Post-Game Talk: On the back of a Chris Tanev OT goal, Vancouver defeats Minnesota in the play-in

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

This team is one of the most resilient teams I’ve seen wear a Canucks uniform. Any other Canucks team, besides 94 would have folded after 3-1.

On the brink of elimination, you could really see the Minnesota bench sag after Hughes tied up it up at 3-3...The defensive minded, throw the' blanket over the other team' Wild had just blown a 3-1 lead...

.

 

[dombrova22]

On the brink of elimination, you could really see the Minnesota bench sag after Hughes tied up it up at 3-3...The defensive minded, throw the' blanket over the other team' Wild had just blown a 3-1 lead...

.

Yup that was the end of them. They were defeated at that exact moment.

 

[Diamonddog01]

It’ll depend on what changes our blueline sees headed into next year. Tanev and Stecher are both in need of new deals. I think bringing Tanev back is going to be a priority for the Canucks, while Stecher may end up a cap casualty. If that happens, I could see both Rathbone and Juolevi pushing to fill Stecher and Benn/Fantenberg’s spots.

Agree in regards to Tanev and Stecher but will be either Juolevi or Rathbone, not both, simply due to position (ie both players being LD) imo. Def lots of moving pieces however including what happens with the AHL so I could be wrong. Also think Benn gets another look as he can play RD and by some accounts is actually better on his off-side. As a few others have noted with the Rathbone signing and Juolevi’s improvement I am much more optimistic than I was about the d moving forward. For next year:

Hughes - Tanev
Edler - Myers
Juolevi - Benn

and then, potentially,

Hughes - Tanev
Juolevi - Myers
Rathbone - RD

 

[Diversification]

Gotta love Marky! Good guy.

With Marky struggling in the 1st and 2nd, couldn't help but think back on the game against the Red Wings in October. Horrific team defense and it was a shooting gallery all night as a counterpoint. Still came away with a 5-2 win, Horvat with the hatty. Have to wonder if the team-building experience of that game lead to the gritty win last night.

 

[MikeK]

Agree in regards to Tanev and Stecher but will be either Juolevi or Rathbone, not both, simply due to position (ie both players being LD) imo. Def lots of moving pieces however including what happens with the AHL so I could be wrong. Also think Benn gets another look as he can play RD and by some accounts is actually better on his off-side. As a few others have noted with the Rathbone signing and Juolevi’s improvement I am much more optimistic than I was about the d moving forward. For next year:

Hughes - Tanev
Edler - Myers
Juolevi - Benn

and then, potentially,

Hughes - Tanev
Juolevi - Myers
Rathbone - RD

I don't see Tanev back next year just simply due to finances. This team will do whatever they can to re-sign Markstrom. They can't bring both back and the impending extensions for both Pettersson and Hughes will break the bank. Somebody is not going to make the cut and unfortunately, in my mind, that leaves Tanev the odd man out. His age and injury history make him a risky re-sign.

 

[Diamonddog01]

I don't see Tanev back next year just simply due to finances. This team will do whatever they can to re-sign Markstrom. They can't bring both back and the impending extensions for both Pettersson and Hughes will break the bank. Somebody is not going to make the cut and unfortunately, in my mind, that leaves Tanev the odd man out. His age and injury history make him a risky re-sign.

True, for me it comes down to term. If they can get him on short-term deal (and he was on record stating he would open to that) I think they have to pull the trigger as he's key part of the team. It will be interesting to see how the pandemic affects the market but they will have room to re-sign two of Markstrom, Toffoli and Tanev without making other moves. Barring a miraculous Eriksson retirement they can't sign all three - I think they re-sign Markstrom and Tanev. They would still have about 18M (which @vanuck estimated as what's needed for Petterson and Hughes and I think that's reasonable) the following season. Will be very tight until 2022 however.

 

[Bankerguy]

Have not seen Marky play a game that bad in 3 years.
I conisdering he's played lights out for 2.5 years now...i think he gets a pass for this one. The team was good enough up front to bail him out. Which is exactly what you want when your stud goalie has a bad game.
I'm not worried at all. He'll rebound and play .930 save% vs Dallas in the first round

 

[MikeK]

True, for me it comes down to term. If they can get him on short-term deal (and he was on record stating he would open to that) I think they have to pull the trigger as he's key part of the team. It will be interesting to see how the pandemic affects the market but they will have room to re-sign two of Markstrom, Toffoli and Tanev without making other moves. Barring a miraculous Eriksson retirement they can't sign all three - I think they re-sign Markstrom and Tanev. They would still have about 18M (which @vanuck estimated as what's needed for Petterson and Hughes and I think that's reasonable) the following season. Will be very tight until 2022 however.

Term and dollar amount for sure but we can't just look at things from the teams perspective. This will be Tanev's last big pro contract. He's still young enough to where he could get a pretty good deal from somebody out there even with a flat cap the next cpl years. Dmen are always a valuable commodity in free agency. I don't see Tanev doing us any favors and nor should he. He's not going to leave multi millions of dollars on the table just to do Vancouver a solid. We just simply can't afford both Markstrom and Tanev with some of the entry level deals we have on the team expiring soon.

 

[Fatass]

Term and dollar amount for sure but we can't just look at things from the teams perspective. This will be Tanev's last big pro contract. He's still young enough to where he could get a pretty good deal from somebody out there even with a flat cap the next cpl years. Dmen are always a valuable commodity in free agency. I don't see Tanev doing us any favors and nor should he. He's not going to leave multi millions of dollars on the table just to do Vancouver a solid. We just simply can't afford both Markstrom and Tanev with some of the entry level deals we have on the team expiring soon.

Gotta be thinking the Sabres would be all over Tanev, and willing to offer him dollars and term, so he could help Dahlin.

 

[MikeK]

Gotta be thinking the Sabres would be all over Tanev, and willing to offer him dollars and term, so he could help Dahlin.

Not sure what their cap situation is like but for sure. That is what I am talking about. Tanev has value to somebody for many reasons. I don't see him leaving millions on the table just to do Vancouver any favors. I don't see how Van can re-sign both Marky and Tanev. But maybe the team thinks Demko is ready to take the next step.

 

[Hit the post]

Gotta be thinking the Sabres would be all over Tanev, and willing to offer him dollars and term, so he could help Dahlin.

Yeah a team like the Laffs sure could use him. **** them though.

 

[Vancouver_2010]

To be fair... I keep seeing Canucks fans going to other teams forums and making all sorts of stupid posts or comments. It seriously drove me nuts seeing our fans go into the Flames/Oilers forums during the 2011 cup run to troll.

Yeah, only troll when we win it. Sadly we didn't

 

[bandwagonesque]

Tanev is already visibly slowing down, although it isn't affecting his game much. Everyone bemoans handing out retirement contracts, which the market has dictated productive veterans get. Is this sensible? It depends on what a team can hope to accomplish in the near future, but even that is speculative to some extent. I really wonder what an NHL team that rarely resigned players it knew would be overpaid for a significant proportion of their contract would look like, and whether it's a better long-term strategy. I honestly don't know, and it's not what any team consistently does. The players who left in their late primes would mostly be replaced with cheaper, older free agents whose market value is tied more to their production than to their scarcity. The cap would be easier to manage and such a team would probably be able to pick up assets in exchange for cap space, but probably nothing that would change their outlook dramatically. And they'd inevitably miss chances to have a really great team for a year or two. But maybe they'd be able to build a great team through depth and cap management.

Anyway, 3 years and $14-16mm for Tanev.

 

[dombrova22]

Agree in regards to Tanev and Stecher but will be either Juolevi or Rathbone, not both, simply due to position (ie both players being LD) imo. Def lots of moving pieces however including what happens with the AHL so I could be wrong. Also think Benn gets another look as he can play RD and by some accounts is actually better on his off-side. As a few others have noted with the Rathbone signing and Juolevi’s improvement I am much more optimistic than I was about the d moving forward. For next year:

Hughes - Tanev
Edler - Myers
Juolevi - Benn

and then, potentially,

Hughes - Tanev
Juolevi - Myers
Rathbone - RD

Don't forget we have Woo still as well.

 

[ChilliBilly]

Well we now have three good puck movie defenseman in the system. Hughes of course, and Juolevi and Rathbone. Add in Tryamkin and maybe even Woo in 2022. Add Podkolzin late next year, and maybe even Höglander this year and our only real problem is Cap Hell.

Take a core of EP40, QH, BB, BH, Podkolzin, Tryamkin and the supporting cast of Miller Myers Pearson & Virtanen and. Whatever motley Crue do you want to add to them we are young and deep.

 

[RussianRacket]

& Virtanen

No.

He's done here. Move on.

 

[Hodgy]

You are right on one thing. The team has way too many bottom 6 players on bad contracts. The Beagle and Myers contracts are especially egregious despite them being serviceable players for us this series. Sutter and Eriksson are actually decent players and would be fine pieces at 3-4 million instead of 4.4 and 6 respectively. We have yet to reach the time where Eriksson's contract looks its worst. Roussel, Ferland and Baertschi's contracts are good value individually for middle 6 players (league average contract is ~3 million and they are ~average players), but having only 1 of the 3 playing is not ideal. Roussel's contract is actually still an example of about as good as you can hope to do with those sort of free agent signings.

The rest of what you are saying is pure nonsense.

If these signings were made to shelter the young players, it only makes sense to do so while these young players are still in need of sheltering. To complain that Horvat is getting tough match-ups is ridiculous because it is exactly what a GM would have hoped for when he drafted Horvat. Horvat is not sheltering anyone... he is getting lots of ice-time because he is a good young player and he deserves it. Same goes for Hughes, Pettersson and Boeser. They should be (and are) playing big minutes because they are the team's best players. Imagine how much you would be complaining if they weren't.

You know who is getting sheltered by the Myers, the Sutters and the Beagles of the world? Adam Gaudette, Jake Virtanen and Olli Juolevi. These are the young players that aren't yet at the level to play in those match-up situations, especially on the PK. Who got all the PK time this series? It was steady doses of Beagle, Motte, Sutter, Myers and Edler. Better they eat those tough minutes than either group of the young guys.

I fundamentally disagree with your logic. We are spending almost 7.5 million dollars on bottom six defensive centres and neither of them are able to the play the most difficult defensive minutes. That’s atrocious. The only way spending that much money on defensive centres even remotely makes any sense (and even then I don’t it does) is if that frees up your other centres to play and thrive in offensive minutes, which isn’t the case with Bo Horvat.

We should be trying to develop Horvat like how Kesler developed, not top him out as 60 point shut down centre. The problem with our current roster construction is that, generally, if our top line is shut down, we are screwed since none of our other lines produce much. This doesn’t have to be the case if Horvat plays easier minutes, especially if he plays with a guy like Boeser or Toffoli.

 

[Angry Little Elf]

I don’t usually go on other teams boards but I had to check on the Oilers board to see what they’re saying about the Canucks. Man, they’re livid.

you love to see it.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

I don’t usually go on other teams boards but I had to check on the Oilers board to see what they’re saying about the Canucks. Man, they’re livid.

you love to see it.

Their worst nightmare. Calgary and Vancouver playing playoff hockey in the Oilers brand new barn while the Oilers are back on the golf course.

 

[vanuck]

I’m no Loui fan.

That's fair, you don't have to be haha! It's just that if you're using the coaches' judgement as a rationale for one player (Stecher) then the same should apply for another (Eriksson).

 

[vanuck]

And this team went on a 14-3 run this season when Eriksson was out with Horvat and Pearson. Now 17-3 with that trio together.

Bo is used in tough matchups, and Loui Eriksson is a terrific defensive player 5 on 5. It appears that defensive acumen really helps Bo out.

There is probably a better example of poor usage...

You are aware that's a really small sample size to be pinning the team's record on one player, right?

 

[Diamonddog01]

Don't forget we have Woo still as well.

I am not super optimistic in regards to Woo at the moment. Realistically we'll be lucky if 2 out of the 4 of Juolevi, Rathbone, Woo and Rafferty become NHL regulars and my money is on Juolevi and Rathbone.

 

[M2Beezy]

Quinn Hughes is the Patrick Kane of defence. Change my mind.

Patrick Kane is the Quinn Hughes of forwards. Change my mind.

 

[Fatass]

That's fair, you don't have to be haha! It's just that if you're using the coaches' judgement as a rationale for one player (Stecher) then the same should apply for another (Eriksson).

I hear what you’re saying, but Loui is a winger, and his defensive responsibilities are far different than Stecher’s.

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

I get that Myers has to show a bit more self discipline..but geez..Some of those calls In the last two games were borderline imo..