I was responding to a post that was making comparisons to last season.
The lack of top picks the last couple seasons is going to hurt but at the same time I think the acquisition of Garland and emergence of Hoglander and hopefully Pods can buy the team some time. At the end of day you're not guaranteed to draft NHL players and it is actual depth you want and not superficial depth (e.g. a Hoglander in the system vs Lind and Gadjovich).
I think people overuse the term "bubble team." Under your definition, the Leafs, Islanders, and Hurricanes were "bubble teams" in 19-20. There's a lot of parity in the league and there often isn't very much separating the 6th seed in the Conference and 8th seed. In most years, you have 5-6 teams competing for the last 3 playoff spots.
What makes Garland so great? Really? I don't get all this hype, kind of reminds me of the Baerstchi hype.
This is a player that not many know and haven't seen much of.
Stats wise he isn't a scoring machine.
He doesn't have that much NHL experience either, he couldn't crack Arizona's line up except through injuries, I wonder if Benning noted that.
He is another sub 5'10" player, the NHL always rounds UP, that is why no player is ever 6'1 1/2" and Hughes is listed as 5'10" in the NHL and 5'9 1/4" in IHF
Same with weight, I think the NHL includes equipment weight
Another player that doesn't play any PK
He is probably an upgrade of some player but did he really warrant such a huge pay increase, going from $775,000 to $4.95 million?
The bubble and parity are illusions created by the loser point.
That is why up to 80% of the playoff teams are decided by Turkey day in the states, I have found that up to 90% are decided by December 15.
At the end of every season there are teams that tank to take advantage of an opportunity they never had before, an improved chance at the top draft prospects, the draft lottery.
Often really bad teams go for a romp at the end of the season when other teams are tanking and as much as the NHL says they don't like this tanking it does spur fan hope for the next season and help sell tickets for the start of the next year.
The "Bubble team" is just a team stuck in the mushy middle, not quite good enough and not quite bad enough.
Vegas odds makers are rarely out to lunch when deciding the odds and for a few years there were some media and a lot of fans that were dead on with their evaluations of where the team would end up.
As far as "Bubble" for the Canucks, every media type on the air doesn't target the team's soft spots, they sell only optimism, that is better than pessimism but realism should be the target.
On paper the Canucks are no better than last year and now they have a less than enthusiastic core waiting for the other shoe to drop. We, long term fans, have seen this before, most fans will recognize it in the form of the futility of the Edmonton Oilers. Vancouver fans ridiculed them for a decade and still do but their problem has been finely crafted onto this team by Benning.
The team is still very shallow, not much depth, still counting on aging vets, signing really good AHL players, spending to the cap, relying on the goalie, rushing the young guys and putting enormous pressure on them to make the team succeed.
I don't know why Benning is allowed to continue but doing the same thing over and over again and saying it is different, maybe the names have changed but not players.
The team is now compromised for the next 3 years and up to 5 years into the future, no 1rst rnd picks, while they haven't been the boon to this team most other teams have been cleaning up in the draft. That is why Benning goes after other teams drafted players and lets all his go for nothing or buys them out to leave.
