CA Monday Mailbag: February 1st

What a time to be alive. It’s February, the skies are clear (both in Vancouver and in my home office thousands of kilometres away) and we got to see Daniel Sedin rip it up in the All-Star Game last night. It’s all downhill from here though; there’s rain this week, the Canucks are going to have to start playing again soon, and worst of all, you have to read my mailbag responses. Let’s get it over with, shall we?

If the team heads into fire sale mode, I wouldn’t be surprised if they called up Hunter Shinkaruk towards the end of the season. He’s been one of the better young players in the AHL this season, but at the same time, such a move should only come if there’s room for him to play regular minutes, even if they do intend to send him back down in the event that the Comets make the playoffs.

As for trade bait, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Alex Grenier in a minor transaction. He hasn’t progressed much in the past few years, but some team might look at his 6’5 frame and take a chance at re-igniting him under a new system. You wouldn’t get a ton for him, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he’s a guy pitched to teams as a blank canvas.

The two haven’t really played all too much together over the course of Tanev’s career, combining for 1264 even strength minutes, or about 65 games. Both players have a better CF% (52.9%) together than when they’re apart (51.4 Edler, 51.9 Tanev), though it’s worth noting that the Canucks tend to get outscored by a hair (48.7%) when they’re together while both are positive goals for players apart. As well, Tanev starts in tougher zones when away from Edler.

So career wise, it’s basically a watch. This year, however, the gap is gigantic; Edler fares worse without Tanev, while, in an admittedly small sample of 83 minutes, Tanev fares better. In fact, the Canucks haven’t been scored on at even strength when Tanev is on the ice but Edler isn’t this year. That’s luck more than anything, but there’s enough of a possession disparity to suggest that Tanev is the breadwinner of the pair.

I hope the water bottles are filled with liquor.

I think jealousy plays the biggest factor; teams typically aren’t able to keep a single star player for 15+ seasons, let alone two-thirds of a first line. Combine that with the fact that they’ve historically played a clean, inoffensive game, and is no surprise that overly-macho hockey bro crowd has been critical of them. The fact that doing a bit more shoving in scrums has afforded Daniel Sedin more league-wide reverence then winning the scoring title says everything you need to know. It’s not the twins, it’s the stupidity of hockey culture.

Not a chance. Forget me (I’m a cap dump), the beauty of having Money Puck and Josh on your side is the benefit they give you at the draft. If the cost of acquiring them is one of the few guys you can trade to get some picks for them to use, what’s the point?