The Power Forward

[Maxwell Edison]

I would absolutely love Doan on the Canucks and I think he would be a great player for us - but at the same time I can not see Phoenix giving him up for anything less than a massive overpayment, and it would have to be Schnieder and Hodgson at least. Teams (other than Montreal) don't trade their identity, their captain and their best player. It is difficult to acquire a proven, healthy, power forward for a reason and that is what Shane Doan is.

Plus he seems like a standup guy and I actually respect the fact that he has played his entire career in the desert and has taken paycuts in order to do so.

[KeyserSoze]

IMO, Raymond and Samuelsson should be available as well, because they have NHL value, but are not the right element for what the Canucks need.

Samuelsson is a power forward about once every 19 games.

[Southern_Canuck]

Samuelsson is a power forward about once every 19 games.

Samuelsson may be gritty, but he shoots from basically anywhere rather than driving the net - and rather than crowd the crease he looks for seams/quiet areas a la Brett Hull. He does fight for the puck well along the boards, but I believe the Canucks need someone who is willing to take the puck to the net disruptively...

Hits (per game) for Vancouver forwards 2010-11 regular season:

Lapierre 194/78 (Mtl/Ana/Van)
Hansen 149/82
Torres 134/80
Glass 130/73
Kesler 124/82
Tambellini 113/62
Burrows 84/72
Higgins 80/62 (Fla/Van)
Samuelsson 76/75
Malhotra 57/72
Raymond 38/70
Henrik 15/82
Daniel 13/82

Bolduc 29/24
Volpatti 36/15
Oreskovich 28/16

Hitting statistics are not the most reliable - but when measured against teammates, they provide an accurate comparison of physicality - and Samuelsson was 9th amongst Vancouver's regular forwards last season (including Lapierre and Higgins).

S_C

[ESQ]

Although looking at http://www.capgeek.com/charts.php?Team=14 for Dallas, they're just above the salary floor with a 23 man roster. Any trade for Morrow would need to be a true hockey trade, i.e. make them better than what they have now. Plus, they have their defense reclamation project in Souray already. But they do have Raycroft as their backup...

[Southern_Canuck]

Wow - I just loooked up the NHL hit leaders... check this out:

1) Cal Clutterbuck 336/76
2) Tuomo Ruutu 309/82
3) Dustin Brown 300/82
4) Matt Martin 299/68
5) Troy Brouwer 262/79
6) Chris Neil 258/80
7) Steve Ott 252/82
8) Alex Ovechkin 241/79
9) Brian Boyle 240/82
10) Erik Cole 225/82
11) Brenden Morrow 225/82
12) Ryan Callahan 224/60
13) David Backes 213/82
14) Chad Larose 196/82
15) Darroll Powe 196/81
16) Derek Dorsett 195/76
17) Maxim Lapierre 194/78
18) Matt Cooke 192/67
19) Ryan Getzlaf 189/67
20) Justin Abdelkader 188/74

If the Canucks hadn't acquired Lapierre, they'd have no-one even close to the top hitters in the league. Shane Doan is 23rd with 172/72 and Brad Winchester is 25th with 171/76

S_C

[Puck]

Interesting stats, S_C. Didn't the Canucks end up with the most hits in the playoffs this year? Makes we wonder if the guys on that list do almost all the hitting for their teams, while Vancouver hits by committee.

Incidentally, Jamie Benn is a local boy, too. He played his minor and Junior-B hockey for Peninsula in Greater Victoria.

[dbr]

I'd love to add one of these guys but it's not going to happen - at least, not before the start of the season.

I'll just itemize my pessimism around this:

• Morrow - he's the Stars captain so I'm not sure why he's under serious consideration. I'd love it if they decided to cut ties with him this year but the earliest I see him being shopped is the deadline in 2012.
• Benn - as someone said he may be the best player in this discussion, furthermore trading James Neal is probably a signal that Dallas are tying their future to guys like Benn and Scott Glennie. As for money concerns, the Stars spent $2m more last year than they will this year and if the cap floor keeps rising they may have to open the vault for Benn just to reach it.
• Dubinsky - everything I hear is that the Rangers need players who can play LW, and Dubinsky is one of them; after that they have buyout candidate Wojtek Wolski, Sean Avery and Mike Rupp. They have tons of cap space and should be able to re-sign all of their RFAs, if push came to shove I could see them trading another player to make room for BD because he is a keeper IMO.
• David Booth - the Panthers are going to have to work some magic just to go into the season over the cap floor at this point, so I don't see them dealing a big salary like Booth's away. He could become available at some point but I don't think it'll be before then.
• Evander Kane - come on, S_C.
• Shane Doan - I could see Doan hitting the market towards the trade deadline, depending on how disastrous this season is for the Coyotes and how quickly their future in Glendale deteriorates over the coming months. Even then, he is a family man with deep roots in the region and I would expect the 'Yotes to do him a solid and ship him to Anaheim or LA.
• Ryan Malone - I'd take Malone in a heartbeat and depending on how much money Stamkos ends up costing the Lightning, they may be compelled to shop him. That being said he does have a NMC and we don't know what Steve Y's position is at this point around pushing players to waive them.

Like the good Doctor I would have liked to sign Scottie Upshall, but that deal he got from Floria is atrocious. I would've preferred to offer him $5m for one year than offer up four years to a player whose style (and track record) suggests he might miss a lot of time.

At this point, I would be alright with signing a player like Brad Winchester or maybe Byron Bitz (another big, physical player - he doesn't have a great fight card but there are some monsters on there like Engelland and Carkner) to beef up the existing lineup, then look to make a deal mid-season or at the deadline as teams figure out whether they are going to contend this year or not.

That being said, I'd be perfectly happy for Gillis to come out of left field either with one of S_C's candidates or a player nobody has really thought of as being available.

[Fred]

Interesting stats. But it doesn't differentiate between love taps and punishing hit and I don't know how you would even do that. There's some names on that list that tend to hit with the intent to injure Abdelkader, Clutterbuck, Cooke, Neal to name a couple Torres could be one of that group. It's no good hitting like Raymond. From what I've read Duco can play like that

[Rayxor]

Many of those PF candidates could be had at the trade deadline under the right circumstances. Without Richards, Dallas could be well out of contention in a hurry. If the Coyotes dont look like a contender, they could be looking to unload salary too. Our previous PF apprentices didnt pan out (Pyatt, Bernier) and i'm not sure MG would go that way so a deadline rental might be the best we can hope for.

[spooner]

DBR's post

Good post DBR. I'm on the same page on everything except for Malone. At $4.5 for the next 4 seasons for a guy that I'd worry might be slowing down - I just don't like the value, especially with a NMC. He had 6 points in the playoffs with TB while averaging over 15 minutes per game (including a fair bit of PP time). Last season, 9 of his 14 goals came on the PP. TB often put Stamkos on the point so Malone played a lot on the first unit PP with some very talented players. I can't see him getting any first unit PP time with the Canucks.

[coco_canuck]

Nice breakdown dbr.

A guy I'd take a run at is Brian Boyle.

He's that versatile big, tough forward that Gillis is looking for. Not only is Boyle 6'7, and a top hitter, he's a natural centre who can play wing and is very good defensively.

Boyle will not be a 30 goal, 60-70 point player, but he scored 20 last year, and can be a consistent 20 goal scorer on the Canucks. He'd look great on Kesler's wing. The ability to shift him to centre gives the team a lot of different options and depth in case of injuries.

With Dubinsky and Callahan looking to cash in, maybe Boyle becomes expendable. He's also fairly low risk if he doesn't live up to his billing, because he's RFA and can likely be signed in the $2-2.5M range on a short term deal.

I don't think the Rangers want to trade him, but if he's available, I'd definitely go after him.

[Farhan Lalji]

Samuelsson is a power forward about once every 19 games.

Samuelsson may be gritty, but he shoots from basically anywhere rather than driving the net - and rather than crowd the crease he looks for seams/quiet areas a la Brett Hull. He does fight for the puck well along the boards, but I believe the Canucks need someone who is willing to take the puck to the net disruptively...

Hits (per game) for Vancouver forwards 2010-11 regular season:

Lapierre 194/78 (Mtl/Ana/Van)
Hansen 149/82
Torres 134/80
Glass 130/73
Kesler 124/82
Tambellini 113/62
Burrows 84/72
Higgins 80/62 (Fla/Van)
Samuelsson 76/75
Malhotra 57/72
Raymond 38/70
Henrik 15/82
Daniel 13/82

Bolduc 29/24
Volpatti 36/15
Oreskovich 28/16

Hitting statistics are not the most reliable - but when measured against teammates, they provide an accurate comparison of physicality - and Samuelsson was 9th amongst Vancouver's regular forwards last season (including Lapierre and Higgins).

S_C

Interesting stats. Hansen coming in at #2 really surprises me (pleasantly of course). Malhottra's low ranking also surprises me.

Any idea what Hodgson was at? Based on those stats alone, I'm REALLY disappointed that we didn't see Tambellini, Oreschovich, and even Hodgson all in the line-up for those final few games....when you consider the fact that Higgins, Edler, Erhoff, etc. were severely injured. Ballard should've been in there as well, despite his horrid last game. Vigneault's treatment towards Ballard this year was completely ridiculous.

How Luongo wasn't pulled in Game 3 when the game was clearly over (after 4/5-1) is beyond me.

[tantalum]

Interesting list of top hitters. For comparison the top ranked Bruin was Lucic at #30 (among forwards) UNless I read it wrong THornton and Campbell are the only other 2 forwards in the top 150 to play for the Bruins (Canucks have 6 but one was Tambellini). The Bruins are actually not much more of a physical team if at all up front. On the blueline they are a far more physical team with 3 guys outhitting the top canucks hitter (Alberts) and 4 outhitting every single regular.

So was the difference between the two teams forwards physicality or that one team was injury free enough to continue to deliver that physicality and indeed step it up further while the other team was unable to? I honestly believe a healthy Kesler and Higgins would have been a huge equalizer to that series. Even hurt Kesler had glimpses of dominant play.


I will say the canucks blueline wasn't physical enough with the Bruins forwards and they didn't make them pay the price like the canucks forwards were having to pay the price. Now of course the blueline in the finals featured Ehrhoff with a separated shoulder, Edler having issues, Tanev who is strictly positional at this point in his career and Salo who can hit but it isn't a standard part of his game.

Interpreting things that way is it that surprising Gillis wanted to see Alberts and Ballard among the top 7 next year? Perhaps makes some more sense now. The blueline needs some out right meanness with perhaps a little out of control nature to it.


That isn't to say I wouldn't like to see more another physical winger in the top 6 for the canucks as that would certainly be an added bonus. I just don't think that was the deciding factor or if it was it can be explained for other reasons. And MOrrow would be and has been at the very tip top of my list for a long time to be that physical top 6 winger. Callahan and Dubinsky are right up there. Boyle is an intriguing option to be sure but has he played wing?

[coco_canuck]

Interpreting things that way is it that surprising Gillis wanted to see Alberts and Ballard among the top 7 next year? Perhaps makes some more sense now. The blueline needs some out right meanness with perhaps a little out of control nature to it.

When Ballard is on his game, he's a physical player that's tough to play against. He's certainly not physically dominant, but he throws his body around and displays some nastiness.

If Ballard can find his old game, he'll be a nice addition to the defense and he'll help offset some of Hoff's offense.

Boyle is an intriguing option to be sure but has he played wing?

Torts used him on the wing in the top 6 from time to time. The problem with the Rangers is, they needed more skill up-front and Boyle is more of complimentary player if he's in your top 6 on the flanks.

Now that they have Richards, they can use someone like Boyle on the wing in the top 6, or they can keep him as their checking, 3rd line centre.

*EDIT

So much for Boyle, he just re-upped with Rags, 3 years.

[tantalum]

The Rangers have ample cap room. If you were to pursue Callahan, Dubinsky, Boyle and let's throw Anisimov (not that he is overly physical but he has good size) into the mix you were always going to have to make a hockey trade. Just as you will for most if not all of the guys on that list. I think this applies to Morrow even if the Stars decide they need to move money. They aren't going to move their captain for little in the way of tangible assets.