It seems like the Canucks have targeted an interesting market inefficiency.
Taking the 1st in the Horvat deal and the 1st in the Miller deal and immediately relaying it while the GM of the team on the other side could wishcast a 1st overall pick into the deal.
And it's not literally impossible. But you look at the standings and if the Rangers can't finish ahead of 13 teams, then they will reload and do what they can to finish mid to high the following year. This isn't a team that has the choice of rebuilding.
So this pick would likely be worth less as more time passed, just as the Hronek pick would have gone down a bit in value without the possibility of it being a lottery pick the following year.
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I think people who expect our offense to plummet are incorrect.
Our offense has been horrendously anemic because we had no D to move the puck to our forwards when the Hughes pairing wasn't on.
With MP and Willander coming, we are going to have a team that will be very, very hard to hem into our own zone.
We will finally have guys hitting our forwards in stride.
I can't tell you how utterly pathetic our breakouts have been. Most of our D have also been cycle breakers in the offensive zone. Since when they get the puck, it's off the shin pads, or into the corner for another contested puck.
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I think people are also sleeping on Drew O'Connor.
I've seen a handful of Penguins games the last couple of years and he always pops. I have also seen him play off Crosby fairly successfully meaning he has the hockey sense to play up the lineup, at least for short bursts.
But one of the things that the Canucks lost from last year was speed, size, and forechecking up front. Losing guys like Mikheyev and Lafferty made sense cap-wise, but it also cost us transition speed and forechecking acumen.
So he's a nice add for us to reclaim that identity.
A solid defensive player like MP who can transition the puck will be amazing for unlocking Hughes a bit from having to do literally everything both ways.
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Obviously this trade makes no sense if we don't re-sign one or both so I can only assume that it's almost a fait accompli.