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UWSaint wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2026 11:22 am

Ronning's Ghost wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2026 10:23 pm ...the Canucks are trying to build a roster around a system?

UWSaint wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2026 11:22 am The best coach is a guy like AV who can pivot based on the talent. Otherwise, you are like Tockey -- who is not a bad coach with the right guys, but also a coach that can sap the superlatives for the "wrong" guys for his system. I think Tocchet saw that in his coaching, too, I just don't know that he'll ever be able to put in practice what he knows intellectually to be true.

So, with respect to my overall question regarding roster construction and coaching/system choice, it seems like most of NHL follows its own model, and that is part way between the NFL (you build a team around the system of the coach you hired) and community sports (the coach builds a system around the players who showed up). Most NHL teams build the roster they can out of series of Best Available (through whatever means) Players, and then hire a coach whose system fits most of that roster, with the exception of top tier coaches who have the ability to adjust. And that would explain why coaching changes are so common in the NHL: much of what is happening is experiments with different coaching styles to see if they better fit a roster that's harder to change than the coach. Does that sound right?

UWSaint wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2026 11:22 am I think this is the wrong way to do things.

I would agree with your points, and want to amplify on them with respect to this specific tactical approach and the kind of centre it needs.

In a Cap league, a team winds up paying for everything every player brings to the team. You want your centre to have good ice-vision and playmaking ability -- you pay for that. You want him to have a good enough shot that he is a plausible threat to shoot instead of pass -- you pay for that. You want him to be good at face-offs, have defensive awareness, have superior top speed, great puck handling, win physical battles, etc. etc. -- you're paying for all of it.

Now you take all of that, and add the requirement for a very specific type of athlete with a large wingspan and a quick first couple of strides (thanks for making it more specific, Lancer) -- attributes that are considered desirable in hockey players generally -- in a position that is also widely coveted, and I think you wind up with a recipe for paying a premium for what you need. (Yes, all good centres are at a premium. I mean beyond the usual extent.) That would lead to an inefficient allocation of cap space -- the opposite of money-puck, if you will.

One way around that might be to sacrifice some other attribute you want in a centre to stay within budget, and try to pick it up at another position, where it is usually found cheaper. In that case, what do you sacrifice, and where else do you get it? For example, do posters know of a few modern examples of play-making wingers, and is that ability usually cheaper in a winger than in a centre?

I think the way to win is by playing money puck. If you use a 60/30/10 cap breakdown for forwards/defense/goalies, then you have about $60m for forwards and $30m for defense. Do you really want to spend 2/3 of your defense budget on 1 guy, or, half of your forward budget on 2 guys?

But, if you play in the 7-10m range, there are more opportunities to find hidden value, and attributes that don’t show up as salary (the intangibles). And you even get to build depth.

The GM decides if it is a balanced team, or top heavy. The coach needs to find the right system for his bottom half depending if he has real talent, or the best dregs left after over spending on the top 3 guys.

Ronning's Ghost wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2026 1:28 pm One way around that might be to sacrifice some other attribute you want in a centre to stay within budget, and try to pick it up at another position, where it is usually found cheaper. In that case, what do you sacrifice, and where else do you get it? For example, do posters know of a few modern examples of play-making wingers, and is that ability usually cheaper in a winger than in a centre?

I think that Marner is probably the prototype of a playmaking first winger, but you might add Panarin and Kucherov. Kucherov seems like a weird inclusion because he's scored 40+ goals a few times, but IMO he is a natural playmaker who has the skills to just "decide" to shoot more and score more. Like Barry Bonds said about Ichiro -- he could have easily been a 30-40 home run guy if he wanted to change his swing plane (as he would sometimes do in BP for fun), but he elected to take a swing plane that extended the zone of contact and sprayed the ball to all fields. Or even our own Henrik Sedin, who was clearly limited by a minus level NHL shot, but when Daniel missed 18 consecutive games and he needed to score more, he potted 10.

I don't think that these examples show that playmaking is cheaper from the wings (not anymore than the forever-present center bump), but I guess these examples are also really highly skilled guys capable of doing a lot more. The next level down, I suppose, would be a guy like Jesper Bratt, who is definitely playmaking + speed and signed a contract at 9.43% of the cap -- which will turn out pretty good with the rising cap, but doesn't reflect a substantial bargain. Robert Thomas is a center with similar numbers, at a similar age, signing his contract at a similar time, and is always looking to set up (is less of a speed demon but is a good 200 foot player who will use his athleticism in all areas), and his contract was 9.73% of the cap when signed. These are obviously anecdotal comparisons and you can always pull out good contracts and bad contracts, but these are the first guys that cam to mind and they don't show "playmaking winger" as one of those extremely undervalued assets.

Tciso wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2026 8:24 am The GM decides if it is a balanced team, or top heavy. The coach needs to find the right system for his bottom half depending if he has real talent, or the best dregs left after over spending on the top 3 guys.

Again, I think that this decision is generally where you stand is where you were sitting. Its pretty rare for a GM to consciously choose moving on from a very expensive very elite player to build out more depth. Generally, they are backed into that corner by the player. Even the Hurricanes, which are the model of depth without a "star" *tried* on multiple occasions to find elite or near elite talent to finish out their group. (Guentzel, Rantananaan, attempts to get EP40 (when he looked very good)). But to the "intention" point, the Hurricanes lost out on these players because they wouldn't pay any price, and their intentional decisions to choose quantity on draft day is an approach that seems designed to prioritize depth and get that just right player whose porridge isn't too hot to imbalance the salary structure and isn't too cold as to never get out of Charlotte.

The Canadiens look to be the team currently playing moneyball -- helped a ton by very good signings that stretch the depth beyond where it should be. Its not clear to me that they've "chosen" to miss out on the very very best (and settle for the very good), or if that's just the result of winning the lottery during a year where there was no one transformative in the draft and where pre-draft development remained COVID-effected (and they ultimately went with a guy in Slafkovsky who, IMO, had a pretty comfortable floor). But it does seem clear that outside of the #1 overall, they waded a lot in "undervalued" waters -- they are getting high skilled guys with question marks like size (Hutson, Caufield) or skating (this was a knock on Suzuki), or "russian" and all the uncertainty that seems to go with every Russian drafted (Demidov).

This was probably discussed in the gameday forum, but (and asking for a friend)

... what the fuck is a 'spearing' penalty these days???

Madcombinepilot wrote: ↑Sat Oct 10, 2026 8:05 pm This was probably discussed in the gameday forum, but (and asking for a friend)

... what the fuck is a 'spearing' penalty these days???

Seems like malicious intent to me.

So what is worse?

Last season thinking the team can make the playoffs but just suck and ended up last.

Or this season, knowing the team is bad but seeing them lose and being that really crappy team we used to laugh at. We are that team now.

Last year was worse.
This year we can still laugh at any team worse than the purposefully rebuilding/tanking Canucks.
Philly, Chicago and Calgary were all trying this season. Ha!

Only disappointment for me will be if we can't be that rebuilding team that managed to skunk us at least thrice a year when we were actually good.

Mëds wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2026 11:36 am Only disappointment for me will be if we can't be that rebuilding team that managed to skunk us at least thrice a year when we were actually good.

You and Corn drinking the same cocktails today?

donlever wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2026 8:36 am

Cornuck wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2026 8:19 am The surprising thing about this game was that all other games this weren't this bad.

I was responding to the seeming lament in regards to how shitty this rebuild process will be to watch.

Yes, we have low expectations, so the losses are expected.

But I recall some very dominant Canuck teams that just couldn't get up for a rebuilding bottom feeder and lost very winnable games.....or simply were outworked because the bottom feeder wanted to earn some street cred by taking it to the top dog.

I'd like us to do that a few times this season.....other than that, lose away.

Ok....now it makes sense.

Ronning's Ghost wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2026 10:23 pm ...the Canucks are trying to build a roster around a system?

Would this make them professional hockey innovators ?

Yah, I dunno, good question. I remember @ the draft, Todd Harvey said they were instructed to go for bigger players. Maybe they feel that this is the best way to build a contender, so they filling their prospect pool with doods with size. Even in the offseason, they got rid of smaller/thinner guys like Hoggy/M-Petey and picked up some size in Cotter, Oleksiak and Schenner2.

Todd Bersnoozi wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2026 7:58 pm

Ronning's Ghost wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2026 10:23 pm ...the Canucks are trying to build a roster around a system?

Would this make them professional hockey innovators ?

Maybe they feel that this is the best way to build a contender, so they filling their prospect pool with doods with size.

It might be the best way to build a contender for a franchise that will never get the calls from the officials.

Big strong teams tend to win Cups.

Last years Canucks (as an example) were one of the lighter teams in the league.

Carolinas Cup winners outweighed them by 8 pounds per man.

Panthers by 6.

Avalanche by 3.

Vegas by 12.

Lightning by 11.

...see a trend?