The Current Predicament

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ClamRussel
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The Current Predicament

Post by ClamRussel »

Why are the Canucks in their current roster situation? I think this sums it up rather nicely. From an article about the Young Stars tourney a few years back.
Top draft picks Cody Hodgson (10th over-all in 2008) and Jordan Schroeder ( 22nd over-all in 2009) will highlight Canucks players expected to take part in the five-day competition. Other Vancouver notables include defencemen Evan Oberg, Kevin Connauton Taylor Ellington and Yann Sauve, as well as forwards Bill Sweatt and Prab Rai.
...

While the microscope will be on Hodgson, no doubt a lot of eyes will also be on Taylor Hall. The Calgary-born Hall was selected first over-all by the Edmonton Oilers in this past June’s entry draft. All told, the Canucks’ Young Stars Tournament will boast a total of 16 first round draft picks, seven players that appeared in the final of the 2010 World Junior Championships, and the 2009 and 2010 CHL players of the year. Players like Mikael Backlund (Flames), Jordan Eberle (Oilers), Emerson Etem (Ducks), Cam Fowler (Ducks), Magnus Paajarvi (Oilers), Kyle Palmieri (Ducks), Mitch Wahl (Flames) and Nick Petrecki (Sharks) are all set to compete for jobs at their respective team’s main camps.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by 2Fingers »

that can almost make a grown man cry in his beer.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by ESQ »

Its kind of amazing how many of the bolded players on other teams either have underwhelmed (Hall, Backlund, Eberle, Etem) or been outright busts (Paajarvi especially).

But most telling is that the two best Canuck prospects are no longer on the team - Hodgson for the oft-injured and enigmatic Kassian and Connauton for a few weeks of Derek Roy.

I'm pretty surprised that there isn't more ink spilled about the brutal Connauton, especially after RD's non-stop lovefest for him during his junior years.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by vic »

ClamRussel wrote:Why are the Canucks in their current roster situation? I think this sums it up rather nicely. From an article about the Young Stars tourney a few years back.
Top draft picks Cody Hodgson (10th over-all in 2008) and Jordan Schroeder ( 22nd over-all in 2009) will highlight Canucks players expected to take part in the five-day competition. Other Vancouver notables include defencemen Evan Oberg, Kevin Connauton Taylor Ellington and Yann Sauve, as well as forwards Bill Sweatt and Prab Rai.
...

While the microscope will be on Hodgson, no doubt a lot of eyes will also be on Taylor Hall. The Calgary-born Hall was selected first over-all by the Edmonton Oilers in this past June’s entry draft. All told, the Canucks’ Young Stars Tournament will boast a total of 16 first round draft picks, seven players that appeared in the final of the 2010 World Junior Championships, and the 2009 and 2010 CHL players of the year. Players like Mikael Backlund (Flames), Jordan Eberle (Oilers), Emerson Etem (Ducks), Cam Fowler (Ducks), Magnus Paajarvi (Oilers), Kyle Palmieri (Ducks), Mitch Wahl (Flames) and Nick Petrecki (Sharks) are all set to compete for jobs at their respective team’s main camps.

To be far, the Ducks, Oilers and Flames all had shitty teams during this time and had better a drafting position than the Canucks, Hodgson and Schroeder - replace Hank and Kesler?

Obviously when you have a shitty team and draft high, your prospects will move quicker into the NHL game, play big minutes and develop that way.

Oberg was never drafted and signed as a UFA - he also landed us Higgins who was a big part of that 2011 run.
Connauton was a 3rd round pick, not one player taken after him (as far as I could tell from the draft list) had any sort of a career.
Ellington - ok, so they missed out on Subban who was taken 10 spots later, but he was also missed by 9 other teams (including our current amateur expert Jim Benning while he was in Boston)

Sure they missed out on Perron when they drafted White (same year Calgary took Backlund) but to be fair (and I say this tounge in cheek) White got us the Hoff who without 2011 never would have happened.
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Re: The Current Predicament

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vic wrote: To be far, the Ducks, Oilers and Flames all had shitty teams during this time and had better a drafting position than the Canucks, Hodgson and Schroeder - replace Hank and Kesler?

Obviously when you have a shitty team and draft high, your prospects will move quicker into the NHL game, play big minutes and develop that way.
I dunno if that's totally true. Obviously a guy like Hall went 1st overall. Eberle went well after Hodgson. Etem went 29th (after we traded our 25th pick for Ballard), Palmieri was taken after Schroeder.
Connauton was a 3rd round pick, not one player taken after him (as far as I could tell from the draft list) had any sort of a career.
Sami Vatanen and Marcus Foglino are two names that jump out immediately, both 4th round picks in the nightmare that was the Canucks 2009 draft. Especially when you start looking at the positions, the next centre taken after Schroeder was Marcus Johansson, the next winger taken after Rodin was Tatar... Terrible showing for Vancouver.

It really does seem like Vancouver could have used a Toronto-esque slaughter of our scouting department, when looking at some of our picks between 2006-2011. For a team to have only 1 NHLer (Horvat, maybe Corrado next year) on their roster that they drafted in the past 10 years is pathetic.

Hopefully we don't have to suffer too much longer, the 2013 and 2014 drafts both look quite promising for the Canucks. Unfortunately, it will likely be 3-4 years before those guys really hit their stride, and the Sedins could be done (or close to done) by that point. The silver lining in all that is that if we do hit rock bottom around 2018/2019, we could have our own lottery pick to jump right in when guys like Horvat, McCann, Virtanen, Cassels, Demko are ready to take a larger role.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by ClamRussel »

Exactly IN, it's not that we didn't draft the biggest names, it's that there's barely any of our picks from that era of drafting that even made the bigs. If we had the odd player exceed draft expectations (for example, Cole Cassels so far or Edler back in the day) we're in a much better situation now. It bridges the gap.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by Island Nucklehead »

ClamRussel wrote:Exactly IN, it's not that we didn't draft the biggest names, it's that there's barely any of our picks from that era of drafting that even made the bigs. If we had the odd player exceed draft expectations (for example, Cole Cassels so far or Edler back in the day) we're in a much better situation now. It bridges the gap.
Well yeah, even when you look at teams that have been nearly as (or more) successful as us over that time, our drafting record is abysmal.

The Rangers have guys like Kreider (19th in 09), Stepan (51st in 08), Fast (157th in 10), Miller (15h in 11), Hagelin (168, 2007)... Chicago has guys like Teravainen (2012), Saad and Shaw (2011), Kruger (2009)... Anaheim has Andersen(87th in 2012), Rakell, Gibson, Manson (2011), Fowler, Etem (2010), Vatanen (2009)....

And that's forgetting guys these teams have traded or lost (Smith-Pelly, Schultz, Gardiner, Pirri, Clendenning, Duclair, Del Zotto, Weise...)

It really is quite depressing that Mason Raymond is our best producing draft pick of the past 10 years. If anyone wants to know "what's wrong" with the Canucks, we should start with drafting.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by dbr »

The Ducks and Blackhawks are some of the best drafting organizations in the league (although Chicago have armed themselves with a boatload of picks in the last decade).

The Rangers have some nice picks and some questionable ones just like everyone else (Dylan McIlrath with Fowler, Tarasenko et al on the board).

Really, over the last decade the Canucks have managed the trifecta:

-not making it to the draft with enough picks (or enough high picks)
-not doing an exceptional job with the selections they do make
-having fairly poor outcomes with the players that are selected

The odd Chris Tanev or Eddie Lack is nice, but not enough to make the difference.

I was hoping Jim Benning would help address these areas but we're still hemorrhaging picks.. hopefully he's drafting well enough with what's left that a few players having setbacks doesn't kill our prospect pool - particularly after the four players taken in the last two first rounds exit the prospect pool, one way or another.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by Island Nucklehead »

Yeadh dbr, everybody strikes out at the draft with some picks. That's bound to happen. But even finding a guy like a Hansen or a Raymond goes a long way to either a) not needing to spend another asset in a trade, or b) use free agent money to fill that gap.

It's rather depressing to see a team like Tampa Bay has 4 players on their playoff roster that were drafted in 2011 alone. That one draft for Tampa is better than the past 10 combined for Vancouver...
dbr wrote: I was hoping Jim Benning would help address these areas but we're still hemorrhaging picks.. hopefully he's drafting well enough with what's left that a few players having setbacks doesn't kill our prospect pool - particularly after the four players taken in the last two first rounds exit the prospect pool, one way or another.
Yep. I see it as a minor improvement on trading picks for veterans. On one hand, sure you're accomplishing the stated goal of getting younger. On the other, we have no idea if these players are capable NHLers, and you have lost the first couple years of developement and ELC's etc. A mean, a guy like Higgins, despite all the flack he's taking here on the board because he's not a good top-6 option, is not a bad return for a 3rd round pick. Linden Vey might never turn into a productive NHL'er, but HIggins is already there (for the role he's supposed to play). It's a risk, but one that probably offers a higher reward if it pays off.

Interestingly enough, we appear to have actually gotten lucky in that we later re-acquired that Higgins pick, it turned into Cole Cassels.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by Mr.Miyagi »

Clam,
That was the most reality-bites/gut-stomping/chin-check of a post. The truth hurts!
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by Chef Boi RD »

Mike Gillis and the greatest era of Canuck drafting and development and the total deconstruction of our minor league affiliate.

Bullshite about drafting late, Burke era drafted Kesler 23rd, Nonis era drafted Schneider 26th, hello Horvat.

The Bruins drafted Krejci, Bergeron, Marchand and Lucic outside the first round. Do the Bruins win the cup without those 4, don't think so. Red Wings prove it time and time again as Larkin is now considered to be in top 5 of his draft class. A lot talk now that Larkin is in the same company as Ekblad, Reinhart and Bennett of his class.'Where did the Red Wings draft Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterberg etc, do they win their last Stanley Cup without those 3?

Stop trading draft picks is all I want it's the lifeblood for all teams staying consistently strong, don't matter where you draft, although I still hate WD for wanting to win that meaningless last game of the season.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by Strangelove »



Slightly maddening wot?
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by herb »

RoyalDude wrote:Mike Gillis and the greatest era of Canuck drafting and development and the total deconstruction of our minor league affiliate.
So now it was Gillis' fault that Winnipeg got the Jets back and disbanded the Moose?

Mikey must be a hero in Manitoba!

LOL
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Re: The Current Predicament

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Hindsight is a euphemism for having your head up your ass.
Over the Internet, you can pretend to be anyone or anything.

I'm amazed that so many people choose to be complete twats.
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Re: The Current Predicament

Post by Chef Boi RD »

herb wrote:
RoyalDude wrote:Mike Gillis and the greatest era of Canuck drafting and development and the total deconstruction of our minor league affiliate.
So now it was Gillis' fault that Winnipeg got the Jets back and disbanded the Moose?

Mikey must be a hero in Manitoba!

LOL
It's what yer good buddy the players agent and his NTC's did after Manitoba, the Chicago era was god awful from the prospects, developing etc. Dropped the ball BiG time!
“Tyler Myers is my guy... I was taking to Scotty Bowman last night and he was bringing up his name, and saying he’s a big guy and big guy need big minutes to play, he is playing great for ya… and I agree with him… He’s been exceptional” - Bruce Boudreau
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