Looking through past posts on hfboards is such a slow, unintuitive process.
I choose to look at late in 2023 and just isolate some takes from then:
From the Hronek trade thread in early March last year after acquiring him:
"I keep hearing how he's redundant because of Hughes on the pp etc. Which is just an uninformed take. At the time of the trade Hronek was 8th in pp ice time for Detroit but was 2nd overall in scoring on the team. He was also 2nd in plus minus, which is an often discarded stat but in the context of being a decent plus on a minus team it usually means something encouraging.
He was 27th in the entire league in even strength assists for a dman. So in that context he's literally a number one defence man (note I'm not saying he is overall), so he obviously more than holds his own at 5-on-5.
He literally led their entire team in scoring in the Covid year. Yeah, they were a bad team, but he was like 21/22 and, playing as a defence man, led an NHL team in scoring. That means something too.
So to me, these are the things we're watching for this season and with our stars playing absolutely lights out they're providing some positive feedback for item #1 (timing of window), and for #2 the Islanders seem to be winning while their chasers are stumbling.
What remains is to watch Hronek and see how our draft and summer play out. I think it's going to be a really interesting summer and I think we're going to have a pretty good team next year."
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When people were down on Jonathan Lekkerimaki on the hfboards Canucks thread in April of 2023:
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Lekkerimaki is one of the youngest players in his draft class, has an incredible shot and a knack for getting into space to get it off.
He also appears to have precocious hockey sense.
People are up in arms because he 'regressed' from the previous season where he had a fantastic year for a 17 year old in the SEL.
This year, through injuries, illness, and poor play he struggled in the Alsvenskan.
But if the previous year he had played in the Swedish junior league and graduated to the Alsvenskan people would be more patient.
People see temporary regression as a final nail in the coffin of a player who missed being eligible for this draft by very little and was already in the SEL putting up numbers a year and a half ago.
Give him time, he's likely going to make people look stupid."
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Arguing against Canucks fans who hated the Hronek trade, thought we should dump all of our players and tank in April of 2023:
"
The vast majority of Stanley Cup winners over the last 100 years have an
elite D and an elite C and often an elite G.
Nobody is arguing that's enough on its own. Like, literally nobody.
What we are saying, is that it's absolutely the nucleus of something that could become special. And all members of the nucleus are young.
Also, Hronek is 25 years old, so acting like we gave up a lottery pick for Tarasenko is just disingenuous.
And Vancouver doesn't have to improve drastically just to sniff the playoffs. We, as currently built, are a bubble team who had dysfunction, terrible coaching, and horrendous historically impoverished goaltending.
When even some of that was mildly corrected we made all of the tankers panic by how quickly we climbed the standings.
Arguing against someone who thought we shouldn't have acquired Hronek and should have signed Severson on May 3rd of last year:
"Severson becomes Myers. The quality and upside isn't even close."
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March 18th thread on if Canucks are better than people think:
You're absolutely not wrong. The germ of something good is there. As you said, we have an enviable core.
However, hfboards Canucks fans are some of the most self-loathing people on the planet and we've been put through the wringer with Benning so people see a shadow and assume the sky is falling.
Most of the pieces are in place and if we make a good pick this year (hopefully top 6 or so) and sort out a #3 or 4 D man and deal a couple of wingers for cap purposes then we should be trending in the right direction.
People say, ' sure good enough to make the playoffs but not win the cup' derisively as if the only way to rebuild a team is by tanking like Chicago. You have to walk before you can run and we have most of our young core in place.
It's been hard to get here (we've seen a loooooot of bad hockey over the last 7 years) but I think it's a pretty exciting time to be a fan of this team.
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I'm definitely wrong sometimes too, but I feel like this last season has been quite validating on some of the opinions I had last season about the way the Canucks, their players, and some of their prospects were trending.
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For wrong takes: I didn't think Loui Eriksson would miraculously make us a great team, but i thought his style would sync with the Sedins, and I thought Gudbranson would be a solid addition to our team, so...it's the give and the take.