CanucksArmy Monday Mailbag: January 15th

Let’s try and fill in some blanks to set the stage here. I’m going to interpret this question as one relating to whether or not I was the general manager of the Canucks and that you mean this in a realistic framework — no Connor McDavid, unfortunately.

With the Dallas Stars as a serious contender, but one without a reliable enough blue line to go all the way, I’d look to get Chris Tanev their way for a return centred on Julius Honka. For whatever reason, Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock isn’t a fan of Honka’s, as evidenced by his low ice-time and the fact that he’s only played in about half of the Stars’ games. Everything under the hood checks out with Honka, who’s a solid puck-moving defenceman with offensive upside and strong possession numbers early in his career.

Canucks general manager Jim Benning was thinking that signing Loui Eriksson could help keep the Sedins productive for at least an extra two seasons and that he’d add a reliable two-way scorer to his lineup in the process. The contract is a bit rich in terms of cash and years, but not that out of line with what the competition was offering; I’m fairly sure.

I don’t know if Eriksson’s contract is the worst in Canucks history, insofar as I think it would’ve been a reasonable offer if a contending team made it. The issue isn’t the contract itself. It’s that a team in the Canucks’ position signed him to it, and also the fact that Eriksson’s play has dropped off in a big way since coming to Vancouver, which, in fairness to Benning, one couldn’t have predicted. Not to this extent, anyway.

It involved two very good football games, with one most unfortunate outcome for my beloved Pittsburgh Steerls.

I thought it was a good move by the Canucks at the time, and everything Thomas Vanek’s does since backs that up.

I’m not sure if Brock Boeser is going through a slump just yet. What’s more likely is that his shooting percentage is just starting to normalize, and the goals aren’t coming as easy as a result. And if it’s a forward who wins the Calder Trophy, it’s going to be based on points.

Yes.

Based on Canucks that will be there next season? I’d probably go with Markus Granlund or Sam Gagner.

This season, duh.

Great football game! Awful outcome.

I’m not sure if there is a better goaltending prospect than Thatcher Demko, but that probably has as much to do with my understanding of the position (or lack thereof) as it does his merit as a goaltender.

That depends on the circumstances, etc. I feel like the Canucks rebuild, had it started four or five years ago, could have been successfully carried out in about three or four years, for example. The Detroit Red Wings rebuild, whenever it starts, is probably closer to a five, six or seven-year rebuild, as another example.

I would give serious consideration to Jake Virtanen for one of either Oliver Kylington or Rasmus Andersson, with an inclination towards the latter of those two, if I had to choose. As for Tanev for the rights to Kirill Kaprizov, I’m not sure I’d pull the trigger on that one. I just think that the Russian factor in Vancouver has been such that they can’t take that risk, especially since Kaprizov re-signed for another handful of seasons in the KHL and that makes him several years away from making the jump.

This is a really good question and one that I’m unfortunately not quite qualified to answer. Based on my understanding of the expansion rules, this year wouldn’t count, but I wouldn’t want you to quote me on that. Maybe send Ryan Biech a tweet for his prospect mailbag, and he’ll have a better answer.

Roman Polak and Nick Spaling fetched a pair of second-round picks once, so anything is possible.

The Sedins are going to finish their careers as Canucks, for better or worse. That’s my guess.

They won’t go on a six-to-ten game winning streak in all likelihood and even if they did it wouldn’t be enough to offset the losses the Canucks accrued to that point in the season. The playoffs aren’t a possibility for the Canucks.

I don’t think so, no.

I’d love to see the Canucks try Jake Virtanen on the penalty kill at some point. If nothing else, Virtanen is big, has speed and a really good work ethic. Those qualities all lend themselves to the penalty kill — remember how good Shawn Matthias was for the Canucks as a penalty killer?

It’s probably a bit of both. If Nikolay Goldobin isn’t going to get shifts with the Canucks, he might as well go down to Utica, where he’ll play games, and as a result, develop. The problem is that Goldobin shouldn’t be in Green’s doghouse to begin with, based on how he played with the Canucks this season.

I think that, in general, we need to be careful about how much we invest in Philip Holm’s success in the AHL. It’s only his first year in North America, but he’s also 26-years-old. It’s encouraging that he’s doing so well with the Comets, but I’m not so sure about what that means for his chances at the NHL level.

I’d like to see the Canucks at least give Holm a shot before the end of the season though regardless. At some point they have to get this European free agent thing right, so why not with Holm?

I’m going to take the cop-out answer, because it’s the right one, and say that Gaudette projects as a middle-six forward.