Post-Game Talk: [Pre-Season] Game 1 | Vancouver Canucks defeat Seattle Kraken | 3-1 (Hoglander, Hronek, & Suter)

[sandwichbird2023]

I haven't watched anything other than the goal highlights. Personally I'm less interested in how the kids do and more about the bubble players.

How were Wolanin and Forbert? Aman and Blais?

I only watched the 2nd and 3rd, but I liked Wolanin's game (although it looked like he had a brutal give away in the first?).
Forbort has absolutely no puck skills, his breakout passes are not good, and does nothing but dump the puck in. I can see a lot of plays dies on his stick this season.
Aman was pretty un-noticeable for me, which can be a good thing for a depth center. His line got hemmed in a couple times.
Blais tried to play physical, but he didn't really do much otherwise. Seems to be getting his signals crossed with his linemates when we have the puck.
Other thoughts: I thought Boeser skated really well, that one back-check play he legit looked fast! There was one sequence of 4 or 5 consecutive touch-passes that were tape-to-tape, I was impressed, reminded me a little bit of the late 90s Red Wings. Silovs was very good I thought, but D-Petey was very bad. Heinen was very underwhelming.

Its just one game, not drawing any conclusions, but those are my observations.

 

[Quinton Byfield]

Forbort has absolutely no puck skills, his breakout passes are not good, and does nothing but dump the puck in. I can see a lot of plays dies on his stick this season.

That's been my fear with some of our D signings this off-season. I could see the upside with Desharnais, but the group of Soucy/Desharnais/Juulsen/Desharnais either struggle to skate and/or offer little to no puck moving ability.

There's no margin for injuries, and if even a Myers goes down, Hughes-Hronek will need to be split by necessity.

Forbort needed to be at most a 1.15M contract to maximize flexibility, and we don't have the depth to push him more towards a 6/7 or 13th man type. He should be good on the PK though.

 

[sting101]

I haven't watched anything other than the goal highlights. Personally I'm less interested in how the kids do and more about the bubble players.

How were Wolanin and Forbert? Aman and Blais?

I would be interested... might be couple on the team to start the year. DPetey certainly will need time in the AHL

Wolanin is great in transition moving north south, Decent off rush defending and running a PP and his skating is good but like in the past he's weak on cycle defending and transitioning in zone along the walls. Him being a more offensive guy vs a PKing hard on puck style hurts his ability to make the team. NHL teams just dont have a lot of time for these types of tweeners. I'm a fan and think he would be good to start the year with Desharnais vs Forbort and his lack of puck skills. So many injuries have added up though

Forbort is basically the antithesis of Wolanin. Tough team guy, good in zone defending, quality shot blocker and PKer that doesn't offer much outside of the defensive zone. Very basic skillset and slow but he does things hard and with authority and makes generally good safe decisions. Skating right now looks a little concerning and he's had health issues. We'll see how it goes but an upgrade or depth by the deadline looks like a likely scenario.

Amen looks good. He's an extremely capable 4th line C 13th forward fast and can skate miles. His biggest issues are he's weak and gets beat up and then plays timid. He's a good PKer and a coaches dream as he rarely makes mistakes but leaves a lot to be desired due to getting out muscled taking a lot of big hits. He's a valuable roster depth guy who looks ready to go and highly doubt they waive

Blais looks bad. Blowing a knee for a player of his ilk is devastating at his age. Connor Brown Mikhayev Roussel these guys were all shadows of their former selves after and it's commonplace for a year or 18months if ever. He needs a lot of time to just stay healthy and regain confidence and pace of play. Looks far from making the Canucks right now gonna need Abbotsford for awhile and considering he started from a borderline NHLer it's gonna be tough to get back in.

 

[MS]

Blais looks bad. Blowing a knee for a player of his ilk is devastating at his age. Connor Brown Mikhayev Roussel these guys were all shadows of their former selves after and it's commonplace for a year or 18months if ever. He needs a lot of time to just stay healthy and regain confidence and pace of play. Looks far from making the Canucks right now gonna need Abbotsford for awhile and considering he started from a borderline NHLer it's gonna be tough to get back in.

The weird thing is that he blew out his knee 3 years ago, had the typical struggles ... and then caught fire and popped 20 points in 31 games for the Blues to close out 22-23 and then led Canada in scoring at the World Championships as we won a Gold medal. And then regressed horribly again last year without any further injury.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

That's been my fear with some of our D signings this off-season. I could see the upside with Desharnais, but the group of Soucy/Desharnais/Juulsen/Desharnais either struggle to skate and/or offer little to no puck moving ability.

There's no margin for injuries, and if even a Myers goes down, Hughes-Hronek will need to be split by necessity.

Forbort needed to be at most a 1.15M contract to maximize flexibility, and we don't have the depth to push him more towards a 6/7 or 13th man type. He should be good on the PK though.

I guess if the bottom 4 is really struggling badly as a whole moving the puck, they may call up Wolanin to provide some of that ability. However, that will likely eat up all the cap space we have.

I think the plan is, unless the Hughes-Hronek pair is on the ice, the forwards come back much deeper and do most of the work in transition. They can't expect good clean breakout passes from the bottom pairing. It is going to create more work for the forwards, but I don't see how it would work otherwise.

 

[Vector]

The weird thing is that he blew out his knee 3 years ago, had the typical struggles ... and then caught fire and popped 20 points in 31 games for the Blues to close out 22-23 and then led Canada in scoring at the World Championships as we won a Gold medal. And then regressed horribly again last year without any further injury.

Kind of similar to Mikheyev. Was much better at the beginning of the season but then everything went wrong.

 

[sting101]

The weird thing is that he blew out his knee 3 years ago, had the typical struggles ... and then caught fire and popped 20 points in 31 games for the Blues to close out 22-23 and then led Canada in scoring at the World Championships as we won a Gold medal. And then regressed horribly again last year without any further injury.

Kind of similar to Mikheyev. Was much better at the beginning of the season but then everything went wrong.

Yes could be after rehabbing and finding his way back along side of good top6 players and having some bounce back success reality set in and his pace had fallen off game to game saw more 4th line spot duty and then the confidence goes as you mentioned with Mikhayev.

Part of the issue also is Blais like PDG is a guy that can play in a top6 capacity but is a 3rd wheel and expected to be a hard in physical forechecker net presence and defensive energy guy. Bringing that on a consistent basis is a tough job when the body starts to get worn down.

Saying all that obviously Tocc and scouts/managemnt saw a big physical player that achieved a 30plus pt pace in 2yrs and that Worlds leading to last years swoon and that's worth a gamble to see if they can get him back. He was a good player for Berube who could bump up on occasion.

Hasn't looked very good yet but could improve as we go and be the Joshua replacement. Should be interesting to track his pre season. Tocc throwing down the gauntlet on him a little post game.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Kind of similar to Mikheyev. Was much better at the beginning of the season but then everything went wrong.

His skating never looked right.

And if you take away his skating he is just a tall guy with hands of stone.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Is this the same guy that had a rage hard on for Myers after he hit Matty Beniers two years ago?