Management Threads | Structure. Standards. Habits.

[credulous]

I'm not claiming to be an expert but even that appears to be underwhelming? Like the top end is great with Doughty and Gavrikov, and Brandt Clarke, but I wouldn't call them stacked or anything.

michael anderson is really good. matt roy is very solid too

 

[VanJack]

Jim Rutherford playing the role of 'Debbie Downer' at today's press conference. Basically saying that just about everything has to go right for the Canucks to have a shot at the playoffs.

Softening up the fans for another 'so-so' season?

 

[TruGr1t]

Jim Rutherford playing the role of 'Debbie Downer' at today's press conference. Basically saying that just about everything has to go right for the Canucks to have a shot at the playoffs.

Softening up the fans for another 'so-so' season?

I'm gonna steal a point from Dowd and Drance today, but admitting you're a borderline playoff team is a bold strategy and honest assessment, but it doesn't really jive with some of their moves or seeming strategy.

 

[arttk]

I'm gonna steal a point from Dowd and Drance today, but admitting you're a borderline playoff team is a bold strategy and honest assessment, but it doesn't really jive with some of their moves or seeming strategy.

That’s because Drance has this stupid idea that you can sell Petey on a “plan” based purely around “we’ll get picks and they will not bust and it’s magically not a rebuild and somehow in 2 years all that plus cap space will turn into players that will make the team super duper competitive because once again, none of the picks will bust”.

 

[RandV]

I'm not claiming to be an expert but even that appears to be underwhelming? Like the top end is great with Doughty and Gavrikov, and Brandt Clarke, but I wouldn't call them stacked or anything.

It's also not like they've been a great team or anything. They've been back in the post season 2 years now, finishing 14th and after a 5 point improvement 10th overall in the league, getting bounced in the 1st round both times. Good, but I don't think they've earned all the praise and confidence they get.

 

[RandV]

I'm gonna steal a point from Dowd and Drance today, but admitting you're a borderline playoff team is a bold strategy and honest assessment, but it doesn't really jive with some of their moves or seeming strategy.

I have no issue with the statement and think he's correct there, file it under the 'no battle plan survives first contact with enemy' category. An 82 game regular season is unpredictable, a couple of teams are positioned well enough that they can ride out some bad breaks and make it, a couple teams have no hope, and then the rest are somewhere in the middle battling for a few playoff spots. Personally I think management has positioned us as well as they can for the season but there's no guarantee.

 

[Lindgren]

That’s because Drance has this stupid idea that you can sell Petey on a “plan” based purely around “we’ll get picks and they will not bust and it’s magically not a rebuild and somehow in 2 years all that plus cap space will turn into players that will make the team super duper competitive because once again, none of the picks will bust”.

No, it's because their strategy, apparently, is to make the playoffs so that Pettersson will re-sign, but they don't seem to be moving aggressively to be better than a team that might make the playoffs if things go right.

Do you think that missing the playoffs means Pettersson will force his way out?

Do you want the team to move more futures in order to clear cap and bring in more vets, so they have a better chance of making the playoffs?

 

[arttk]

No, it's because their strategy, apparently, is to make the playoffs so that Pettersson will re-sign, but they don't seem to be moving aggressively to be better than a team that might make the playoffs if things go right.

Do you think that missing the playoffs means Pettersson will force his way out?

Do you want the team to move more futures in order to clear cap and bring in more vets, so they have a better chance of making the playoffs?

I don’t think it’s as binary as make playoff and tada Petey resigns.
I think has been reported is that Petey wants to know that management, can create a competitive team or has the ability to do so.

I think Petey will force his way out if the plan was to just get a bunch of picks and hope they turn out good, because that’s essentially gambling and if the gamble fails, then you just wasted X years.

I think he will stay if all the things they preach actually lead to meaningful improvement. Like oh the new coaching philosophy, the idea that AHL and NHL team is using the same system, the fact younger prospects are improving because of emphasis on development unlike the Benning days, improved pro scouting validated by the new signings and acquisitions. All the stuff that would suggest that this management team has the ability to improve the team year over year. If they can show that then I think Petey will stay.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Finally got around to listening to the press conference.

Fascinating to hear JR mirror my view of the teams current state. If everything breaks right they should be a playoff team.

The actions they've taken make very little sense in this context.

- JTs contract is better now and bad later. And he wasn't worth his current extension last season.
- The cap benefits of the OEL buyout are mostly this year and next.
- Leaking of assets to improve the team short term.

I don't think EP40 is going to be bamboozled in to a long term extension by these short term improvements.

They never were willing to do the hard work to accumulate the assets, even tho they understand how far the team has to go... I guess its a ownership mandate thing.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

LA is the most overrated team in the west. Their goaltending sucks and the offense and defense are anchored by 2 guys that are 36 and 34 years old. Oh yeah they have PLD who is suppose to be this #1C guy who has never performed at that level and had a tendency to peace out.
They are instant bubble team if anything happens to Doughty and Kopitar. Yes any team is screwed if the 1C and 1D is hurt but most teams don’t have their 1C and 1D being in their 30’s which makes them more prone to injuries

tbf most 30-somethings aren’t kopitar and doughty. kop has missed 12 games in the last decade and 30 in his entire 17 year career. and if you overlook the one season two years ago when he missed half the year, doughty has missed 9 games in the last decade and 21 in his entire 15 year career. those two guys are tanks.

come to think of it, dustin brown was incredibly healthy too. how those three guys played so long with the hard LA travel and never got hurt is amazing.

 

[F A N]

tbf most 30-somethings aren’t kopitar and doughty. kop has missed 12 games in the last decade and 30 in his entire 17 year career. and if you overlook the one season two years ago when he missed half the year, doughty has missed 9 games in the last decade and 21 in his entire 15 year career. those two guys are tanks.

come to think of it, dustin brown was incredibly healthy too. how those three guys played so long with the hard LA travel and never got hurt is amazing.

I'm not sure being a picture of health means anything though. Not missing games also means more wear and tear and likely playing through injuries.

Kopitar is a future HOFer. For what it's worth, Henrik (who also missed very few games) was a 70+ point player when he was 34. Daniel scored 28 goals when he was 35 (Kopitar's age last season). I think the decline is coming.

Doughty was in decline and had what was considered to be one of the worst contracts in the league like Karlsson and then he bounced back like Karlsson. I think Doughty is capable of sustaining his play for another 2-3 years.

Dustin Brown's career is unusual. Given the way he plays, his decline when he was 29/30 made a lot of sense. Then somehow he had bounceback years when he was 33.

I think the Kings are unfortunate that their 2019 and 2020 draft picks (Byfield and Turcotte) haven't developed as they had hoped. If they had drafted Stutzle and Seider it's a different story for the team. Now they also have suspect goaltending.

 

[oceanchild]

I'm gonna steal a point from Dowd and Drance today, but admitting you're a borderline playoff team is a bold strategy and honest assessment, but it doesn't really jive with some of their moves or seeming strategy.

Setting expectations in the face of the Pettersson situation is a really good idea. The strategy is to make the playoffs, the likelihood is in question. I don’t see anything that doesn’t align.

That’s because Drance has this stupid idea that you can sell Petey on a “plan” based purely around “we’ll get picks and they will not bust and it’s magically not a rebuild and somehow in 2 years all that plus cap space will turn into players that will make the team super duper competitive because once again, none of the picks will bust”.

I think any one of the top three in last years draft would have changed the whole tone around this team and would have resolved who is going to move Miller to the wing and given us organization depth with Raty down the middle.

This would have left us with a gap in our RHD prospects.

 

[TruGr1t]

That’s because Drance has this stupid idea that you can sell Petey on a “plan” based purely around “we’ll get picks and they will not bust and it’s magically not a rebuild and somehow in 2 years all that plus cap space will turn into players that will make the team super duper competitive because once again, none of the picks will bust”.

Well, I mean you have no real evidence the current plan will make you any more or less competitive in two years than Drance's plan. If the team is in this situation this year, it's unlikely much different next year. Maybe the year after? Who knows. Drance's point is largely they haven't outlined any plan to make the team sustainably better and take that next step Rutherford is talking about. Continually ramming your head against the upper end of the salary cap and then trading picks to build through free agency probably isn't going to work.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

That’s because Drance has this stupid idea that you can sell Petey on a “plan” based purely around “we’ll get picks and they will not bust and it’s magically not a rebuild and somehow in 2 years all that plus cap space will turn into players that will make the team super duper competitive because once again, none of the picks will bust”.

Hello strawman my old friend...

 

[arttk]

Hello strawman my old friend...

He literally said that on his pod yesterday. he literally said he thinks Petey would be more accepting if the Canucks presented with a “long term” plan that involves trading away Kuz, Miller, Bo for picks.

 

[King Crimson]

Finally got around to listening to the press conference.

Fascinating to hear JR mirror my view of the teams current state. If everything breaks right they should be a playoff team.

The actions they've taken make very little sense in this context.

- JTs contract is better now and bad later. And he wasn't worth his current extension last season.
- The cap benefits of the OEL buyout are mostly this year and next.
- Leaking of assets to improve the team short term.

I don't think EP40 is going to be bamboozled in to a long term extension by these short term improvements.

They never were willing to do the hard work to accumulate the assets, even tho they understand how far the team has to go... I guess its a ownership mandate thing.

Why are you (and others) making it seem like "short term improvements" are a bad thing? Is it a foregone conclusion that short term improvements cannot be turned into long term improvements? Why is taking steps in the right direction not considered good in your mind? I'm genuinely confused.

I also have a problem with your statement that management hasn't been trying to accumulate assets, pointing to a "leaking of assets" in what I can only assume is the trading away of draft picks to unload contracts. I simply don't think that's true.

In his 1.5 years of being GM, Allvin has traded away the following picks:

2022 3rd round pick (for Travis Dermott)​

2024 2nd round pick (to unload Dickinson and acquire Riley Stillman)​

2023 5th round pick (for Ethan Bear and Lane Pederson)​

2026 7th round pick (for Vitali Kravtsov)​

2023 1st round pick (from NYI; for Filip Hronek)​

2023 2nd round pick (Vancouver's; same as above)​

2025 3rd round pick (to unload Tanner Pearson and acquire Casey DeSmith)​

That's 7 picks, one of which wasn't originally Vancouver's. I will grant you that Vancouver did not have as many draft picks as they could have had. But by how many?

However, in contrast, Allvin has also acquired the following picks:

2022 3rd round pick (from Ottawa; used to draft Elias Pettersson #2)​

2023 4th round pick (from NYR; used to draft Matthew Perkins)​

2023 1st round pick (from NYI; traded for Hronek)​

2023 3rd round pick (from Toronto; used to draft Sawyer Mynio)​

2023 4th round pick (from Detroit; used to draft Ty Mueller)​

2024 4th round pick (from New Jersey)​

That's 6 picks, one of which was parleyed into acquiring Hronek, cancelling out the pick on both sides. So at the moment, that's a deficit of 1 pick.

Yes, Allvin traded away more early-round picks, and thus more valuable picks. But the 1st rounder that was used to acquire a young, top-4 RHD in Hronek was a case of spending from a surplus to address a crucial need on the team. I also believe that having Hronek is better than having whoever the Canucks could have drafted at 17, since I think he's a much better player than some people are giving him credit for and will become a legitimate #2 defenseman.

As for the 2nd and 3rd round picks that Allvin has traded away, those assets have been replaced in bulk with the signing of 9 young UFAs to ELCs: Arshdeep Bains, Nils Aman, Filip Johansson, Andrei Kuzmenko, Max Sasson, Akito Hirose, Nikita Tolopilo, Cole McWard, and Tristen Nielsen. All of these players are at the very least AHL players. Of them, Kuzmenko is a genuine NHL 1st-liner, and has everything to be one of the elite. You hope that 2nd and 3rd round picks at least reach that AHL level after leaving the leagues they are drafted from; the players Allvin has signed are already there. Combine that with an improved and robust farm system in Abbotsford and there's a good chance that at least a couple more will graduate to the big club full time. Sure, maybe there are no high-end talents amongst the rest of that group, but it is also the very opposite of a lack of assets.

To say that management has not put in the work to accumulate assets is objectively wrong. They have done everything short of selling off their star players to build a better asset pool. I've said it elsewhere, but the complete rebuilding of the AHL team is crucial towards maximizing assets. A good, dedicated, developmental farm team is a value-generating machine. This is not a mere short-term improvement. This is setting up the team for now and in the future. Moreover, management have offset the loss of early-round picks by tapping into the college and European talent pools. Judging by the players the scouting staff has managed to find, it is an entirely viable method of replenishing those assets that you say are "leaking." Current management isn't just tossing away picks without contingencies like Benning was doing. They are using their picks to improve the roster situation, while also restocking those missing picks from alternative (and possibly equivalent) sources.

 

[Jyrki21]

I've seen this before with executives/owners who have little pet interests/alternative fixes from their personal life that work for them in their specific circumstances that then bring those to their organizations as surely it must work for everyone else the same way it worked for me, the very smart person who runs/owns this organization.

So Tom Brady for AGM, I guess?

 

[bossram]

I'm gonna steal a point from Dowd and Drance today, but admitting you're a borderline playoff team is a bold strategy and honest assessment, but it doesn't really jive with some of their moves or seeming strategy.

"Everything we've done the last two seasons is in service of making the playoffs right now, but yeah we don't really think we'll get in unless we're lucky".

 

[TruGr1t]

"Everything we've done the last two seasons is in service of making the playoffs right now, but yeah we don't really think we'll get in unless we're lucky".

More concerning, in my opinion, is the lack of visibility on any avenue for taking the next step beyond what you're going to see over the next two years. Sure, Willander will show-up at some point, but there still doesn't look to be enough in the pipeline to provide the ELCs necessary to cost-efficiently supplement the core group. So you're basically hoping the cap goes up sufficiently and maybe Pettersson takes a bit of a haircut so you can continue the process of trying to sustainably improve through free agency.

Rutherford's assessment of the team is inaccurate, I don't think they've made a very compelling case they can actually manage their way into a sustainable playoff team within ~3 years.

 

[bossram]

More concerning, in my opinion, is the lack of visibility on any avenue for taking the next step beyond what you're going to see over the next two years. Sure, Willander will show-up at some point, but there still doesn't look to be enough in the pipeline to provide the ELCs necessary to cost-efficiently supplement the core group. So you're basically hoping the cap goes up sufficiently and maybe Pettersson takes a bit of a haircut so you can continue the process of trying to sustainably improve through free agency.

Rutherford's assessment of the team is inaccurate, I don't think they've made a very compelling case they can actually manage their way into a sustainable playoff team within ~3 years.

Oh I agree. There is no long-term path to contention. Maybe they can be a wild card team during the remaining duration of Hughes' and Demko's contracts, but there is no plan beyond that.

They don't have an asset pool to leverage. Mediocre prospect pool. Cap increases aren't any competitive advantage because it goes up for everybody, and those increases will be zapped by the OEL buyout anyway.

 

[arttk]

Oh I agree. There is no long-term path to contention. Maybe they can be a wild card team during the remaining duration of Hughes' and Demko's contracts, but there is no plan beyond that.

They don't have an asset pool to leverage. Mediocre prospect pool. Cap increases aren't any competitive advantage because it goes up for everybody, and those increases will be zapped by the OEL buyout anyway.

I think there is a pipe for bottom 6 guys and bottom paring guys. I think people severely underrates how impactful that is. If we have a constant pipe of ELC in the bottom 6/bottom paring, it is going to free up the cap for us to do things in FA to fill the top end.
Ideally we have Raty coming in as a 3C, so that's ELC for a couple of years. We should have like 2-3 ELC on defense in the next few years. All that freed up money should allow us to get at least 1 impact FA and then we can focus assets on 1 big trade piece.

 

[credulous]

i think people overrate how important it is to be able to bring in cheap bottom six/bottom pairing guys without giving up assets (or using significant cap space) because benning was so bad at it. the reality is you can find decent bottom of the lineup talent in free agency and on waivers without investing any real assets. the only real exception is good 3rd line centers are hard to find for free and you probably should invest real assets (or cap space) into that position

just on the current roster suter, blueger, cole, soucy, joshua, di giuseppe and irwin were free or nearly so. wolanin and hirose may end up here as well

what you need to find is talent for the top or middle of the lineup that doesn't come at a high cost. of the current roster only really kuzmenko fits in that category. mikheyev is okay but came at a high cap cost and hronek and beauvillier had a high asset cost. kuzmenko aside there's really no clear cut players in the top 6 forwards or top 3 dmen that weren't high draft picks or that didn't cost significant assets. that's the biggest thing nhl teams need to be good at to beat the averages and become good. especially when they don't make a lot of high draft picks

 

[arttk]

i think people overrate how important it is to be able to bring in cheap bottom six/bottom pairing guys without giving up assets (or using significant cap space) because benning was so bad at it. the reality is you can find decent bottom of the lineup talent in free agency and on waivers without investing any real assets. the only real exception is good 3rd line centers are hard to find for free and you probably should invest real assets (or cap space) into that position

just on the current roster suter, blueger, cole, soucy, joshua, di giuseppe and irwin were free or nearly so. wolanin and hirose may end up here as well

what you need to find is talent for the top or middle of the lineup that doesn't come at a high cost. of the current roster only really kuzmenko fits in that category. mikheyev is okay but came at a high cap cost and hronek and beauvillier had a high asset cost. kuzmenko aside there's really no clear cut players in the top 6 forwards or top 3 dmen that weren't high draft picks or that didn't cost significant assets. that's the biggest thing nhl teams need to be good at to beat the averages and become good. especially when they don't make a lot of high draft picks

the biggest difference between bringing in cheap bottom 6 guys vs having home grown ones is that having a pipeline of homegrown ones ensure you can constantly sell off those guys for extra assets when the next one is available and homegrown ones have upside vs FA tends to be what they are. You pay for a league min 4th liner? well yeah he is going to be a 4th liner. But if you promote a young kid to play on the 4th line, he could be contributing at a 3rd line level but he is doing that on your 4th line with a ELC.

the point that you seem to miss as with a lot of other things is that having that constant pipe of bottom 6 players will help keep cost down for the bottom of the lineup so you can preserve the cap for the top allowing us to tap into FA and preserve what little assets we have on like 1 or 2 targets. Yes ideally you want to have kids coming into the top of the lineup with ELC but that is purely luck driven and even if you have a shit ton of picks, it's not within your control. The best thing is to control what you can control and when you get lucky, that adds that extra bit.

 

[credulous]

the point that you seem to miss as with a lot of other things is that having that constant pipe of bottom 6 players will help keep cost down for the bottom of the lineup so you can preserve the cap for the top allowing us to tap into FA and preserve what little assets we have on like 1 or 2 targets. Yes ideally you want to have kids coming into the top of the lineup with ELC but that is purely luck driven and even if you have a shit ton of picks, it's not within your control. The best thing is to control what you can control and when you get lucky, that adds that extra bit.

no my point is that you can keep cost down for the bottom of the lineup just by not signing players like jay beagle and brandon sutter to outsized contracts and that you don't need any kind of special competency to do so. it's literally table stakes for decent nhl teams

there's no inherent advantage to having a player like arshdeep bains that came up through the system over a free agent signing like dakota joshua that stepped right onto the roster

 

[HairyKneel]

Finally got around to listening to the press conference.

Fascinating to hear JR mirror my view of the teams current state. If everything breaks right they should be a playoff team.

The actions they've taken make very little sense in this context.

- JTs contract is better now and bad later. And he wasn't worth his current extension last season.
- The cap benefits of the OEL buyout are mostly this year and next.
- Leaking of assets to improve the team short term.

I don't think EP40 is going to be bamboozled in to a long term extension by these short term improvements.

They never were willing to do the hard work to accumulate the assets, even tho they understand how far the team has to go... I guess its a ownership mandate thing.

He also said a couple of things could go wrong and they could still make the playoffs. Convenient of you to leave that out.