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Topper wrote: ↑Tue Jun 09, 2026 7:00 pm Bobby Clarke > Conner McDavid

Larry Robinson > Erik Karlsson

Makar? wait and see

Can you imagine a Coffey-Karlsson pairing? Whose minding the store?

Landon DuPont has committed to Michigan.

https://x.com/MikeGrinnell_/status/2069 ... 23857?s=20

Good choice....# 2 or # 3 ranked for next year in most polls.

Frozen 4 in 3 of past 4 years.

Brandon Naurato will coach the hell out of him.

Will Horcoff there.

Cameron Reid committed.

Jack Nesbitt, Mews....

Head to head versus Chase Reid at MSU.

Be really good for him before getting drafted in Vancouver in '27.....

Ronning's Ghost wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2026 10:39 pm This touches on my favourite hockey topic: the team composition that gives the best chance to win a championship.

...I figured this could be the sort of bullsit that could drive discussion on a hockey message board...

Or, you know, not.

So I will explore a theory about why not.

When an NFL team hires a head coach, they are more-or-less committing to build a roster suitable to playing that coach's system. Players will get drafted and traded on the basis of how well they fit what the organization is trying to do on offence and defence.

(Yes, sometimes the opposite happens. The Baltimore Ravens changed their offensive philosophy to make the most of the special kind of player they considered Lamar Jackson to be. But I consider that the exception that proves the rule.)

Coaches in sports and at levels without active recruitment processes -- say, a community league -- have a different job. They have to look at the players they have, and build a system that makes the most of what is available.

So I wonder if you guys consider the NHL to be more like the latter scenario, where management's job is to find as many "best available players" for the draft position and/or the trade value and/or the free agency money, and the coaches job is to make the best team he can out of the best players management can get, whatever type of player they might be. And the salary cap structure is just you pay all of those BPAs as little as you can to get them to stay, but sometimes you have to pay more because the asset you already have could just walk away. Team composition and salary cap structure are driven much more by what's available than any grand vision for the kind of team you want. Perhaps that's what Benning meant by "meat and potatoes".

As an example I have used before, I rather doubt that Brian 'Truculence' Burke's first choice of core players was two highly-skilled and durable but slow and non-physical Swedes. But it's all he could do, because they were far and away the best players available in the draft year when the Canucks happened to have high draft picks. Or Montreal discovers that they have a Hall of Fame Goaltender, so the goalie winds up taking a relatively large proportion of the salary cap, but that's a matter of happenstance, rather than planning.

If that's the case, the Canucks will just build the team they can from the best pieces they can find, and the question of "what kind of team are you trying to build" becomes moot.

NEWS: The Giants will relocate to City Centre Arena – a new sports & entertainment venue that will be completed in 2030 – in Surrey, B.C., beginning at the start of the 2030-31 WHL season.

Ronning's Ghost wrote: ↑Sat Jun 27, 2026 12:28 pm
When an NFL team hires a head coach, they are more-or-less committing to build a roster suitable to playing that coach's system. Players will get drafted and traded on the basis of how well they fit what the organization is trying to do on offence and defence.

The biggest difference between NFL and NHL drafting and team building is that the NFL can draft players and have them in the lineup that fall. With the NHL, you (usually) develop them for a few years - by then the coach has likely changed, and that system is gone.

I think a good coach (NHL) is able to take the team he has and mould a system around them. Tocchet had success for a while when he had the extra talent that could adapt more easily than the bunch of plumbers that Foots was handed. Malhotra is in a position of having developed players for the 'system' that was in place, and can now choose to continue that path, change it completely or adapt that system to the players he's working with.

It will be interesting to see how Malhotra uses players like EP40, Buium, etc - let them flourish with their natural skills, or put them in a defined role that they need to learn anew (again).

Cornuck wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2026 2:52 pm NEWS: The Giants will relocate to City Centre Arena – a new sports & entertainment venue that will be completed in 2030 – in Surrey, B.C., beginning at the start of the 2030-31 WHL season.

Vancouver is such a shit sports town.

Cornuck wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2026 2:59 pm

Ronning's Ghost wrote: ↑Sat Jun 27, 2026 12:28 pm
When an NFL team hires a head coach, they are more-or-less committing to build a roster suitable to playing that coach's system. Players will get drafted and traded on the basis of how well they fit what the organization is trying to do on offence and defence.

The biggest difference between NFL and NHL drafting and team building is that the NFL can draft players and have them in the lineup that fall. With the NHL, you (usually) develop them for a few years - by then the coach has likely changed, and that system is gone.

Your explanation covers it, thanks

According to Google's A.I., the average tenure of an NHL coach is 2.3 years, an NHL GM's is about 4.6 years, and it takes around 3-4 years for a typical player to move from the draft to the NHL.

So for the most part, an NHL GM is just trying to assemble the best players he can on the most cost-effective contracts he can, and the coach is trying put together the best team he can out of the options he has been handed. Any attempts to have a roster reflect a vision for a cap structure or a style of play happen after the fact as relatively minor adjustments via trade. For the most part.

That supports my alternative interpretation of the Canucks' most recent draft day, that it might reflect less a vision for the team that will ultimately be competitive in (in 3? 5? 8? seasons) than a conservative approach to drafting, trying to maximize the chances that any given draft will yield any sort of NHL asset.