Prospect Info: The 2023-2024 Prospects Thread Pt. 3

[krutovsdonut]

The prospect pool in December 2021 might not include a single player who goes on to play 50 NHL games. It was staggeringly bad.

i mean you can criticize benning for rushing podkholzin and hoglander, but there is no way that is an accurate summary of the canuck prospects in 2021. my count of still alive prospects from 2021 would be silovs, podkholzin, hoglander, lockwood, woo, myrenberg, truscott , mcdonaugh, and rathbone. that is writing off klimovich and koskenvuo, who still have a pulse.

and even lockwood alone has 49 games since december 2021.

 

[RobsonStreet]

Yes because using picks to get Miller and Toffoli was the same as Gillis blowing his draft capital plus Grabner for Ballard Bernier Alberts Jordan Schroeder and Nick Jensen from 2009 to 2011

Oh and Hoglander plus Podkolzin isn't the worst considering they still are growing into decent players.

Tough call Miller Hoglander Podkolzin Toffoli 2019 to 2021 vs Ballard Bernier Alberts Schroeder Jensen 2009 to 2011 lol.

Lets be real here

In 2009 the Canucks had Cory Schneider, Cody Hodgson, and Kevin Connauton as prospects. In 2010 they added Chris Tanev. In 2011 Corrado. In 2012 Gaunce and Hutton. Not a murderer’s row of talent, but right around average for a playoff team drafting in the back of the first round.

 

[krutovsdonut]

Just cause the sky is blue doesn't mean it's made of blueberries...

The prospect pool after EP (D+4 year) and Hughes (D+3 year) had graduated was colossally bad. It's arguable that it's the worst. The pre-Horvat pool was also horrible and it's arguable that it was the worst.

recall that the @MS claim is that benning left behind in december 2021 was the worst prospect pool at any point in team history. that is just hyperbole.

prior to drafting horvat in 2013, gillis had a much worse prospect pool for several years. horvat gives him an argument that it was at the end better than when benning was fired. but even then it rests on one prospect. the rest of the prospect pool was ben hutton. who we let go for nothing, and nobody minded.

plus there are other periods of time when the canucks had horrendous dry spells.

 

[krutovsdonut]

In 2009 the Canucks had Cory Schneider, Cody Hodgson, and Kevin Connauton as prospects. In 2010 they added Chris Tanev. In 2011 Corrado. In 2012 Gaunce and Hutton. Not a murderer’s row of talent, but right around average for a playoff team drafting in the back of the first round.

i think someone has showed that statistically our drafting was worst in the league in that period. chris tanev was a great pick up. he and horvat are the main legacies of gillis drafting/free agent signings over 6 years plus hutton at a stretch. benning's drafting/signings over 8 years yielded demko, pettersson, hughes, mcann, boeser, hoglander, and stecher at a stretch, plus whoever we can still convert.

 

[credulous]

i think someone has showed that statistically our drafting was worst in the league in that period. chris tanev was a great pick up. he and horvat are the main legacies of gillis drafting/free agent signings over 6 years plus hutton at a stretch. benning's drafting/signings over 8 years yielded demko, pettersson, hughes, mcann, boeser, hoglander, and stecher at a stretch, plus whoever we can still convert.

virtanen played 300+ games and you also left out forsling, tryamkin, gaudette and gadjovich

benning sucked but not to the extent you'd think reading this board

 

[sting101]

recall that the @MS claim is that benning left behind in december 2021 was the worst prospect pool at any point in team history. that is just hyperbole.

prior to drafting horvat in 2013, gillis had a much worse prospect pool for several years. horvat gives him an argument that it was at the end better than when benning was fired. but even then it rests on one prospect. the rest of the prospect pool was ben hutton. who we let go for nothing, and nobody minded.

plus there are other periods of time when the canucks had horrendous dry spells.

You it removes a lot of context around the edges of his "prospect pool" that had become Hughes in 2018 Miller Toffoli Garland OEL (ughhh) and getting rid of 12 million in shit contracts etc etc. plus the prospects/players you mentioned in Podkolzin Hoglander who had been rushed and should have been in the AHL and some that looked good at times in Rathbone Lind Woo Karlsson Lockwood Klimovich Jurmo Brisebois Silovs

Nobody is trying to claim Benning didnt leave a gigantic mess to try and save his job after going absolutely crazy and wasting assets like confetti at a wedding but our pool had been awful many times in our history before for various reasons and as someone who's been around the block we had some dire pools in other era's that were worse

 

[iceburg]

recall that the @MS claim is that benning left behind in december 2021 was the worst prospect pool at any point in team history. that is just hyperbole.

prior to drafting horvat in 2013, gillis had a much worse prospect pool for several years. horvat gives him an argument that it was at the end better than when benning was fired. but even then it rests on one prospect. the rest of the prospect pool was ben hutton. who we let go for nothing, and nobody minded.

plus there are other periods of time when the canucks had horrendous dry spells.

Completely agree that there were very dry periods throughout team history, that's why I qualified it by saying "arguable".
But, as I said, leaving out the context is misleading at best. It's like saying you are faster than your buddy but leaving out the fact that you're driving a car and he's walking.
No GM is dealt the same deck going in. The resultant prospect pool is influenced by many factors including strength of team, draft position, strategies and objectives in the moment, prospect development opportunities etc. Some of these involve organizational decisions that may be good or bad depending on the circumstances (trading or keeping picks), some of which may be out of team control (having a high pick in a poor draft year).
Comparing Gillis and Benning eras (which is what I thought you were doing) is apples and oranges.

 

[Quinning]

Gillis and Benning both sucked at drafting.

 

[ChilliBilly]

Gillis and Benning both sucked at drafting.

In all fairness Gillis didnt get a lot of quality picks .....

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Every time this season that Karlsson has gotten a recall, I’ve been surprised it’s him and not Bains. Hope he gets his shot soon.

 

[andora]

Like whether prospects are worse conditioned before? Or travel is worse? I'm not sure those things would be substantially different.

Lol right on cue

 

[krutovsdonut]

virtanen played 300+ games and you also left out forsling, tryamkin, gaudette and gadjovich

benning sucked but not to the extent you'd think reading this board

well in fairness i also left out hodgson, gaunce and connauton on the gillis balance sheet, for the same reasons. in the end they were not impact players to the team. i think forsling having sunk down to waivers before finding himself is not a pick benning gets credit for.

Completely agree that there were very dry periods throughout team history, that's why I qualified it by saying "arguable".
But, as I said, leaving out the context is misleading at best. It's like saying you are faster than your buddy but leaving out the fact that you're driving a car and he's walking.
No GM is dealt the same deck going in. The resultant prospect pool is influenced by many factors including strength of team, draft position, strategies and objectives in the moment, prospect development opportunities etc. Some of these involve organizational decisions that may be good or bad depending on the circumstances (trading or keeping picks), some of which may be out of team control (having a high pick in a poor draft year).
Comparing Gillis and Benning eras (which is what I thought you were doing) is apples and oranges.

ok, well we weren't doing a general comparison. we were discussing the worst point in time in canuck history for prospects and specifically the claim by @MS that the moment was the day benning was fired. the point i was making is that we only need to go back one gm to refute that because, prior to drafting horvat, there was an extensive period of years that the gillis prospect pool was undoubtedly worse than late 2021 pool as we know now with the benefit of the historical record.

i do agree that gillis was not rebuilding or retooling and had less picks over a shorter time span.

 

[MS]

this is the most gillis bro take in history.

It's a stone cold fact and thinking otherwise outs you as the Benning Bro you are.

Yes because using picks to get Miller and Toffoli was the same as Gillis blowing his draft capital plus Grabner for Ballard Bernier Alberts Jordan Schroeder and Nick Jensen from 2009 to 2011

Oh and Hoglander plus Podkolzin isn't the worst considering they still are growing into decent players.

Tough call Miller Hoglander Podkolzin Toffoli 2019 to 2021 vs Ballard Bernier Alberts Schroeder Jensen 2009 to 2011 lol.

Lets be real here

i mean you can criticize benning for rushing podkholzin and hoglander, but there is no way that is an accurate summary of the canuck prospects in 2021. my count of still alive prospects from 2021 would be silovs, podkholzin, hoglander, lockwood, woo, myrenberg, truscott , mcdonaugh, and rathbone. that is writing off klimovich and koskenvuo, who still have a pulse.

and even lockwood alone has 49 games since december 2021.

recall that the @MS claim is that benning left behind in december 2021 was the worst prospect pool at any point in team history. that is just hyperbole.

prior to drafting horvat in 2013, gillis had a much worse prospect pool for several years. horvat gives him an argument that it was at the end better than when benning was fired. but even then it rests on one prospect. the rest of the prospect pool was ben hutton. who we let go for nothing, and nobody minded.

plus there are other periods of time when the canucks had horrendous dry spells.

Podkolzin and Hoglander were NHL regulars whose Calder eligibility had lapsed by the time Benning was fired. Hoglander was in his 2nd full NHL season FFS. They weren't prospects.

The prospect pool in December 2021 was headed by Rathbone/Klimovich/Jurmo/Woo. And then a massive drop-off past those 4 mediocre prospects. There is absolutely no argument that it was worse at any point in Gillis' tenure, or anything close.

The worst point in Gillis' tenure still had Ben Hutton who has gone on to a 500+ game NHL career and multiple 1st round picks in Gaunce and Jensen (and Corrado) who even if they didn't turn out were substantially better prospects at that point than the 4 guys I listed above.

I did miss Lockwood who might eke over 50 NHL games. Wow, amazing. That's the crown jewel. There is no other point in franchise history where it's that bad.

 

[RobsonStreet]

i think someone has showed that statistically our drafting was worst in the league in that period. chris tanev was a great pick up. he and horvat are the main legacies of gillis drafting/free agent signings over 6 years plus hutton at a stretch. benning's drafting/signings over 8 years yielded demko, pettersson, hughes, mcann, boeser, hoglander, and stecher at a stretch, plus whoever we can still convert.

It depends on how you look at it. Gillis got among the lowest number of impact players but looks better if you factor the picks the Canucks had to work with as a playoff team.

Dale Tallon (with the Hawks), Steve Tambellini (with the Oilers), and Dale Tallon (with the Panthers) grade out as worse when you factor in the sheer number of top 5 picks they had and what they were able to do overall. Hitting on Patrick Kane or Taylor Hall with the first overall is not hard.

 

[arttk]

well in fairness i also left out hodgson, gaunce and connauton on the gillis balance sheet, for the same reasons. in the end they were not impact players to the team. i think forsling having sunk down to waivers before finding himself is not a pick benning gets credit for.

ok, well we weren't doing a general comparison. we were discussing the worst point in time in canuck history for prospects and specifically the claim by @MS that the moment was the day benning was fired. the point i was making is that we only need to go back one gm to refute that because, prior to drafting horvat, there was an extensive period of years that the gillis prospect pool was undoubtedly worse than late 2021 pool as we know now with the benefit of the historical record.

i do agree that gillis was not rebuilding or retooling and had less picks over a shorter time span.

f***ing hell “but Gillis” again…

 

[VanJack]

One of the things the previous Canuck regimes never seemed to be able to do was find a 'diamond in the rough' after the second round. Of course they traded so many picks in rounds 3-5, that it's not surprising that a lot of their later picks never even ended up being signed.

Drafting is a 'numbers game'. The more picks you have in rounds 2-7 the more likely it is you're going to find somebody who can eventually play. Benning and company actually 'hit' on Hughes, Pettersson and Demko......but swung and missed wildly on Juolevi and Virtanen.

Unfortunately Virtanan and Juolevi were both picks inside the top-six and should have had long and productive careers. But it was dealing the second and third rounders for the likes of Vey, Pouliot, Pedan, etc...etc. that really sealed his fate.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

It's a stone cold fact and thinking otherwise outs you as the Benning Bro you are.







Podkolzin and Hoglander were NHL regulars whose Calder eligibility had lapsed by the time Benning was fired. Hoglander was in his 2nd full NHL season FFS. They weren't prospects.

The prospect pool in December 2021 was headed by Rathbone/Klimovich/Jurmo/Woo. And then a massive drop-off past those 4 mediocre prospects. There is absolutely no argument that it was worse at any point in Gillis' tenure, or anything close.

The worst point in Gillis' tenure still had Ben Hutton who has gone on to a 500+ game NHL career and multiple 1st round picks in Gaunce and Jensen (and Corrado) who even if they didn't turn out were substantially better prospects at that point than the 4 guys I listed above.

I did miss Lockwood who might eke over 50 NHL games. Wow, amazing. That's the crown jewel. There is no other point in franchise history where it's that bad.

So wait, the assessment of the prospect pool is hurt by the fact that Podkolzin and Hoglander were moved up precociously? That has nothing to do with drafting, though. He picked two legitimate prospects two years prior to being fired and gets no credit because they were rushed onto the team? Isn't that missing the forest for the trees?

 

[MS]

So wait, the assessment of the prospect pool is hurt by the fact that Podkolzin and Hoglander were moved up precociously? That has nothing to do with drafting, though. He picked two legitimate prospects two years prior to being fired and gets no credit because they were rushed onto the team? Isn't that missing the forest for the trees?

'Prospect pool' and 'U23 pool' are two different things.

Your prospect pool is a measurement of what you have coming to join the roster. Once Podkolzin and Hoglander had graduated, there was zilch. It was horrific.

And if we're going to go 'U23 pool' then Chris Tanev and Zack Kassian (and Jordan Schroeder) would be added to the low point in 12-13 so the Gillis group is easily better anyway. You don't get to include those guys for Benning but not the equivalent players for Gillis.

 

[bossram]

Lol right on cue

Well, that's Torts for ya lol.

 

[iRageWin]

'Prospect pool' and 'U23 pool' are two different things.

Your prospect pool is a measurement of what you have coming to join the roster. Once Podkolzin and Hoglander had graduated, there was zilch. It was horrific.

And if we're going to go 'U23 pool' then Chris Tanev and Zack Kassian (and Jordan Schroeder) would be added to the low point in 12-13 so the Gillis group is easily better anyway. You don't get to include those guys for Benning but not the equivalent players for Gillis.

I really respect your scouting and feel you have awesome insight into prospects so please don't take this the wrong way.

I was really curious about this and from the 2014/15 to the 2021/22 where Benning was fired (8 seasons), 41 U23 players played their first game on the Vancouver Canucks roster. Of these, 9 were U20 (Horvat, McCann, Virtanen, Boeser, DiPietro, Hughes, Pettersson, Hoglander, Podkolzin). The 41 players combined for 2362 points for the Canucks, the 9 players combined for 1712 points for the Canucks.

From 2008/09 to 2013/14 (6 seasons), only 21 U23 players played their first game on the Vancouver Canucks roster. Of these, 5 were U20 (Hodgson, Sauve, Kassian, Corrado, Jensen). The 21 players combined for 364 points for the Canucks, the 5 players combined for 102 points for the Canucks.

Now, you can take off Horvat's 420 points and add them to Gillis' totals, plus another hundred or two (overestimating) for guys like Hutton and Gaunce who got carried over but we're Gillis' picks - but the fact is Benning was more successful at adding young talent to the team. I totally recognize that the team was a cup contender under Gillis and a perennial bottom feeder under Benning, and Benning is an idiot, but I just wanted to present the facts

EDIT: never mind, my work was correct, I thought I missed guys like Tanev and Schroeder, but their listed seasons are the ones where they are just turning 21

 

[MS]

I really respect your scouting and feel you have awesome insight into prospects so please don't take this the wrong way.

I was really curious about this and from the 2014/15 to the 2021/22 where Benning was fired (8 seasons), 41 U23 players played their first game on the Vancouver Canucks roster. Of these, 9 were U20 (Horvat, McCann, Virtanen, Boeser, DiPietro, Hughes, Pettersson, Hoglander, Podkolzin). The 41 players combined for 2362 points for the Canucks, the 9 players combined for 1712 points for the Canucks.

From 2008/09 to 2013/14 (6 seasons), only 21 U23 players played their first game on the Vancouver Canucks roster. Of these, 5 were U20 (Hodgson, Sauve, Kassian, Corrado, Jensen). The 21 players combined for 364 points for the Canucks, the 5 players combined for 102 points for the Canucks.

Now, you can take off Horvat's 420 points and add them to Gillis' totals, plus another hundred or two (overestimating) for guys like Hutton and Gaunce who got carried over but we're Gillis' picks - but the fact is Benning was more successful at adding young talent to the team. I totally recognize that the team was a cup contender under Gillis and a perennial bottom feeder under Benning, and Benning is an idiot, but I just wanted to present the facts

Nobody is denying that more drafted played more games under Benning, but that's mostly a function of having more high draft picks.

When Benning didn't have #5 overall ... suddenly his 2020 draft looks just like Gillis' 2010 draft.

Also there wasn't exactly a lot of room to be blooding in rookies on the 2008-13 Canucks, unlike the 28th place teams under Benning where everyone got a look.

 

[JT Milker]

It’s wild to me that people just gloss over how bad the team was and how high we picked when talking about Benning’s drafting.

 

[M2Beezy]

It’s wild to me that people just gloss over how bad the team was and how high we picked when talking about Benning’s drafting.

I think theyre kinda double downing after supporting such a lousy manager for so long as the team tailspinned to the basement of the league well having equally league basement prospect pool

Supporting something so logically awful for so long, it would be hard to ever admit error, so they really seem to be double downing even with all the facts and stats

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

I think theyre kinda double downing after supporting such a lousy manager for so long as the team tailspinned to the basement of the league well having equally league basement prospect pool

Supporting something so logically awful for so long, it would be hard to ever admit error, so they really seem to be double downing even with all the facts and stats

In 99% of cases I don't think this is it.

I have been accused of being a "Bannign bro" more times than I can count when I always, always far preferred Gillis.

I think it's that there's a resentment of Benning on this board (which is fair) that grows to caricature levels where every single thing that worked out under him must have been some hero diving on the grenade that Benning was accidentally setting off etc. It gets tiresome for those of us with any nuance.

And then anytime someone brings up something that could, under a certain light, look like a defense of Benning like, 'well, he did draft Hoglander', then there is a pile of people responding dismissively or with vitriol. And then one of the heroes jumps in and says, 'bruh, why are you trying to talk to a Bannign bro'.

 

[Tables of Stats]

So wait, the assessment of the prospect pool is hurt by the fact that Podkolzin and Hoglander were moved up precociously? That has nothing to do with drafting, though. He picked two legitimate prospects two years prior to being fired and gets no credit because they were rushed onto the team? Isn't that missing the forest for the trees?

Which GM decided that Podz and Hog should make the main roster? Was it Benning?