Management Threads | Structure. Standards. Habits.
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rypper
21-12-05 it's finally over.
- Dec 22, 2006
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I've already gone on record around these parts that I think they'll make the playoffs this year (barring a major injury.) So winning a round in the next 4 years, is as close to a for sure thing as you can get for me.
(Leaving a slight percentage open in case Pettersson leaves, Miller retires from hockey to pursue a golf career, Hughes and his brothers quit to form a boy band etc.)
So to start with let me state the obvious that I'm guessing on this, but my guess has been that FAQ pitched JR the opportunity to take some really great core pieces (Petersson, Hughes, Demko, Miller, Horvat, Boeser) and turn it into a contender as one last hurrah. JR looked at the core pieces, saw how badly Benning handled things, and probably came to the conclusion that with half-decent management he could turn this around.
JR came in and decided that with the right systems and processes we could rebuild things; better scouting (Granato, Allvin, Doerrie), better cap management (Castonguay), more defensive discipline and structure (Tocchet) and more investment in development (Sedins, Foote, Gonchar, Samuelsson, Komisarek), this would provide the long-term foundation and all he had to do was make the team younger, faster and cheaper and then let it cook and he'd have his legacy.
So FAQ was looking for someone who wouldn't take a step back, JR thought he could rebuild on the fly, and it was a match.
But as JR himself has openly said, he was surprised at how bad the Canucks cap situation was and how hard it was to move out for cap room, and went to FAQ and told him that he'd have to take a bit of a step back. There was that famous photo of Aquilini pouting after a meeting with Rutherford, and has been reported by a few people, Aquilini was at first refusing to buy out OEL until Rutherford made him see the light of how bad the Canucks were.
So my guess is that they both started together thinking a retool on the fly was possible within two years, Rutherford had a plan for that but underestimated how bad the team was, so there's been some compromise between the two (OEL buy-out), some interference from FAQ (handcuffing Rutherford about firing Boudreau for way too long) but by and large Rutherford has autonomy but that originally was because they were on the same page, as Rutherford himself has said his understanding evolved over time so I wouldn't be surprised if there's daylight between the two and a bit of give and take.
I don't know if FAQ would hold back on trading more first round picks, but my gut feel is that Rutherford wouldn't want to anyway as he's said we can't afford to trade any more high end picks (Hronek being a rare exception enabled by us having Detroit's picks), and I wouldn't be surprised if Rutherford's window for the team to contend is in a couple more years, after Myers is gone, after the cap rises, and after we get the likes of Willander, EP2, Lekerimakki in the line up, so maybe he thinks trading a 1st now helps in the immediate turn but too soon for our actual window and not giving us the long-term foundation that he's aiming for.
Here's my worthless projection, we make the playoffs this year and then in 2025-2026 we'll be winning mutliple rounds assuming Petersson stays. If he leaves then all bets are off, and if we don't make the playoffs this year then I could see Petersson moved out and an actual rebuild contemplated (or it should be, anyway, but I could see them trying to make a hockey trade with Petersson and try to design a core around Hughes and Demko/Silovs and whatever we get back from Petersson, which likely won't be smart but the most likely outcome nonetheless).
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Pastor Of Muppetz
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- Oct 1, 2017
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I can only look at what they’ve done ,in relation to the cards they were dealt…An elite young core,..a bunch of underachieving complimentary players on crippling contracts,no prospect pool..A dysfunctional farm system that wasn’t on the same page as the parent team (and couldn’t develop young players).
It wasn’t just the main squad..The entire organization needed a complete overhaul..The procedures needed to change..This management group has ticked off most of the boxes,and it will bear fruit…All the ships are finally sailing in the same direction.
This team has to put together a solid season this year..It has to be completely prepared at the get go (which it hasn’t been for years)..We need to see a solid identity,and a team that can win against the best in the league, on any given night.
My bar is the playoffs ( even though I can’t guarantee it).
sting101
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- Feb 8, 2012
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Im pretty sure i know what kinda team we are. One that needs to add 2 or 3 high quality 2nd tier players that can give us the backbone to be able to compete with the big boys.
With Tocchet we will be competitive and have a work ethic and structure which is huge as many nights last year teams could coast to victory over our horrendous lack of defensive ability, penalty killing and goaltending
Were in one of the toughest divisions in hockey with LA VGK EDM at the top who are big and nasty or in the case of the Oilers have superior top players...were not in that category. We either have to get lucky with those teams having an off year probably due to injuries or were scrambling for 3 playoff spots with SEA CGY MIN STL and WPG
Thats who we are
Misinterpreting language is like your forte or something?
Waiting to see more before forming a more confident opinion =! Don’t expect a playoff round.
Seems like you don’t understand the difference between having expectations vs being confident about them hitting it.
If you ask me if I expect them to win at least a round in the next several years, yeah if they don’t they should be fired.
Am I confident that will happen? I need to see more.
I don’t disagree with your point about needing 2-3 more high quality 2nd line guys and the reason why I say I don’t know where we are is because we have like a couple of guys that could be that like Boeser and Hronek and I have no clue what they will be like. If Hronek plays like a top pair you and Boeser with his newly tuned body plays like - better version of North division Boeser, then we will be a far better team that anyone projects. Nevermind we have a lot of question marks in like Hog, Pod, Soucy and all the new additions.
So that’s why I say I have no clue what we are really.
credulous
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- Nov 18, 2021
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i'm very skeptical on playoffs this year. i think there's just too many key roles being filled by question marks or players playing above their station
i'll give credit where credit is due though. this team is setup to improve a lot over the next three seasons. they'll have 33m in cap space next summer assuming nothing changes before then. even if pettersson and hronek consume half of that they'll have north of 16m and pettersson, miller, kuzmenko, boeser, garland, mikheyev, suter, hoglander, hughes, hronek and soucy signed. i haven't really looked at who'll be available on the free agent market but they should be able to add a top three dman and a middle nine center and fill out the bottom of the roster
in 2025 kuzmenko expires but so does boeser so they should be able to resign kuzmenko (assuming he's still performing but i don't see why he wouldn't be) and add another 3-5m player on top of that. other than that only suter and hoglander expire
in 2026 things get a little more dicey. the oel buyout explodes and mikheyev, garland, soucy and most importantly demko all expire. depending on what they did prior though they could still be in good shape especially if they can bank on getting a top 4 dman and a top 6 winger out of their system
my main issue with this management group is that they could have arrived at this point in better shape if they'd been more realistic about last season and this upcoming one. better system, better cap sheet, better position to make opportunistic trades. instead they tinkered around the edges and spent valuable time and assets on not backsliding
i'll give credit where credit is due though. this team is setup to improve a lot over the next three seasons. they'll have 33m in cap space next summer assuming nothing changes before then. even if pettersson and hronek consume half of that they'll have north of 16m and pettersson, miller, kuzmenko, boeser, garland, mikheyev, suter, hoglander, hughes, hronek and soucy signed. i haven't really looked at who'll be available on the free agent market but they should be able to add a top three dman and a middle nine center and fill out the bottom of the roster
in 2025 kuzmenko expires but so does boeser so they should be able to resign kuzmenko (assuming he's still performing but i don't see why he wouldn't be) and add another 3-5m player on top of that. other than that only suter and hoglander expire
in 2026 things get a little more dicey. the oel buyout explodes and mikheyev, garland, soucy and most importantly demko all expire. depending on what they did prior though they could still be in good shape especially if they can bank on getting a top 4 dman and a top 6 winger out of their system
my main issue with this management group is that they could have arrived at this point in better shape if they'd been more realistic about last season and this upcoming one. better system, better cap sheet, better position to make opportunistic trades. instead they tinkered around the edges and spent valuable time and assets on not backsliding
A team where the expectation is to make the playoffs. Not where the expectation is to hope to be lucky and maybe you get in.
If the Canucks' brass were not confident they could turn the club into a playoff team this season, then they should have executed different moves oriented toward longer-term success over the past two years.
Are demko and miller young? Or is the young core just petey and hughes?
Regarding this wall of text, I'll address your main points:
1. Unrealistic that everyone provides surplus value: Yes. But you need most guys providing surplus value, or at least breakeven, to be a contender. The Canucks don't really have that. Your NJ example is kinda bad - Even after paying Meier, they have other players providing massive surplus value and even Meier's current contract is roughly fair value.
2. On Hronek: You clearly don't understand point 1 in regards to Hronek. I disagree that he's a legit top-pair defender. But even if I give you that, he's not going to provide much surplus value because he will have to sign a new, much larger contract. If he were similar to the Marino situation (locked up long-term on a value deal), then it would have made much more sense.
3. On OEL: I'm not ignoring the "opportunity cost". I'm trading off the likelihood of being marginally better now for more flexibility later on, when the team might actually have some hope of transitioning into a contender when Willander and Lekkerimaki hopefully make an impact, and other big contracts are off the books.
4. On "wasting time": Do you legitimately belive the Canucks are a good team now? What opportunity would be wasted?
5. On Petey: The onus is on you to demonstrate that all these short-term moves would get him signed, if that is your argument. And he has not re-signed. When is the Petey plan coming to fruition?
sting101
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2012
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Your kinda mixing words here...
JR said that he thinks they are a playoff team as long as they stay healthy ....Vegas was out of the playoffs the year before last. It's not exactly "hope to be lucky". They think they have a playoff team but are cognizant they are not a team that could withstand a key injury ot two and still play the way in
Your not gonna go from a team with 40% of your cap devoted to poor secondary support pieces and in 20months have it all fixed and be a contender.
There is reason to be skeptical but i question some of your criticisms of management. Your injecting a lot of things that are not true or speculative.
They certainly aren't old, Kuz + Hronek are also only 26-27 and very much key pieces.
This is an example of what I mean by lazy projection. You assume you are thinking into the future but you don't actually do the work to see what the actual salary situation is.
2025
Even if we sign Petey to a 12.5M contract and Hronek to that "horror" of a 7.5M deal, we have so little cap commitment that it's not "should be able to resign Kuz", it's more like if he is good and we can choose to extend him or not and even if we sign him to say like a 8M contract. assuming we trade away Garland already by that point and even if we extend Raty to a rather generous bridge deal, we still have 25M to fill out 8 spots.
The problem with projection like this is we have no bloody clue how Hog/Pod will perform and what type of contract they will get and also makes a bold assumption that this management team will not be able to add any piece to the top6 or top4 in like a 2 year time frame which is pretty damn unrealistic. But regardless, even if you want to go absolute baller, we could pay 2 more players a 8M contract and still have enough money to fill out the roster.
In summary, if you think there isn't enough money, you are just wrong.
If you are wondering, Willander is not in the screencap because he is not even in the capfriendly system yet, but yes he is accounted for when i mention the cap.
I am not even to bother to project 2026 because even Capfriendly thinks it's bloody stupid and won't let me do it.
Pastor Of Muppetz
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- Oct 1, 2017
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I’d say Demko has his best years in front of him..and Miller is a late bloomer.
Bojack Horvatman
IAMGROOT
- Jun 15, 2016
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I'm really hoping Silovs develops and looks like he could be a starter by the end of the Demko contract. Same age as Markstrom was when he was UFA, and he hasn't been worth his contract 2/3 years. Demko has more of an injury history too.
1. We have Hughes, Demko, Kuzmenko(potentially) providing surplus value. What we don’t have is bottom of the roster guys doing that. Ideally yes we would like to have more but at the end of the day, surplus value is just a proxy to measure depth and even if we have a couple of guys not providing surplus value it’s fine. If you look at Vegas with the same lens, you will realize how bloody flawed the model is. Pietrangelo, Eichel, Stone, Karlsson, Barbashev all offers negative surplus value. Is anyone going to say yeah, they should not have those contracts and replace them with more efficient ones? f*** no, they are the backbone of the team and you can drive efficiency around them.
2. The last points extends to Hronek too. If he is a 1st paring guy (I have to clarify that I don’t know if he is, he could or could not be), it doesn’t matter if he is providing surplus value as long as he is not overpaid and actually can provide the expected performance. Funny you mention Marino considering Marino according to the guys who made the model offers negative surplus value of 2.0M a year.
3. That’s where we have a fundamental difference in view. I see OEL as the worst fit for this team and makes a sizable contribution to the backend being shit. Basically he’s a lesser version of Hughes in every way + his body is damaged making him unable to defend even at a 3rd pairing level. Having 2LD in Hughes and OEL will almost ensure the PK will be god awful and the contract makes it unlikely we will have the resource to get better D to shelter him.
The reason why I spend so much time explaining that is because I fundamentally believe that with him, the best the team will ever be will be like a really borderline wildcard team. So yeah I see keeping him as essentially forfeiting the season and you are essentially telling Petey, yeah we are keeping him for 2 seasons and you won’t see any upward movement in the next 2 seasons because of that and you will lose him.
4. I believe this team is better that the one we ice last season.
5. Why do I have to prove it? Petey either signs or not and we’ll get our answers then. It’s not like any of us can actually prove anything.
6. Regarding surplus value. Here are some guys that generate negative value for contenders. Hedman, Cernak, Cirelli, Kopitar and Doughty, Panarin,Orlov,Girard. Can you imagine LA basing their decision off of surplus value and gets rid of Doughty and Kopitar or Tampa getting rid of Herman, Cernak and Cirelli because they are “bad” contracts?
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credulous
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- Nov 18, 2021
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maybe you should read what i wrote again? i think the team is in a good cap situation going forward. it was the first and second sentence of the second paragraph of the post you quoted
also i have this i put together, so don't tell me i didn't do the work:
So can you let us know who we will sign in the next 2 seasons and how that affects the cap?
credulous
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- Nov 18, 2021
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i have no idea who they'll sign other than pettersson, hronek and kuzmenko i hope
i think they'll have room next summer to add a couple of high in the lineup guys. ideally a top winger and a top defender but who knows what they'll need at that point. they should have the room to add another borderline top of lineup guy in 2025 if they don't put themselves back in a cap crunch even if they need to give big raises to kuzmenko, hoglander and possibly podkolzin or hirose
by 2026 things get tougher because only pretty good contracts are expiring but if they can replace demko cheaply and get a couple players out of their current system and future draft picks on elcs they can probably weather it
That’s the thing, if we project into next year or two, the only thing I think we can say for certain is that we are not cap f***ed. There is plenty of cap to add.
I don’t even think they will extend Demko. Silvos is going to get like 2 season of backup duty and might replace Demko.
Lol you won’t even commit to saying they’ll win a playoff round in the next four years. Talk about low stakes.
Yeah because I am patient and prefer to have a more informed decision based on actual play rather than just go by my gut and feels.
Are you still waiting for Juolevi to break out?
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