The 2012/13 Canucks ..contender or pretender?

[Island Nucklehead]

I think the record shows that Gillis wins Presidents Trophy's.

My god man, are you hitting the booze trail all the way to the top of ol' Westwood Plateau with Blobby Mac there?

No. Just pointing out that Gillis' team has won the President's Trophy twice. And that is a bigger part of his "record" than his drafting, which is only one part of how one builds/maintains a hockey team.

[Tiger]

Blob said:

Salo and Ohlund are fucking done like dinner. Ohlund has been for three seasons now.

Why is it that you want to hitch the wagon to a 21 year old kid still learning the game ? How about let him develop into a good player first ?

Yep...Salo and Ohlund are over the hill.. But have not been replaced .. Garrison? is a maybe..Ballard ?? come on get real..
Agree Kassian is a "work in progress" and may never be the power forward he has been touted as..

So.... we got 2 swedes that are aging and slowing down even more than they showed in the playoffs..plus Burrows..
Don't really think they will be as effective as 2 or 3 years ago..

second line of an injure Kesler.. Booth and Raymond.. Dont see much scoring there..

third and fourth line .. not a big change really but should be ok.

Defence?? After Willie, Bieksa, Edler ( damm he sucked in the playoffs ).. Tanev.. Ballard n Garrison.. maybe ok but not that solid..

So why do you think this years edition of the Canucks are a contender?

[ukcanuck]

Blob said:

Salo and Ohlund are fucking done like dinner. Ohlund has been for three seasons now.

Why is it that you want to hitch the wagon to a 21 year old kid still learning the game ? How about let him develop into a good player first ?

Yep...Salo and Ohlund are over the hill.. But have not been replaced .. Garrison? is a maybe..Ballard ?? come on get real..
Agree Kassian is a "work in progress" and may never be the power forward he has been touted as..

So.... we got 2 swedes that are aging and slowing down even more than they showed in the playoffs..plus Burrows..
Don't really think they will be as effective as 2 or 3 years ago..

second line of an injure Kesler.. Booth and Raymond.. Dont see much scoring there..

third and fourth line .. not a big change really but should be ok.

Defence?? After Willie, Bieksa, Edler ( damm he sucked in the playoffs ).. Tanev.. Ballard n Garrison.. maybe ok but not that solid..

So why do you think this years edition of the Canucks are a contender?

yeah, the glass is half full! ... of air

[Uncle dans leg]

Who's Willie?

This is essentially the same line up that's enjoyed plenty of success the past few seasons, including the playoffs. I don't see any of the mentioned players past their prime yet at all. In fact, they're all hitting their prime right now.

Lets settle down and not jump off the bridge just quite yet...

[rats19]

IMHO....as we sit right now, we are an early to mid round contender. Unless we get on that hot streak that takes teams further.

After the luongo trade and a tweek..we are a mid to late run team unless we get on that same streak mentioned above. This being fact, it is pretty hard to whine..

[Boston Canucker]

We'll win the Cup in a shortened season and then spend the whole summer on this forum arguing about whether it counts or not. Why, because we're Canucks fans, that's why!

[ukcanuck]

We'll win the Cup in a shortened season and then spend the whole summer on this forum arguing about whether it counts or not. Why, because we're Canucks fans, that's why!

lol

[RoyalDude]

We will be a good team but not a GREAT runaway winner. Our prime is near over and the down side of prime we will start witnessing probably next season, not this if ever there will be one. Our youngest player on our number one line is 31, if no season next year, the Sedins will be 33 at the beginning of next season. We have one player on the 2nd line and his name is Kesler who seems to have off season surgery every off season. He is an island on to himself on that line, we do not have any other bona-fide 2nd liners to play with him and pullleeease do not say Booth, Raymond, Higgins and Kassian, that is grasping at straws. Kesler will most likely start playing the rest of his career in damage control and that balls to the wall, pedal to the medal season he had is gone and flown away into the sunset. This team cannot score, we saw the toppling of the regime at the last half of the season last year when we could not score a goal to save our lives, the last 35 games of the season, if it were not for the dynamic duo in net and AV's exciting shut down, Jacque Lemaire coaching system this team would not have been winning those 2-1 games we saw the last half of the season. We had the worst power play since January of last season in the entire NHL. We have no true bona-fide point-man quarterback on the PP, especially with no Salo and Erhoff. We only have one true sniper in Daniel Sedin. We are an easy team to shut down, one line. We new what we had in Salo when he is healthy, in Garrison we have a mystery. In Garrison we have a D-man with a permanent sports hernia and in Edler a D-man with a permanent lower back injury. We have no good prospects that will be making a significant impact on the team in the short term and no high end talent to take over for the Sedins in the long term. We will be putting all our eggs into a goalie who has not been really tested as the man to be relied upon after coming out from the cozy confines of Luongo's shadow. I worry when Schneider finally starts to feel the heat. We have a good number of young teams starting to hit their prime in our conferernce. Yes, my glass is half empty. We will still be a good club, but we will soon start seeing leaks in the hull, hell we saw them at the last half of the season and in the 1st round against the Kings. How can you call a team a cup contender when you get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs????

[Topper]

It depends on who suffers groin pulls when/if play resumes.

[Blob Mckenzie]

Dude if you don't consider David Booth and Chris Higgins to be 2nd line players i don't know what to say. Are they ideal??? Probably not since MG went hard for Shane Doan. The fact is 100 goals in your last 317 NHL games is a 25 goal pace whether you like the guy or not. Higgins had 43 points in 71 games and likely would have been very close to 20 goals and 50 points if not for injuries. I agree the forward position needs a tweak but it aint like deals are being made anywhere else in the league.

Tiger, obviously Gillis was trying to add to tbhe team before the CBA expired so obviously he is not entirely pleased with the current mix. Maybe lets give him the first 20 games of the season if there is one before we start running around like chicken little. As for the two aging Swedes they have another 5 good years left and are the least of this teams problems.

[Tiger]

Dude if you don't consider David Booth and Chris Higgins to be 2nd line players i don't know what to say. Are they ideal??? Probably not since MG went hard for Shane Doan. The fact is 100 goals in your last 317 NHL games is a 25 goal pace whether you like the guy or not. Higgins had 43 points in 71 games and likely would have been very close to 20 goals and 50 points if not for injuries. I agree the forward position needs a tweak but it aint like deals are being made anywhere else in the league.

Tiger, obviously Gillis was trying to add to tbhe team before the CBA expired so obviously he is not entirely pleased with the current mix. Maybe lets give him the first 20 games of the season if there is one before we start running around like chicken little. As for the two aging Swedes they have another 5 good years left and are the least of this teams problems.

OK Blob.. maybe Booth is as good as Samuelsson in his prime ...but I doubt it.. That line is dependent on a healthy Kesler which is very questionable..

The twins are not a good #1 line in the playoffs . They have been consistently on the wrong side of the +/- for the last 2 years.. They are useless defensively. Too slow getting back and coughing up the puck too often .. We didn't lose against the Kings because of poor play by defence or bad goaltending.. but simply could not score goals.. I can't see how the present team can increase its scoring in the playoffs.. Its pretty sad when the top goalscorer against the Kings is Hansen ..So just where wil the goals come from?

[Tiger]

Who's Willie?

This is essentially the same line up that's enjoyed plenty of success the past few seasons, including the playoffs. I don't see any of the mentioned players past their prime yet at all. In fact, they're all hitting their prime right now.

Lets settle down and not jump off the bridge just quite yet...

Oops sorry I meant Hamhuis.. Willie got a cup . both the same style but Hamhuis maybe a bit better..

Nope . they hit their prime 2 , 3 years ago.. and other than Kesler there is no reason to think they will get better.

[ukcanuck]

Dude if you don't consider David Booth and Chris Higgins to be 2nd line players i don't know what to say. Are they ideal??? Probably not since MG went hard for Shane Doan. The fact is 100 goals in your last 317 NHL games is a 25 goal pace whether you like the guy or not. Higgins had 43 points in 71 games and likely would have been very close to 20 goals and 50 points if not for injuries. I agree the forward position needs a tweak but it aint like deals are being made anywhere else in the league.

Tiger, obviously Gillis was trying to add to tbhe team before the CBA expired so obviously he is not entirely pleased with the current mix. Maybe lets give him the first 20 games of the season if there is one before we start running around like chicken little. As for the two aging Swedes they have another 5 good years left and are the least of this teams problems.

OK Blob.. maybe Booth is as good as Samuelsson in his prime ...but I doubt it.. That line is dependent on a healthy Kesler which is very questionable..

The twins are not a good #1 line in the playoffs . They have been consistently on the wrong side of the +/- for the last 2 years.. They are useless defensively. Too slow getting back and coughing up the puck too often .. We didn't lose against the Kings because of poor play by defence or bad goaltending.. but simply could not score goals.. I can't see how the present team can increase its scoring in the playoffs.. Its pretty sad when the top goalscorer against the Kings is Hansen ..So just where wil the goals come from?

I think you are being a little harsh on the Sedins, they only had two games together against the Kings and won one and the rest of the league didn't do much better against the team of destiny. I could see your point if we were trading draft picks and a future for today...maybe then you check their teeth but otherwise it's way to early to start talking about past their prime.
They got a few seasons to go before the bottom falls out and even then I bet it's a slow ride out of dodge.

[Jovocop]

The twins are not a good #1 line in the playoffs . They have been consistently on the wrong side of the +/- for the last 2 years.. They are useless defensively. Too slow getting back and coughing up the puck too often .. We didn't lose against the Kings because of poor play by defence or bad goaltending.. but simply could not score goals.. I can't see how the present team can increase its scoring in the playoffs.. Its pretty sad when the top goalscorer against the Kings is Hansen ..So just where wil the goals come from?

Shall we try to analyze the series against the Kings again?

Henrik had 2g 3a in 5 GP with +0 and Daniel had 0g 2a in 2GP with +0. Both the Sedins scored 1 ppg. If Daniel was healthy to start game 1, the result might be different.

Luongo and Edler might not be the only reasons but they were not great neither. Edler made a lot of bonehead mistakes and Luongo did not have a great series when needed. Luongo surrendered 7 goals in 2 games and Schneider only surrendered 4 goals in 3 games. If Luongo posted 1.31 GAA like Schneider, the Canucks would have won at least one of the first two games. With his 3.59 GAA and .891 Sv%, the Canucks needed 5 goals per game to win the first two games... Seriously, are we talking about the Philly and Pittsburgh series now??

I know that Hansen had a very good series. He had a lot of good chances but he only scored 1g 0a in 5GP. I would hardly call him the top goal scorer.

[Blob Mckenzie]

The twins are not a good #1 line in the playoffs . They have been consistently on the wrong side of the +/- for the last 2 years.. They are useless defensively. Too slow getting back and coughing up the puck too often .. We didn't lose against the Kings because of poor play by defence or bad goaltending.. but simply could not score goals.. I can't see how the present team can increase its scoring in the playoffs.. Its pretty sad when the top goalscorer against the Kings is Hansen ..So just where wil the goals come from?

You do realize there are five skaters aside during even strength don't you ?? I'm sure you also realize that the twins were out with Ehrhoff and Edler ( who were both a chinese firedrill fairly regularly) quite often in the 11 playoffs and I'm sure you probably saw our goalie let in about 15 questionable goals in rounds one and four. Yes you choose to only blame Henrik and Daniel.....how convenient. If I wasn't such a diehard fan of this team I'd like to see them leave when their contracts are up and go where they are appreciated. Never seen so many people hate on such good players in my life.