Cornuck wrote:If Linden had to convince the Aquas to do a full tear down and rebuild, he would have had to have convinced them of the long term investment and how it would pay off. He had to make a case that the empty seats in the next year or two would have been a viable loss to ensure full seats within a few years - and then laid out his plan how his rebuild would have progressed.
I'm guessing he didn't make much of a case and was told to spend to the cap, win games and rebuild on the fly - and now we might looking at a half empty arena for the next 5-6 years.
As for the Sedins, I've always been a supported and have said that I want them back after their contracts are up. Based on how this season is starting, I'm starting to change my mind. The Twinsition™ might be short lived.
If we need to get rid of one either Tanev or Edler, I'm hoping Edler will waive and we can make a deal. Either way, we need help scoring - not just perimeter shots on goal, but a new way of playing that we haven't seen for a long time. The pass first mentality worked well when we had the personnel to make it happen, but now it's just sad to watch.
Go Bo Go!
All good points. In all this dialogue, there's a failure to mention Benning and how he is performing. He gets a whole lot of 'rah rah' on this board and it's difficult to offer anything critical about him without being 'swarmed over' by outrage by the pro-Benning crowd. I've aready brought this up before, but consider this: we could be in a position right now where we have Nylander instead of Virtanen and Tkachuk instead of Juolevi. Nylander has been averaging close to a point a game, and Tkachuk is already on his way to becoming a bonafied scorer in the NHL. So, we could conceivably be looking at a future line of Nylander, Tkachuk, and Boeser when he comes aboard next year.
We were one of the lowest scoring teams last year, and ofcourse the Sedin due date was already upon us, and Benning opts to select a defenseman in the last draft who js a work in progress that will make the line-up in the future. I'm not slagging Juolevi, but where
needs are concerned, the choice was quite a questionable one in my view. I know it's easy in hindsight to see the coulda shoulda view of things, but think how awesome it would be to have us sitting with Nylander and Tkachuk in our line-up right now as opposed to what we have. The fact we don't is due to Benning's particular kind of vision, a vision that hasn't assertively sought Sedin replacements for the future first line.
Having said all this, I'm not sure Tkachuk and Nylander would be given the kind of support they need to develop by W.D. and this would like ly be due to the philosophy of ownership and mgt to 'win-now' as opposed to putting the emphasis on youth and player development that has been talked about already. In Nylander's case, Toronto is obviously in the development 'groove', and though Calgary is in the 'win-now' groove, they have the offensive horses to do it and Tkachuk appears to be fitting in well. Like other's have mentioned already, there's real question marks about the climate/tone that is being generated by Mgt in Canuckland right now and whether or not it suits our status/reality? Truth be told we could be sitting in a different place, with a different mind-set, with a few different players perhaps, feeling a little more positive/excited about the future as opposed to what is unfolding right now.