CA Mailbag: March 8th

The Mailbag took a week off due to last Monday’s trade deadline, but we’re back! The Canucks have been a different kind of wacky, wild beast in the past two weeks, and your questions reflect that. Let’s jump right in!

Subban has been one of the most thoroughly impressive prospects in the organization this year, in my opinion. He’s producing relatively well with the Comets, and he visually plays with a ton of confidence and creativity. I get to see him in person a few times a season when Utica faces the Toronto Marlies, and he’s definitely earned the bulk of my attention span on more than one night.

With that said, is there really a value to giving him his trial period right now? He just turned 21 last week, so he’s not particularly risking a closed window of opportunity. Letting him focus on Travis Green’s teachings and tactics while keeping him away from the mess above might be better for his long-term development than giving him an opportunity now.

I think it’s an underrated power move that many GMs do, but only became public because of all of the questions surrounding Vancouver’s deadline this year. Every trade deadline, there are always a hand full of players from basement-level teams that go from “definitely getting traded” to sticking around, and this is why. You don’t want to create Brandon Pirri situations where the value plummets from an expected 2nd to a 6th rounder. If a team knows they can play chicken with you and get what they want, you will lose every time.

It’s hard to keep them away from the bottom, no? Many will point to the Oilers, but they’re at least trying to make it work. The Canucks are still in the denial stage, which is the absolute worst place to be.

It’s hard to say just yet. We have no quantifiable data on his possession impact, but many will make the assumption based on his play style that he might be a detriment. This is true of most defensive defencemen, but we’ll have to see how he’s used and how effective he is at preventing shots first.

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