I find it quite laughable that some fans constantly want a rebuild; we know the history of this ownership group and it's no going to happen. PA pretty much said as much on After Hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSHRUfHqB-Q
I still remember the Nucks had a golden chance to tank for Bedard in the 2023 draft. Coach Boudreau was doing us a solid by getting us close to the basement of the standings (think we were 5th to the bottom @ one point), yet ownership still fired him and brought in Coach Tocc. Of course, the team responded and started playing way better hockey. We got a bunch of meaningless wins and rocketed up the standings, yet we still missed the playoffs and ended up with a mid-round pick. At the time, it wasn't even like Tocc was an in demand coach. He was just farting around on TNT television.
All any knowledgeable hockey fan has to is sit back and look at all the recent signings, drafting of this mgmt team and the incoming future cap space to realize their blueprint/vision on what they are trying to do. With the exception of Huggy43, they have all their core players locked up. All those guys got some form of limited no-trade clause. They drafted a bunch of prospects who do seem to have quite a bit promise (ie: Lekkermaki, Weelander, D-Petey, Cootes, Medvedev, etc). It's pretty clear they hope to supplement our current NHL core by working in some of those young players. If these young guys can become impact players sooner rather than later, all the sudden this team has a TON of depth. Add in the fact that most of them will be on ELCs or bridge contracts, it'll give the team A LOT of cap flexibility.
This year was always going to be a bubble year for the Nucks, no money to do anything of significance. They just taking what they have and hope for the best. The really question is what this mgmt team will do next season when they have like $17M to spend. I expect that they'll make a major play to finally get that legit 2C. Add in the fact that in 2 years, the Nucks will have $51M to spend. Of course, they'll have to use a big chunk of it to try to re-sign Huggy43, but it should still leave a lot of change on the table to add in another piece or 2 of significance.
https://puckpedia.com/team/vancouver-canucks
This team won't be built like the Oil who tanked it and got a bunch high draft picks/elite talent. The Nucks will try to contend by building a team with a bunch of depth in every position, kinda like Florida Panthers and Vegas Knights. With the majority of their core players locked up, some young players on their way and money to spend, this mgmt team hopes to become a contender through this route. Whether this will work or not, it is debatable, but their gameplan is pretty obvious.
Just some other thoughts on this mgmt team.
I think the pro scouting has been very good. I mean, they found P.Suter, Joshua, Sherwood44, Fartbort and even Lankinen in the garbage pile and got them on very team friendly contracts. Yah, there was some misses along the way too like Mikheyev, Heinen, Desharnais, but can't blame them for trying. I would have liked to have seen them try to sign a couple projects this past off season, but all they did was PO Joseph and some minor leaguers like Labate/MacEchren. PO Joseph has been ok, but don't see much upside in him.
Their amateur scouting has actually been better than I gave them credit for when they came in. I thought our amateur scouting would take a hit for sure when we lost the Draft Guru, Mr. JB. This mgmt team brought in Todd Harvey and he seems to have an eye for talent. The picked Lekkermaki, Weelander, D-Petey, Medvedev & Cootes is looking like a potential steal right now. There are a few other guys who might have a chance too (ie: R.Pattersson/Alrikkson, etc). Still too early to say how good any of them will become, but a bunch of them do look like they have a lot of potential/promise. They did all this with a bunch of mid-round picks, no high lottery picks given to them, which is pretty impressive.
It's pretty clear they intended to try to snag a playoff spot this season. To achieve this goal, I thought they should have signed J.Roslovic for sure. I mean he was farting around there for the longest time, begging for anyone to throw him a bone. Add in the fact that anyone in their right mind knew Chytil was not going to last. Instead, they were forced to try a hail mary on L.Reichel. Sure, it seems they wanted him for awhile now, but the guy hasn't even played centre @ the pro lvl. To hope that this project can come in and play the 2C is just too much to ask of the kid. They should have just offered Roslovic like a 1 yr $2M deal and tell him he's going to get a lot chances to display himself to earn a bigger long term deal, kinda like Lankinen last yr. U need depth to compete, especially in an important position like centre ice. This may end up costing us a wildcard playoff spot.
Goaltending is another important position and it should be of no surprise that Demmer35 is out AGAIN. His track record is now looking like he'll come back for a dozen games, injured for a few month, come back for a dozen games, injured for a few months, rinse & repeat. Not sure u can rely on him anymore. They gave us all this jabber that they were changing Demmer's training regime, easing his workload and a full healthy off season was going to change his durability. I was hoping that they knew something that we did not, but there has been
NO DIFFERENCE.
I was pissed when we lost King Arthurs. Here is a guy whom we have groomed all these years. He's young, cheap, displayed
TONS of potential and was showing that he was on the cusp of being rdy for full-time NHL duty, yet we shipped him out for pennies on the dollar. Losing Silovs will hurt our playoff chances this season and probably hurt our goaltending position for years to come.
Overall, I think I would give this mgmt team a C+. I do kinda like some of the things they are doing (locking up some of the core players, drafting), but failing to do anything to get some depth @ centre and losing Silovs for a bag of pucks does hurt their letter grade. Despite bungling this season, I do see their vision/blueprint on what they are trying to do. I think I'm willing to give them a chance to see what they do with the extra cap space ($17M + $50M) in the next couple years and maybe finally turn the fortunes of this club around. That being said, if this truly is the new TD35 who is regularly on the shelf, EP40 is unable to find any form of his former superstar self and Huggy43 leaves for greener pastures, then their game plan may just get blown up right before their eyes.
