Uncle dans leg wrote:
Poor Canucks...a lottery team. One constant I've noticed when reading various analysis from media types is the apparent lack of direction and/or confusion whether they are rebuilding or building for a run. I think this is where many of us are also cofused including myself.
Either Benning is this mad genius that moves in mysterious ways and his methods are beyond the grasp of these hockey "experts" or he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.
Pick your side
Oh the pundits!
Lets look at the 2012-13 roster compared to this year's projected (23 man roster, I made a few assumptions to come up with 23 guys for each year):
2012/13
Henrik Sedin 31
Daniel Sedin 31
Ryan Kesler 28
Jannik Hansen 26
Alexandre Burrows 31
Mason Raymond 26
Chris Higgins 29
David Booth 27
Zack Kassian 21
Maxim Lapierre 27
Jordan Schroeder 21
Dale Weise 24
Andrew Ebbett 29
Kevin Bieksa 31
Chris Tanev 22
Cam Barker 26
Keith Ballard 29
Dan Hamhuis 29
Alexander Edler 26
Jason Garrison 27
Andrew Alberts 31
Cory Schneider 26
Roberto Luongo 33
Avg age - 27.43478261
2016/17
Sven Baertschi 24
Alexandre Burrows 35
Derek Dorsett 30
Loui Eriksson 31
Jack Skille 29
Brendan Gaunce 22
Markus Granlund 23
Jannik Hansen 30
Bo Horvat 21
Anton Rodin 26
Daniel Sedin 36
Henrik Sedin 36
Brandon Sutter 27
Troy Stecher 22
Alexander Edler 30
Erik Gudbranson 24
Ben Hutton 23
Philip Larsen 27
Luca Sbisa 26
Christopher Tanev 27
Nikita Tryamkin 22
Jacob Markstrom 26
Ryan Miller 36
Avg age - 27.52173913
I count 6 guys from that year, that's a 74% turnover rate in 4 years! Now the average age has stayed pretty close to the same but those 6 guys on the roster add 4 years to their age so in order to maintain that 27.5 avg age the rest of the roster has gotten much younger.
Now looking at next year we lose 2 or our oldest players in Burrows and Miller for sure, Sbisa is likely gone as well. We replace them with Virtanen, Demko and possibly Joulevi. Not to mention that we would probably drop Skille, maybe Dorsett and insert guys like Labate and Carcone who are several years younger. This is also assuming that Boeser won't crack next years lineup.
So lets look at perhaps a 2017-18 lineup:
Sven Baertschi 25
Jake Virtanen 21
Derek Dorsett 31
Loui Eriksson 32
Joseph Labate 24
Brendan Gaunce 23
Markus Granlund 24
Jannik Hansen 31
Bo Horvat 22
Anton Rodin 27
Daniel Sedin 37
Henrik Sedin 37
Brandon Sutter 28
Troy Stecher 23
Alexander Edler 31
Erik Gudbranson 25
Ben Hutton 24
Philip Larsen 28
Olli Juolevi 19
Christopher Tanev 28
Nikita Tryamkin 23
Jacob Markstrom 27
Thatcher Demko 21
Avg Age - 26.56521739
We conservatively just dropped a full year in average age despite maintaining 19/23 guys on the roster from the previous year who all add a year to their age.
Now a turnover rate of 74% in 4 years and then dropping your average age to below 27 in year 5 sure looks a lot like a rebuild to me. The Canucks have simply done this without tearing the whole team apart and getting far too young too fast! Teams that rebuild that way struggle with work ethic, can get overly comfortable in a losing culture, and lack leadership - with the end hope, seemingly, being that a franchise player (or 2) falls in your lap and you can build around him.
What we can question is whether this has been the best route to take for a rebuild, and really only time will tell. There is no question this team is being completely redone on the fly. This also makes us susceptible to highs and lows throughout a season. A few injuries and we will struggle as we restock the cupboard, we saw this last year and even at other times the previous years. But we will also see some great stretches when the roster is healthy and the younger players can play within themselves and little by little take over some of the responsibility held by the vets!
Hockey "experts" are amazing beings, how someone can think we are currently building for a run is beyond me. We are trying to make the playoffs, which I have no issue with at all. In the meantime our roster turnover has been unreal and we are putting a lot of effort into developing and bringing in some younger talent.
So because we aren't going full tank these guys can't see the forest, or really don't care to look that closely! Tis' why I've always taken the media's opinion with a grain of salt at most.