2019 NHL ENTRY DRAFT - Vancouver

[Chef Boi RD]

I watched the Saskatoon Prince Albert playoff game yesterday, I must admit - Kirby Dach is a nice player. I can see why the scouts like him. After that viewing I can’t see him still being around by the time we are picking

[DonCherry4PM]

Yeah, Brian should just shut the board down.

There is no reason to speculate or comment on anything because the GM's, coaches and players always have more information than we do.

Pointless.

So why are we all still here?

[Mickey107]

Yeah, Brian should just shut the board down.

There is no reason to speculate or comment on anything because the GM's, coaches and players always have more information than we do.

Pointless.

So why are we all still here?

[Strangelove]

I watched the Saskatoon Prince Albert playoff game yesterday, I must admit - Kirby Dach is a nice player. I can see why the scouts like him. After that viewing I can’t see him still being around by the time we are picking

Does Dach have the greatest asshole potential in the top-10 ranked picks?

If so...

[Ronning's Ghost]

No matter how many times people give their reasons for being comfortable, it's "blind faith"...

Is there any level of Canucks performance that would convince you that Benning is not a genius GM? You certainly haven't given that impression.

You made a bold prediction (and hey, I still give you props for that) of where the Canucks would be in their rebuild by this very season, offering it as evidence that the rebuild was going well. Since the our observation has not borne out your prediction, will you accept that as evidence that the rebuild is not going well?

If it's not testable by evidence, it's faith.

Thank you for your "reason" - I just see a post that says "Benning should have got more" to be pointless

First of all, I didn't say "should have", I said "might have". Do you really find the proposition that a veteran player would be worth more when one year younger and with one more year under contract to be unreasonable?

Allow me to illustrate with an example - Gillis should have traded Kesler after the 2011 run and his disastrous injuries. He would have gotten more.

Do you see how pointless that statement is?

The examples are not parallel. After 2011, after his plan almost worked, Gillis opted for one more try with the same plan. We can see now that it didn't work, and maybe didn't have much of a chance to work, but it didn't seem ridiculous at the the time.

If the plan had been to start a total rebuild after 2011 (and maybe, in hindsight, that would have been the better plan, and maybe if Gillis had been a genius GM, he would have seen that) then yes, that would have been a better time to try to convince Kesler to move.

[Diehard1]

I watched the Saskatoon Prince Albert playoff game yesterday, I must admit - Kirby Dach is a nice player. I can see why the scouts like him. After that viewing I can’t see him still being around by the time we are picking

Does Dach have the greatest asshole potential in the top-10 ranked picks?

If so...

Nah, he's not soft, he's just not a guy who will slash a guy for no reason. I'm not sure that really exists in this top 10, but if it did I'd say Podkolzin, Krebs or Zegras are the guy. For D probably Byram. None are really assholes per se, but they are grittier than others.

[Diehard1]

I watched the Saskatoon Prince Albert playoff game yesterday, I must admit - Kirby Dach is a nice player. I can see why the scouts like him. After that viewing I can’t see him still being around by the time we are picking

You may be right, but Dach does this - amazing play one game, then disappears for 3. It's his biggest criticism.

I think we'll see a few guys move up and down after the under 18's. Scouts love to base judgments on 1 tournament for whatever reason.

[Strangelove]

No matter how many times people give their reasons for being comfortable, it's "blind faith"...

Is there any level of Canucks performance that would convince you that Benning is not a genius GM? You certainly haven't given that impression.

You made a bold prediction (and hey, I still give you props for that) of where the Canucks would be in their rebuild by this very season, offering it as evidence that the rebuild was going well. Since the our observation has not borne out your prediction, will you accept that as evidence that the rebuild is not going well?

Missed it by that much.

But hey who are you or I to measure genius amirite?

If it's not testable by evidence, it's faith.

Aren't you the guy who just ran two non-provable hypotheses by us?

Non-provable hypotheses which would make Jimmy look incompetent if true?

You're no scientist!

You're just a guy who seems to have a lot of faith that Jimmy is not doing a very good job.

Then you turn around and try to tell those that do have positive faith in Jimmy

... that they're religious and you're scientific; that they're stupid and you're smart.

You're only fooling yourself Cliffy, there are none so blind...

[Ronning's Ghost]

I think we'll see a few guys move up and down after the under 18's. Scouts love to base judgments on 1 tournament for whatever reason.

You've explained why it's dangerous (players, especially young players, can be very inconsistent, and you want to avoid basing decisions on small sample sizes) but i'd guess that the reason the scouts are eager to assess players based on this tournament is that it is hard to compare players across different leagues, facing different competition, and with such different qualities of teammates. Head to head, and with higher quality teammates, I suspect it's easier to compare top prospects.

Disclaimer: in addition to not being a hockey management genius, I'm not a hockey scouting genius.

[Ronning's Ghost]

You're just a guy who seems to have a lot of faith that Jimmy is not doing a very good job.

I have stated, explicitly and quantifiably, what evidence I would accept that the rebuild is going well.

Now I have been skeptical, but I've also tried to keep an open mind. If the Canucks win six games in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, I will allow that Jim Benning has done an excellent job with the rebuild

http://canuckscorner.com/forums/viewtop ... on#p286465

From that same post:

But if the Canucks win zero games in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs (whether because they are swept, or fail to qualify), will you, Doc, admit that Benning's rebuild effort has been less than worthy of the appellation "genius" ?

Or, more broadly, is there any evidence you would accept as an indication that the rebuild has not gone well?

[SKYO]

I watched the Saskatoon Prince Albert playoff game yesterday, I must admit - Kirby Dach is a nice player. I can see why the scouts like him. After that viewing I can’t see him still being around by the time we are picking

You may be right, but Dach does this - amazing play one game, then disappears for 3. It's his biggest criticism.

I think we'll see a few guys move up and down after the under 18's. Scouts love to base judgments on 1 tournament for whatever reason.

Well he's only 18 & 6'4? still pretty awesome he's playing this well even in the playoffs, plus he was great at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup.
Let Dach play his full 4 junior seasons like Getzlaf did with half a season in the AHL and Dach could be a dominant force in the NHL.

But yeah he likely goes #5 ish.

3 Vasili Podkolzin
4 Bowen Byram
5 Kirby Dach
6 Alex Turcotte (Wisconsin)
7 Dylan Cozens
8 Trevor Zegras (Boston U)

In our range if the Canucks don't win any of the top 3 overall draft lottery picks once again :
Peyton Krebs, Matthew Boldy (Boston College), Alex Newhook (Boston College)

Dark horses for Barrett Hayton type jump is Zegras, a thinner center 6'0-168lbs, but he plays a gritty/agitating game, goes to the dangerous areas with aplomb, two-way ability, combined with a lot of skill.

Broberg some team in the top 10 will take him, a 6'3, speedy Swedish dman will be enticing, & should have a bigger offensive production next season.

[Strangelove]

You're just a guy who seems to have a lot of faith that Jimmy is not doing a very good job.

I have stated, explicitly and quantifiably, what evidence I would accept that the rebuild is going well.

Yeah, you set unrealistic thresholds because you didn't want your faith in Jimmy's incompetence shaken.

Cliffy, you're not able to use your brain properly when you're flooded with blind faith bro...

[Strangelove]

No matter how many times people give their reasons for being comfortable, it's "blind faith"...

Is there any level of Canucks performance that would convince you that Benning is not a genius GM? You certainly haven't given that impression.

You made a bold prediction (and hey, I still give you props for that) of where the Canucks would be in their rebuild by this very season, offering it as evidence that the rebuild was going well. Since the our observation has not borne out your prediction, will you accept that as evidence that the rebuild is not going well?

Missed it by that much.

But hey who are you or I to measure genius amirite?

If it's not testable by evidence, it's faith.

Aren't you the guy who just ran two non-provable hypotheses by us?

Non-provable hypotheses which would make Jimmy look incompetent if true?

You're no scientist!

You're just a guy who seems to have a lot of faith that Jimmy is not doing a very good job.

Then you turn around and try to tell those that do have positive faith in Jimmy

... that they're religious and you're scientific; that they're stupid and you're smart.

You're only fooling yourself Cliffy, there are none so blind...

I'm talking about your two non-testable hypotheses here Cliffy:

viewtopic.php?p=337317#p337317

You yourself called them "untestable hypotheticals".

Deacon Cliffy of the Church of the Poison Mind...

[Mickey107]

If it's like most of the recent years, the rankings will take "some" pretty radical shifts on some player projections.
June 21 is an eternity away.

[Ronning's Ghost]

Yeah, you set unrealistic thresholds because you didn't want your faith in Jimmy's incompetence shaken.

Your prediction was that the Canucks would make the playoffs on 2019, and "look good once they got there". You could not be persuaded to define "looking good", so I offered "win six games" as an outcome that I thought would meet that criterion.

If that's unrealistic, then if anything, I had too much faith in your ability to plot the Canucks progress through a successful rebuild.

In any case, it was an observable, measurable test, and I said I would change my view according to the outcome if the test results warranted, so it is not a matter of faith.

Let me be clear on another point: I don't think Benning is "incompetent". I'm sure he has forgotten more about hockey than I am likely ever to know. I think he was in over his head as a rookie GM, as most rookies would be. I think he had a very difficult starting position -- yes Dude, partially due to the state in which the Evil Incarnate That Is Gillis left the franchise -- but more, if I can believe what i read on this board (and what possible source of Canucks information could be better?), because ownership had a fixed, and badly flawed, plan in place for the next few seasons when he got here. Talking them out of that plan would have been very difficult, but that's what I think a genius would have done.

Now, for all the mockery that the Oilers' eternal rebuild takes on this board, the Canucks now have essentially the same team structure as the Oilers: a thin (and in the Canucks' case, in two senses of the word) layer of top-end talent on a team that's mostly playing farther up the roster than they would be on a playoff team. I submit (and no, I can't prove it; we only get to run the test once -- there is no "treatment" Canucks and "control" Canucks) that a few more draft picks early in the re-build (as opposed to placeholders who do not bode likely to be part of the Stanley Cup Dynasty edition of the Canucks) would have yielded more depth of supporting talent by now. So on that basis, I think Benning has made important mistakes in the rebuild.