" status, I am pretty pessimistic on them ever having a legitimate shot at the Cup or a deep run.

They've raised the floor but the ceiling is the same. The core is good, but not great. And you need a great core to win a Cup. To be a real Cup threat, they need another 1C (i.e. top-32) calibre player to play 2C, another top-pairing calibre (i.e. top-64) defenseman, and then probably another top-paring defenseman OR 2C calibre player to fill in at 3C. They need to add those pieces to their core, and there just is not really any reasonable way to add them at this point.

Free agency probably won't get it done. And barring some miraculous development, the prospect pool likely won't help them get any of those pieces either, other than perhaps Willander. Trades are difficult (though not impossible), but having so little prospect/pick capital makes swinging trades even harder.

This is why it's hard to be optimistic. I just don't see them being a contender.

 

[DonnyNucker]

Bum shoulder! Perhaps bum lungs from all of the Covid as well. Can’t believe they traded for a guy with so many career threatening injuries

 

[pitseleh]

Anything's possible, including that the Canucks were in early and hot on those guys and their agents leaked it to see if anyone would beat the bid.

Might be, but given the timing that would have been clear tampering. Which is not to say it didn’t happen.

 

[RandV]

I would include a few more teams in the "made it" category

Maple Leafs
Colorado Avalanche
New York Rangers
LA Kings
Florida Panthers

Two of them finished a cycle of competing in a cup final and rebuilding back to a playoff team during the Benning years (LA, NYR)

The other two have been pretty consistent playoff appearances since their rebuild years and winning in the lotto (Leafs - 2016, Avs - 2013)

Panthers took a little longer after their rebuilding lottery win years but they've also succeeded in getting out of that basement and making playoffs in a tough division


Not discounting that yes, you can end up like an Arizona or Buffalo in a rebuild, but far more teams succeed in it than not as it the league gives very good handicaps and rewards for rebuilding teams.

On a strategic level, I'd argue there was no better time in the league's entire history to rebuild than during the flat cap era from Covid, when you can leverage cap space for additional picks and prospects at a greater rate than we will probably never see again.

Yes I was looking at the current group of sad sack teams going into last season, not ones going back a few years. Keep in mind though that we're sort of talking here about coming out of a rebuild into a contender. Leafs, Kings, and Rangers (who I think are the closest) clearly haven't been contenders coming out of their rebuild. Florida is kind of a weird one as they've been bad as long as Arizona/Buffalo were, and the primary assets making them good now came from their 2011 - 2014 drafts. But anyways making some random points about these teams...

Toronto is a good example of why I'm picking 'years out of playoffs' rather than focusing in on each team and saying 'these were the years they were rebuilding'. My standard puts them at 10 out of 11 years no playoffs, while if you narrow it down the Shanny years were a well executed 3 year rebuild while the years prior were Burke/Nonis floundering around trying to make it every year cumulating in 1 playoff appearances plan. after missing 7 straight. Yet from those Burke/Nonis years they got Kadri and Reilly out of the top 10, impact players for Shanahan to work with.

Kings and Rangers send a bit of a mixed message here because while they went into aggressive short term rebuilds and came out playoff teams that was a lot more from good pro acquisitions and signings than the draft picks they stockpiled. The Rangers did better there and they could prove the strategy if Lafreniere and Kakko can really break out.

Colorado is the example everyone always wants to use but I always feel like people don't really grasp the bigger picture with them. They had a stretch of 6/7 missing the playoffs before emerging as a good team, and of course just won the Cup the previous season. But they didn't come out of the rebuild a contender, it took 5 seasons to get to that point they won and the first 2 they weren't impressive at all 95 and 90 points in the regular season, lost in round 1 and round 2. It took 3 years of pro acquisitions after that to take them to the top, let me list them along with what they gave up:

2019 - 20
Nazem Kadri - Barrie, Kerfoot, 6th
Andre Burakovsky - 2020 2nd and 3rd round picks
Valeri Nichuskin - UFA signing
2020-21
Devon Toews - 2021 2nd, 2022 2nd
2021-22 (trade deadline deals)
Artturi Lehkonen - Avs 2020 1st and 2024 2nd
Josh Manson - Avs 2019 2nd and 2023 2nd

So if someone wants to ask how the Canucks could possibly build up the depth around their current core to contend, look at the Avs doing it by being patient and basically trading away their own 2nd round picks.

 

[pitseleh]

St. Louis Blues is really the other comparable I can think of that succeeds while consistently competing, but they've pretty much nailed a lot of their late draft picks.

We've been the early 2000s JFJ Leafs unfortunately. Worst of both worlds (winning % and draft capital)

That’s a good example. Three years at the bottom, three years in the middle of the pack, before pulling almost a decade off .600 W%s.

The key difference is their star players were much younger at the start of that window, so they got an 8-10 year window of competitiveness. I think it highlights the Canucks should be emphasizing the next 3-4 years because they’re already several years behind.

 

[Vector]

 

[racerjoe]

The people complaining about the Hronek injury are probably the same ones complaining about the canucks "trying to win" down the stretch, despite shutting a few players down.

 

[Diogenes92]

He missed 23 days with the injury and came back and looked good, and would have continued playing if we had remotely anything to play for.

There is absolutely zero reason to think it is any sort of serious problem going forward.

And yes, basically every player has a couple shoulder/groin/knee sort of tweaks over their career where they miss a month or whatever.

You sound worried.