Canucks Army Monday Mailbag: July 9th

Would Markus Granlund be a decent rental at the trade deadline? Certainly. He’s relatively young at 24-years-old, can provide secondary offence, play all three forward positions and impact his team’s shot metrics positively from each. He’s also not a traditional rental because there are a handful of years of team control left with Granlund. Even if the team that acquired him couldn’t afford his services for next season, they’d have ample opportunity to deal him themselves in the offseason.

These reasons also work as justification for the Canucks keeping Granlund — and Sven Baertschi for that matter. I don’t think the Canucks have to trade every player past the age of 23. Granlund’s earned a raise over his last contract, but I doubt he’ll price himself out of the Canucks’ future.

I feel the same way about Alex Kerfoot today as I did the last time we broached the topic of his pending unrestricted free agency in this space. If Kerfoot hits free agency, the Canucks should try and sign him. I doubt he fits into their NHL roster — they don’t have enough space for the players they already have without his addition.

There’s no telling whether this impacts Kerfoot’s willingness to join the Canucks or not. I think we’ve been spoiled a bit with the recent crops of college free agents. It isn’t a default expectation that they’ll play in the NHL the year after they sign. If Kerfoot needs a year in the AHL, and that’s certainly a possibility, then maybe this is a complete non-issue.

I wouldn’t rule out Brock Boeser scoring 20 goals as a possibility. Boeser was just so damn impressive in a short sample nursing a wrist injury — imagine what he can do in ideal circumstances.

I’m sure the comments section will love my answer…

Let’s see the Sedin twins and Loui Eriksson get another go. They controlled north of 55% of shot attempts at even strength last season if memory serves, and that’s just downright dominant. They weren’t terribly threatening to start the season but appeared to pick up chemistry near the end of that experiment. I’m betting on an Eriksson bounce-back season, and I think the best way to get that is playing him with the Sedin twins. They just might benefit, too.

In my mind, analytics is the collection, parsing and testing of as much data as humanly possible to arrive at the best conclusions. In that sense, analytics can help out in almost any field — to some extent. We’ve seen some pretty significant advances in goaltender analytics, and I think they’ve helped myself and others understand the position just a little bit better — I’m sure the same applies to the goaltenders themselves.

There is absolutely a backlash against analytics going on with the Florida Panthers. That much is obvious. I don’t think that’s the case in Arizona, though. What reason do we have to believe that Rick Tocchet is anti-analytics? I’d add that most of what the Coyotes have done this offseason passes the analytics sniff test.

I answered the Boeser question, in a way, just a couple paragraphs back. As for Olli Juolevi, his quality as a player suggests to me he should be in the NHL next season. I’m just not sure there’s a fit anymore with the amount of NHL defenders the Canucks have added in free agency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a hard time seeing any surprise rookies cracking the Canucks’ roster next season. There just aren’t enough openings. I don’t know if Griffen Molino qualifies, but if he does, perhaps he’s the “random” rookie to crack the lineup? The Canucks want speed, and oh, he has plenty to burn.

Honestly, I don’t know if I’m qualified to make that judgement call. I’ve yet to see any conclusive data to suggest which option is better for the player in this situation or ones similar to it. I’m going to let Jonathan Dahlen and the Canucks decide what’s best for his development and leave it at that. I’ve no strong opinion one way or the other.

Brandon Sutter staying healthy probably isn’t the key to a successful Canucks season. He was healthy most of last season, and just didn’t play that well. Same goes for a lot of the Canucks’ roster. This team doesn’t fall short because of injuries — they fall short because they’re a poorly built team.

I’ve been fairly high on Jalen Chatfield since the Canucks signed him, but I think it’s time we were a little more realistic about what he is and isn’t as a prospect. When the Canucks signed Chatfield, pGPS gave him an Exp. Success percentage in single digits. I like what I see from Chatfield and see qualities in his game that could translate to the NHL. The reality is, he’s a long, long, long shot if there ever was one. I could see him cracking the Canucks in the next three years; I just don’t think it’s the most likely outcome.

Whether Chatfield develops into a full-time NHL defenceman or not shouldn’t impact whether the Canucks trade Chris Tanev or not. They should trade Tanev independent of who is or isn’t there to replace him immediately. I suppose from the Canucks point of view that sort of thing matters, but it really shouldn’t. Thinking that Tanev stops the floodgates is just sheer denial in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Let’s call a spade a spade –

– the Canucks are going to get shelled most nights with or without Tanev for the next few years.

What: A somewhat useful fourth liner who punches faces on a regrettable contract.

Where: Vancouver

How: See: “What.”

Nico Hischier.

Nikita Tryamkin. And my reasoning is that he’s the only one I’m confident can hack it in the NHL.

None, whatsoever.

Sure. I’m not sure what that entails, but it sounds good to me.

It’s different on a case-to-case basis. It certainly can’t hurt to be there a while.

They’re probably somewhere just outside the top ten.

My mind changed on Adam Gaudette a long time ago. The Canucks proved me wrong with that pick, indeed. I could see Gaudette being a Craig Smith type. A player who plays in every situation, at every position, and scores in a middle six role.

I’m going to meet your question with a few of my own.

Are you planning on acknowledging that Canucks Army collectively spent hundreds if not thousands of hours watching tape, reviewing scouting reports, scouting players live and building proprietary draft analytics to get to a point where we could write about our top 100 prospects of the NHL Entry Draft? That doesn’t even cover the time we spent consulting with each other on our lists, much less the writing of the articles themselves. That wrapped up just a couple weeks ago.

To follow that up, two of us went to cover the NHL Draft in person, in Chicago. Canucks Army had an article for every single draft pick. We spoke with the team and provided content based on everything they shared with us. Will you acknowledge this?

As an aside, I should add that Ryan Biech and Jeremy Davis were, in fact, at the Canucks’ Development Camp in person for much of the week. We didn’t ignore the event. We had boots on the ground, in fact.

I’d ask, too, that you acknowledge that, for most of us, this is a second or third job. In some cases, Canucks Army writers have families to take care of, too. If we let up a bit for Development Camp, I’m not ready to apologize. You’re very welcome.