CanucksArmy Monday Mailbag: A lot of Elias Pettersson Questions, and Some Other Stuff!

If memory serves, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was one of the first to posit that the Canucks moves in free agency were made with head coach Travis Green in mind. Friedman is about as reliable as they get in this industry, so you know there’s something to it.

This says more about Canucks general manager Jim Benning than it does Green. It shouldn’t need to be said, but coaches should coach, and managers should manage. There shouldn’t be much of a grey area there. If Green suggests to Benning that he needs Jay Beagle, then Benning should heed his advice, and operate in such a way as benefits the team, regardless of how the coach feels. In this case, that should have meant going elsewhere in free agency.

I wouldn’t rule that out. Over the course of a full 82-game season, I’m sure Brock Boeser will get his chance to play with just about most of the Canucks’ forwards. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Elias Pettersson isn’t one of those players.

I get the sense that the Canucks are trying their damnedest to fix the logjam on their back-end. There just isn’t an easy fix out there by the sounds of it. The Canucks have a tonne of defencemen, but unfortunately, none with any trade value — none with trade value that they want to part with, anyway.

Much like the Canucks, I’m not sure I have an answer to this. It might get to a point where they have to take whatever they can get for Michael Del Zotto or Ben Hutton, or any of their other blueliners outside of Alexander Edler and Chris Tanev.

I’m not saying that I think this was the Canucks’ best pick from the 2018 NHL Entry Draft or the one that’s most likely to pan out, but I loved the Artyom Manukyan pick in the sixth round. At that point in the draft, it would be easy to take a Kyle Pettite type of player like they have in years past — someone without an iota of skill, but NHL size and intangibles and all that stuff. Instead, they made a low-risk, high-reward bet on Manukyan, who is an offensive dynamo that would already be in some team’s system if not for his 5-foot-7 frame.

Yeah, that was hard to hear. I wasn’t a big fan of either the Jett Woo pick at 37th overall or Tyler Madden at 68th overall. To find out that they could’ve added more picks, and in my estimation probably landed those players later anyway (seemed likely given most of what I saw in the public sphere, which isn’t a perfect proxy for the real thing, obviously) makes one wonder about their decision-making in that instance.

I should clarify that I didn’t necessarily hate either of the Woo or Madden picks. Many of the scouts I spoke to had a lot of really good things to say about Woo, and I think that Canucks director of amateur scouting Judd Brackett has earned the benefit of the doubt with low-scoring players from the American ranks. Those aren’t the picks I would have made, but they are defensible.

I fully expect the Utica Comets to take a big step forward this year, yes.

Thatcher Demko.

That sounds fine and dandy until one realizes that those same unrestricted free agent signings are going to be the very roadblocks that prevent an Adam Gaudette or a Jonathan Dahlen from making the lineup, much less playing in a top-six role. Worse still, it might force Nikolay Goldobin or Brendan Leipsic onto waivers.

I’d frankly rather the Canucks go for skill throughout their lineup. There’s nothing in the CBA that says there’s a limit on how many skill players a team can have, so why not?

If the Canucks want to pry Brock Nelson from the New York Islanders, and I should add that I don’t hate the idea, then they would probably do so by offering a volume-for-quality type offer. That Islanders blueline is some kind of grim. If there’s anyone that the Canucks could pawn Hutton off on, that’s probably the team. Build a package around Hutton, and see what happens.

And yes, players that have filed for arbitration can be traded.

I know that Pettersson and Boeser would work well together. Occasional CanucksArmy contributor Janik Beichler wrote an excellent article on the topic for DailyHive Vancouver last December — about why the two are going to work so well as a double-threat on the power play. Their skill sets and the way they attack the offensive zone are perfectly suited to each other.

The thought of Pettersson playing with Brandon Sutter is sheer nightmare fuel. They can’t do that to the kid. They need to put him in positions to succeed, and Sutter’s wing is usually where offence goes to die.

An eighth seed.

Sutter and Eriksson.

2010-11 Ryan Kesler.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Eriksson playing with Petterson at some point in the season. It would, however, surprise me to see Eriksson ever hit 30 goals again in his career.

The Canucks think that Pettersson’s game is suited to playing centre at the NHL level. And they have so much invested in just that. You’ll remember that Benning said at the press conference following his first-round pick from that year that a big part of why the Canucks took Pettersson was that he was going to be a playmaking centre at the NHL level.

I think it’s going to be more of a process than an instant hit, though. They’ll get there eventually with Pettersson, but I’d think it will take time. Expect Pettersson to, at the very least, start the season on the wing.

I have a hard time seeing Dahlen in the opening night lineup. Pettersson seems like an obvious one, but I just can’t find room for Dahlen on this roster as currently constructed.

I honestly think the Canucks roster, barring any changes, might be one of the worst in the entire league. I think a 31st overall finish is far more likely than a playoff finish.

Considering the players that clear waivers regularly, it’s hard to imagine why Alex Biega would be one of the few claimed. That said, I’ve heard that the Canucks have received offers on him before — that suggests that there is some level of interest in him among other NHL franchises. I’d give it a 50/50 chance.

I’d say probably two or three, with a couple good moves in the mid-to-late rounds of the draft. The Canucks are finally starting to get there though. It’s taken a while, but they’re starting to build that critical mass.

I’d be lying if I said that this very thought hasn’t crossed my mind before.