johnnybluenose
Well-Known Member
...back on topic, this Canucks team has an anemic offense, very little creativity through the Centre of the Ice and a glaring lack of talent when you're having to dress plugs like Dale Weise and Tom Sestito.
Making the playoffs will be a miracle as this roster sits today, especially with the improvements made by Colorado etc.
It was fun reading through the first 6-8 pages of this thread again...above is a post I made in October after Edler got suspended.
Anywho...
Agreed Regs, Change for Change's Sake is never good. Ultimately if I was firing Gillis it would have been on his drafting record, not changing out the scouting team (pro and amateur) and for his flip flopping on if this team is going to be a skill puck possession team or a counter attacking defensive collapse to the net team.
There's nothing Gillis could do about Luc Bourdon (RIP) dying way too young, and projected to be an All Star Defenseman that could have been playing for Canada at the Olympics in Sochi instead of Dan Hamhuis.
Also Agreed Regs, a period of constantly being in the playoffs (Early 90's for about 7 years or so with a Cup Run) and then a bunch of schmucks come in after Quinn leaves and ownership changes and the star studded team plays well below their ability and then a rotation of coaches and journeymen players rotate through till management gets their poop together and brings in Crawford with a Younger set of Players (Remember Matt Cooke, Harold Druken, Peter Schaeffer, and developed cast offs like a 24 year old Todd Bertuzzi and a young buck Brendan Morrison in a trade for Mogilny.) That team made the playoffs in 00/01 and has only missed twice since then (The 06 and 08 playoffs)
This team needs to have the "Core" turned over and a new core develop over time, as they did when Morrison, Bertuzzi, Naslund, Linden, Sami Salo, Willie Mitchell and others left new guys like the Twins, Kesler, Bieksa, and Burrows came in.
This team has an identity crisis. Very skilled players that are mostly one dimensional, they lack depth of scoring, they lack depth at C, they lack consistency on D, have VERY young immature goaltending and not a full cupboard in the CHL and AHL, but a start with the likes of Shinkaruk (Projects to a top 6 scoring winger), Horvat (projects to be a solid 2 way top 6 centre) Gaunce (Projects to be a bottom 6 C that will excel at Special teams) next step guys like Tanev and Corrado need to step up and develop up the ladder one more rung. Stanton needs to have a full year like the beginning of this season.
make some hockey deals with the assets available now with a recoverable shelf life. (Edler, Kesler come to mind) The untradeable contract guys like the Twins and Burrows become your plan to phase out from 1st line to 2nd line over then next two years, you hope Stanton, Corrado, Tanev, Kassian, Jensen keep developing and one or two of Gaunce, Shinkaruk and Horvat can make an early step up and fill roles.
Miss the playoffs a few more times, don't get greedy early and trade 1st and 2nd round picks for rentals at the deadline and you'll be back in the game quickly.