Management Threads | Structure. Standards. Habits.

[arttk]

Yeah, I agree with the bolded. So let someone else pay him. The "market price" of something does not automatically mean you're getting surplus value from it. I drink a lot of Monster Energy drinks. If the market price of the drinks was $50 each, I would simply...not buy them. I wouldn't throw up my hands and go, "oh well that's what it costs!"

My comparable with RNH wasn't to say they are exactly the same. My point is that they are both empty calorie scorers who get most of their cookies on the PP.

Again, like I said, there isn't much value to a guy who scores a ton, only to give it all back the other way.

My thoughts has been evolving on this but I believe that this management group sees signing Miller as plan B with plan A being trade him for a young 2C and picks.
I think until his nmc kicks in, plan A could still happen. The thing is, I don’t think they should just settle for any package for Miller and so far the only package we have heard for Miller has been a super low 1st in a meh year, Chytil and Lundvist which sucks.

 

[credulous]

You're totally ignoring context. Verhaeghe and Barbashev do what they are doing as complimentary pieces to elite centers. Miller does what he does as that elite center.

So both of those players would probably compliment Miller quite well, but if you think they're going to be of comparable value while playing with Nils Aman (who I like ftr) then you're missing the forest for the trees.

i never said they were better or even of comparable value. i said i'd rather have them (ie, i think the team would be better positioned to win more) put up 70% of miller's production at a lower price tag

the problem with miller is that he isn't good enough to warrant the kind of contract he got. the 7/8 year megadeals should be reserved for true stars. if you start handing them out to the next tier down you put yourself in poor cap position and you'll have to get lucky to sustain success

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

As echoed previously, I think between the two Millers deal is much better. I think their defensive impact is similar enough, but Horvat is priced into being something he’s not whereas Millers is priced for something he can actually provide in the short term.

The Horvat deal is going to be bad from the start.

 

[bossram]

My thoughts has been evolving on this but I believe that this management group sees signing Miller as plan B with plan A being trade him for a young 2C and picks.
I think until his nmc kicks in, plan A could still happen. The thing is, I don’t think they should just settle for any package for Miller and so far the only package we have heard for Miller has been a super low 1st in a meh year, Chytil and Lundvist which sucks.

I'll judge Allvin based on what he does. Right now, we know he signed Miller to an $8M x 7.

And I'm on the record for saying I would've taken that NYR deal. Lundkvist could've been immediately flipped for another 1st. Chytil is a nicely developing young center. A young 2C + two 1sts (plus cap space) would've been a nice base to actually allow the Canucks to retool.

As echoed previously, I think between the two Millers deal is much better. I think their defensive impact is similar enough, but Horvat is priced into being something he’s not whereas Millers is priced for something he can actually provide in the short term.

The Horvat deal is going to be bad from the start.

If the choice had to be one or the other, I guess Miller's deal is less bad. By a small margin.

Is he worth the deal? I'd say no. Did they have to re-sign one of Horvat or Miller? No.

 

[arttk]

I'll judge Allvin based on what he does. Right now, we know he signed Miller to an $8M x 7.

And I'm on the record for saying I would've taken that NYR deal. Lundkvist could've been immediately flipped for another 1st. Chytil is a nicely developing young center. A young 2C + two 1sts (plus cap space) would've been a nice base to actually allow the Canucks to retool.


If the choice had to be one or the other, I guess Miller's deal is less bad. By a small margin.

Is he worth the deal? I'd say no. Did they have to re-sign one of Horvat or Miller? No.

I am on the side of that trade package sucks. I honestly don’t think Lundvist would’ve played well with us and that would’ve tanked any value he had due to him failing not just in NYR’s system but also ours as well.
Not a big fan of Chytil but that’s just a difference in opinion and that late first is like whatever.

 

[EverTheCynic]

Not really true. You were talking to @PuckMunchkin about Miller and whether he's worth it, but you brought up Horvat unprompted. And continued to make it almost entirely about the defensive prowess of Horvat vs. Miller.

No I didnt. Go back and read.

 

[F A N]

I'll judge Allvin based on what he does. Right now, we know he signed Miller to an $8M x 7.

And I'm on the record for saying I would've taken that NYR deal. Lundkvist could've been immediately flipped for another 1st. Chytil is a nicely developing young center. A young 2C + two 1sts (plus cap space) would've been a nice base to actually allow the Canucks to retool.

The deal was real borderline. Chytil was hardly a "young 2C" at the time and they probably would have kept Lundkvist. The 1st round pick also turned out to be 30th overall. Not really an exciting package for a nonrental C who ended up with 99 points.

 

[Javaman]

Ridiculous article:

Hindsight Experiment: Could the Canucks have reached the Cup Finals in 2023 with just ten transactional do-overs?

The stage has been set for the 2023 Stanley Cup Finals, and it will be...

canucksarmy.com

Literally one transaction: Fire Benning before the 2016 draft.

Or the very least don’t re-sign him.

The article is basically a polite, diplomatically-worded way of ranking Benning's 10 worst mistakes.

Contrast this list to Gillis's worst mistakes. I'm not sure any of those would even crack Benning's top 20.

 

[Jyrki21]

The article is basically a polite, diplomatically-worded way of ranking Benning's 10 worst mistakes.

Contrast this list to Gillis's worst mistakes. I'm not sure any of those would even crack Benning's top 20.

10 worst? It only went for more recent ones… and didn’t even touch the Eriksson signing, Sbisa choice, Gudbranson trade, Juolevi over Tkachuk, Sutter trade and contract, Virtanen over Nylander, Beagle signing, age gap trades, etc.

I also love how for most of us, hindsight only actually played into one (letting Tanev walk, and even some wouldn’t have) and sort of the Dunn thing since no one knew about it.

 

[EverTheCynic]

The deal was real borderline. Chytil was hardly a "young 2C" at the time and they probably would have kept Lundkvist. The 1st round pick also turned out to be 30th overall. Not really an exciting package for a nonrental C who ended up with 99 points.

I think the idea would have been to bottom out for a year and take a run at Bedard. Addition by subtraction moreso than the exact pieces coming back.

Move Miller. Move Bo. Move basically anyone not named Petey, Hughes, Demko, Kuz, and eventually Hronek. Tank as hard as we can and take our best shot at Bedard. Probably end up picking top 5 regardless.

Then after a quick 1 year rebuild, we'd be absolutely flush with assets and capital. Chytil, Lundqvist, 1st, Beau, Raty, 1st. Plus our pick likely being top 5.

We would have so much value in the org we could afford to offload some of these atrocious contracts and have assets to spare for additions and trades.

If that Rags deal was real, imo that is what we should have done. No point crying over it now. It's done. Now we just gotta make the best and try to build what we can around our core. Which might be impossible. But we will see what management is made of here. Certainly not an easy job in front of them.

 

[Javaman]

10 worst? It only went for more recent ones… and didn’t even touch the Eriksson signing, Sbisa choice, Gudbranson trade, Juolevi over Tkachuk, Sutter trade and contract, Virtanen over Nylander, Beagle signing, age gap trades, etc.

I also love how for most of us, hindsight only actually played into one (letting Tanev walk, and even some wouldn’t have) and sort of the Dunn thing since no one knew about it.

Don't make me come down there and edit my post!!

 

[bossram]

I am on the side of that trade package sucks. I honestly don’t think Lundvist would’ve played well with us and that would’ve tanked any value he had due to him failing not just in NYR’s system but also ours as well.
Not a big fan of Chytil but that’s just a difference in opinion and that late first is like whatever.

The deal was real borderline. Chytil was hardly a "young 2C" at the time and they probably would have kept Lundkvist. The 1st round pick also turned out to be 30th overall. Not really an exciting package for a nonrental C who ended up with 99 points.

Chytil's 5v5 production, even prior to his "breakout" season, was actually pretty encouraging. His underlying two-way metrics were also good. He would've been a very nice, long-term piece.

Lundkvist could've been flipped immediately. And with the extra 1sts, the Canucks could use the selections or have the liquidity to trade for Actually Good, cost-controlled assets. Couple that with the Horvat trade, and the Canucks would've finally had a war chest of liquid assets and cap space.

Also, Miller's 99 point season was a mirage. He will never touch that again. Planning for the future as if Miller is a "99 point center" is hysterical.

 

[tradervik]

10 worst? It only went for more recent ones… and didn’t even touch the Eriksson signing, Sbisa choice, Gudbranson trade, Juolevi over Tkachuk, Sutter trade and contract, Virtanen over Nylander, Beagle signing, age gap trades, etc.

I also love how for most of us, hindsight only actually played into one (letting Tanev walk, and even some wouldn’t have) and sort of the Dunn thing since no one knew about it.

Speaking of Dunn, I clearly remember he was on the radar as someone the Canucks should look at trying to get. Then Horvat walked Dunn in the bubble playoff series against the Blues and all of a sudden no one wanted Dunn any more. Seattle got lucky there.

I read an article by Larry Brooks quite a while ago that the package NYR offered (or should offer) for Miller was their 1st, Lundqvist and Kravstov. Sorry, no link and I can't find the article any more.

 

[arttk]

Chytil's 5v5 production, even prior to his "breakout" season, was actually pretty encouraging. His underlying two-way metrics were also good. He would've been a very nice, long-term piece.

Lundkvist could've been flipped immediately. And with the extra 1sts, the Canucks could use the selections or have the liquidity to trade for Actually Good, cost-controlled assets. Couple that with the Horvat trade, and the Canucks would've finally had a war chest of liquid assets and cap space.

Also, Miller's 99 point season was a mirage. He will never touch that again. Planning for the future as if Miller is a "99 point center" is hysterical.

Chytile had 22 points last season, taking him on would've been a big gamble. I guess if we are trading away Miller, we should have at least 1 asset that is pretty damn solid. Like higher 1st rounder, a young roster player that is pretty damn lock to be a good roster player or a prospect that has a high ceiling. It's hard to say the 30th overall pick, Chytile that put up 22points and Lundvist that didn't play well in the A fulfill any of those requirements.

Miller is a PPG guy, definitely not a 99pt guy but I don't think it would be surprising if he touches 90 points again if we get a 3rd line center that takes on bulk of the defensive matchups.

 

[bossram]

Chytile had 22 points last season, taking him on would've been a big gamble. I guess if we are trading away Miller, we should have at least 1 asset that is pretty damn solid. Like higher 1st rounder, a young roster player that is pretty damn lock to be a good roster player or a prospect that has a high ceiling. It's hard to say the 30th overall pick, Chytile that put up 22points and Lundvist that didn't play well in the A fulfill any of those requirements.

Miller is a PPG guy, definitely not a 99pt guy but I don't think it would be surprising if he touches 90 points again if we get a 3rd line center that takes on bulk of the defensive matchups.

22 points in 67 games (same points in 40ish games the season prior) with limited ice time and rare PP time. His even-strength points/60 was shockingly close to players others would consider legit “top-six” players. And again, that was along with already good defensive play.

There were signs of a breakout. Like, it’s 2023. We gotta look a little deeper at things than just raw point totals here.

And again, the picks AND CAP SPACE would’ve given the club far more versatility than they had.

 

[Soups On]

Chytil's 5v5 production, even prior to his "breakout" season, was actually pretty encouraging. His underlying two-way metrics were also good. He would've been a very nice, long-term piece.

Lundkvist could've been flipped immediately. And with the extra 1sts, the Canucks could use the selections or have the liquidity to trade for Actually Good, cost-controlled assets. Couple that with the Horvat trade, and the Canucks would've finally had a war chest of liquid assets and cap space.

Also, Miller's 99 point season was a mirage. He will never touch that again. Planning for the future as if Miller is a "99 point center" is hysterical.

Agreed on the second paragraph - there was an avenue to get good value from Miller as secondarily this could've allowed the team to be in the sweepstakes for a guy like Carlsson, Smith, and others.

But Chytil's 5v5 production that season wasn't encouraging. He looked like he stagnated and actually took a step back from the prior shortened year. My recollection isn't the best from a couple years ago but he didn't look like the player he did in the shortened year. 20 5v5 points in 67 vs 22 in 42 the year before. Was also fed a LOT of O zone starts.

He would've been pretty underwhelming as the main part of a trade for a guy like Miller, who came off an impressive 99 point season and could've been retained at 50% at the deadline for 2 playoff runs or in the offseason for 1.

 

[arttk]

22 points in 67 games (same points in 40ish games the season prior) with limited ice time and rare PP time. His even-strength points/60 was shockingly close to players others would consider legit “top-six” players. And again, that was along with already good defensive play.

There were signs of a breakout. Like, it’s 2023. We gotta look a little deeper at things than just raw point totals here.

And again, the picks AND CAP SPACE would’ve given the club far more versatility than they had.

I think you would need to look at the full picture no?
If the goal is to get a 2C back, is Chytil really the right bet? Like let’s step back and look at it from what we knew at the same point last season, so the 21-22 season. At that point, he came off a 22 point season, scored 1PP point in that whole season while averaging 1ish minute per game on the Pp and he does not PK at all.
So he’s like a pure ES player with no PK utility and unknown PP skill set. He had 2 coaches and both of them did not put him in the Pp. Do you really think that could be a good 2C?
What’s the ceiling here? I doubt he would hit 60 points if he’s not good at the PP and there and is zero signs he’s good at it. Having a ES only guy that doesn’t PK doesn’t sound that great to me, if anything that forces all the other centers to be good at PK to compensate. I don’t know about you but if I am building a team, having a center that can PK is pretty damn important to me.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Miller is a better defender than Bo ever was.

He gets pissy and hotdogs on the backcheck sometimes. That definitely isn't ok, but that's hardly the whole story of a center's defensive responsibilities.

Miller is pretty good at zone coverage. He reads the play well, gets into lanes. He supports his D down low in the defensive zone. He looks like a normal center out there.

Bo Horvat is a trainwreck who outright refuses to perform even the most basic defensive responsibilities of his position. He refuses to support his D down low, and instead hovers up around the blue line looking for a breakout. Oftentimes he will blow the zone, and Bo will be standing out in the neutral zone all by himself when the puck is in the back of our net. He just straight up refused to play like a center and support his D. Didnt wanna do it.

He is also not very bright and could never figure out positioning in the defensive zone. I've watched with my own eyes Bo Horvat dashing from the high slot out to the point in a straight line chasing a puck that the opposing defenseman had. That sounds bad right? Why is the center dashing out to the point like that?

Oh. But wait. It gets worse. Pearson was already covering that defenseman. One of our wingers was already there covering the play. Bo didn't care. He had dreams. He literally charged in a straight line, pushed Pearson out of the way, created a huge gaping hole which caused a line breakdown an a scoring chance against.

Pearson during the play stopped, turned around and looked at Bo, then literally threw his hands up in the air as if to say "WTF DUDE?"

That is Bo Horvat. Blows the zone. Refuses to perform the most basic defensive responsibilities of his position by supporting his D down low. And terrible zone coverage on a nightly basis, leading to huge gaps opening up and defensive breakdowns. Bo Horvat was singularly responsible for defensive breakdowns on a near shift by shift basis, he was that bad.

Miller isn't Fedorov, but he sure as heck is miles better than Bo Horvat.

To be frank with you, I just can't take any Canucks fan seriously who says Bo Horvat has a good 2 way game. It just entirely discredits everything you say. It's an opinion a person can have only if 1) They dont watch hockey, or 2) They dont understand hockey.

Im blown away.

I've tried to write a reply but I don't even know where to begin... Lets see...

The combination of fan fiction level bullshit followed by "if you don't agree you don't watch or understand hockey." Some serious Dunning–Kruger level shit going on here.

Miller as a center is a black hole defensively. I don't know what the f*** you have watched but even his 99p season he was really bad 5on5 defensively. Then last year he was again crap 5on5 defensively but also stopped scoring and only was able to produce on the PP.

Horvat has got the hard matchups all his time here and he is not great at it (like you said) but he always treaded water. You saw what happened to Miller this year when they tried that with him. He was unplayable. If you remove his name from the back of his jersey he gets sent to the AHL. He got protected 3rd line deployment and EP40 got the matchups. Then Miller did what Horvat did in hard matchups. He just threaded water.

Miller as a winger is a completely different story. He has consistently been a play driver at wing and is very capable filling the far less demanding defensive duties of a winger. Maybe you are mixing the two up in your head?

Oh! And obviously. If you disagree you don't watch or understand hockey!

 

[bossram]

I think you would need to look at the full picture no?
If the goal is to get a 2C back, is Chytil really the right bet? Like let’s step back and look at it from what we knew at the same point last season, so the 21-22 season. At that point, he came off a 22 point season, scored 1PP point in that whole season while averaging 1ish minute per game on the Pp and he does not PK at all.
So he’s like a pure ES player with no PK utility and unknown PP skill set. He had 2 coaches and both of them did not put him in the Pp. Do you really think that could be a good 2C?
What’s the ceiling here? I doubt he would hit 60 points if he’s not good at the PP and there and is zero signs he’s good at it. Having a ES only guy that doesn’t PK doesn’t sound that great to me, if anything that forces all the other centers to be good at PK to compensate. I don’t know about you but if I am building a team, having a center that can PK is pretty damn important to me.

The objective of executing the proposed Rangers trade package is not really to get a ready-made 2C back. It's to 1) Begin to replenish the Canucks' barren asset pool, 2) create cap space, and 3) add a younger player that can contribute and grow as the team actually retools.

With Chytil, 1 minute of PP time per game is the scraps of scraps. It's basically Gallant rolling out his next even-strength line while the PP is expiring. It's basically nothing. He didn't get PP points because he wasn't used there. No, he doesn't PK. But in comparison to Miller, Miller does PK but is truly horrible at it. Call it a wash there too. If building a team with effective PK centers is so important to you, you definitely shouldn't want Miller at center or on the PK then.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

If the choice had to be one or the other, I guess Miller's deal is less bad. By a small margin.

Is he worth the deal? I'd say no. Did they have to re-sign one of Horvat or Miller? No.

I would have gone scorched earth too, but all indications are management desperately trying to keep EP and Hughes by winning now. Long-term outlook is they are gone in 6 years. That's how much time I'd allot to have one of the parties realize it's not working at maximum. The roster as constructed is a compound of errors, it'd take northing short of a miracle to fix it. I'd love to be wrong. But that's the way I see it.

Oh, and as you said I see it as a box with nothing in it vs. a box with a flaming turd in it.

 

[arttk]

The objective of executing the proposed Rangers trade package is not really to get a ready-made 2C back. It's to 1) Begin to replenish the Canucks' barren asset pool, 2) create cap space, and 3) add a younger player that can contribute and grow as the team actually retools.

With Chytil, 1 minute of PP time per game is the scraps of scraps. It's basically Gallant rolling out his next even-strength line while the PP is expiring. It's basically nothing. He didn't get PP points because he wasn't used there. No, he doesn't PK. But in comparison to Miller, Miller does PK but is truly horrible at it. Call it a wash there too. If building a team with effective PK centers is so important to you, you definitely shouldn't want Miller at center or on the PK then.

I want to be clear, for a retool to be successful, we need a degree of certainty of a 2C or top4D for it to have any hope to be successful.

So if we are trading Miller, we need a higher degree of certainty in return. The NYR package is full of question marks and not one piece would have that degree of certainty. Like I said, Chytil is a zero PK, purely ES player that has question marks about his PP ability. There are a lot of question marks there. Ditto with Lundvist and a low 1st rounder is also a long shot. If we need certainty, that package does not offer any of that.
I can see the argument that well if we free up the cap then we can use the 1st and Lundvist on a 2C. But it seems like this management group is already looking for the next trade before the 1st trade is made so I am assuming they went around and couldn’t get what they want with the NYR returns.

I mean I am all for taking low cost bets here there and everywhere. But if we are trading Miller, that shouldn’t be as much of a bet and the return should have some more certainty. Yeah Miller has flaws but he’s still a ppg C and like I said, there are 20ish of them around the league.

 

[bossram]

I would have gone scorched earth too, but all indications are management desperately trying to keep EP and Hughes by winning now. Long-term outlook is they are gone in 6 years. That's how much time I'd allot to have one of the parties realize it's not working at maximum. The roster as constructed is a compound of errors, it'd take northing short of a miracle to fix it. I'd love to be wrong. But that's the way I see it.

Oh, and as you said I see it as a box with nothing in it vs. a box with a flaming turd in it.

I mean, it's not like it's been working since EP/Hughes have been here.

I think they could have executed a very fast retool/turnaround by building up assets and flexibility from the Miller and Horvat trades.

Instead, they've decided to become next year's Winnipeg Jets. Congrats.

 

[bossram]

I want to be clear, for a retool to be successful, we need a degree of certainty of a 2C or top4D for it to have any hope to be successful.

So if we are trading Miller, we need a higher degree of certainty in return. The NYR package is full of question marks and not one piece would have that degree of certainty. Like I said, Chytil is a zero PK, purely ES player that has question marks about his PP ability. There are a lot of question marks there. Ditto with Lundvist and a low 1st rounder is also a long shot. If we need certainty, that package does not offer any of that.
I can see the argument that well if we free up the cap then we can use the 1st and Lundvist on a 2C. But it seems like this management group is already looking for the next trade before the 1st trade is made so I am assuming they went around and couldn’t get what they want with the NYR returns.

I mean I am all for taking low cost bets here there and everywhere. But if we are trading Miller, that shouldn’t be as much of a bet and the return should have some more certainty. Yeah Miller has flaws but he’s still a ppg C and like I said, there are 20ish of them around the league.

I don't think there is any evidence of the bolded.

If you say the club needs a "certain" 2C or top-4 defenseman to make a retool work, then they Allvin made a critical error by not acquiring John Marino last offseason. Everyone knows they needed a legit top-pair RD. Well, a youngish, cost-controlled one slipped right passed him. I was adamant they should have outbid the Penguins on him (and I'm sure they'd rather have sent him out of the division). If they had the assets/liquidity from a Miller deal, they could have easily outbid NJ for Marino.

And I mean...going into the season they still would have had Horvat at 2C.

 

[arttk]

I don't think there is any evidence of the bolded.

If you say the club needs a "certain" 2C or top-4 defenseman to make a retool work, then they Allvin made a critical error by not acquiring John Marino last offseason. Everyone knows they needed a legit top-pair RD. Well, a youngish, cost-controlled one slipped right passed him. I was adamant they should have outbid the Penguins on him (and I'm sure they'd rather have sent him out of the division). If they had the assets/liquidity from a Miller deal, they could have easily outbid NJ for Marino.

And I mean...going into the season they still would have had Horvat at 2C.

right I guess we could’ve used that low 1st to get Marino.

Honestly having Petey, Bo and Chytil down the middle is disastrous. Bo sucks on the Pk, Chytil does not PK at all so you basically have Petey as your PK1 center lol. Our Pk would’ve been like even more historically bad with that.

I feel like even if they traded Miller away, they would’ve ended up trading away Bo anyway due to his salary demands and we would need to go find that #2C anyways.

 

[bossram]

right I guess we could’ve used that low 1st to get Marino.

Honestly having Petey, Bo and Chytil down the middle is disastrous. Bo sucks on the Pk, Chytil does not PK at all so you basically have Petey as your PK1 center lol. Our Pk would’ve been like even more historically bad with that.

I feel like even if they traded Miller away, they would’ve ended up trading away Bo anyway due to his salary demands and we would need to go find that #2C anyways.

Miller was their PK1 center and the PK was disastrous anyway. How much worse could it get? I think there is a significant chance Chytil would actually be better on the PK.

Bolded is likely true. And would have been the correct course of action. Trade Miller and Horvat and the team has three additional 1sts, a top prospect, a young roster player, and much more cap space to reshape the team.