CanucksArmy Monday Mailbag: January 8th

I’d probably take Filip Zadina, as much as that might surprise some.

I want to see a Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning Stanley Cup so badly. Although, I know the league has no appetite for that. The ratings would be terrible.

I’m increasingly getting the sense that Canucks general manager Jim Benning’s future might not be in Vancouver. I could be wrong, but then again, shouldn’t Canucks ownership know at this stage whether they want to keep him in the fold or not?

Elias Pettersson was great for Team Sweden. Obviously, I’d like it if he was more active and involved at even strength, but Pettersson was still putting up serious offensive totals and surprised me with some excellent defensive reads. The other thing to remember is that Pettersson was battling the flu for much of the tournament. Overall, a great performance, I thought.

It won’t be good. Nathan Beaulieu went for a third-round pick in the off-season to the Buffalo Sabres. I tend to think that’s a good benchmark for Ben Hutton, who’s roughly comparable to Beaulieu.

I also wonder about Boston Bruins forward Ryan Spooner and whether he’s someone the Canucks would target with Hutton. There’s a connection between Spooner and Benning, given he scouted Spooner when the Bruins drafted him.

If I were in the Canucks shoes, I’d probably try to avoid moving Hutton if at all possible. Alexander Edler is looking more and more like a buyout candidate this off-season, and Michael Del Zotto is essentially the player that the “Hutton sucks!” movement thinks Hutton is, so they need help on the left side.

Michael Dal Colle is barely a half a point per game player in the AHL at 21-years-old. His value is rightly low, but I feel like it’s not low enough to warrant giving up anything of significance for Dal Colle. If you’re the Canucks, you take a first or second-round pick for Erik Gudbranson ahead of Dal Colle any day of the week.

That’s Brock Boeser, but you can call him The Flow.

I’m a big fan of bacon, yes.

I’ve heard nothing to date about who the Canucks would look to as a replacement for Benning.

I’m probably not the most qualified person to answer this question. Goalies are an entirely different animal in terms of analysis, and we’re talking about projecting goalies, which adds another interesting wrinkle. My intuition is that the answer is Thatcher Demko though for whatever that is worth.

I’d give the Canucks coaching staff as a whole a B+ if I was grading them. I’m not a fan of their every decision, but that’s par for the course with NHL coaches — they all do strange things. They’ve managed to get a lot out of the Canucks — or they were until injuries struck, anyway — relative to the dearth of talent that’s on the team.

My one qualifier is that I’d give Canucks assistant coach Newell Brown, who’s in charge of special teams, an F-. Watching his power play is torture. A 1-3-1 power play setup with no side-to-side movement; it makes no sense!

Watching Team Sweden defenceman Timothy Liljegren (TML) was a real treat. It’s clear that he’s back on track to developing towards being an elite NHL defenceman. His puck-movement was unreal, with two and three-line passes in seemingly every game. I was pleasantly surprised by how physical Liljegren was, too. The Maple Leafs have a stud defenceman in the making.

At the right price, buying low on Anthony Duclair would make a tonne of sense for the Canucks. He’s about a 40 points over 82 games type of player with an alright two-way profile. The Canucks need those types of player. If the price is right, they’d be wise to make a move.

I’m not sure what Duclair would go for at this stage though. I’m not really bullish on him as a player. I see a middle-six winger, which is fine, in a nutshell, but I wonder if there are teams out there who see untapped offensive potential and drive the price up needlessly high. I fear a capped out team with Stanley Cup aspirations is willing to offer a first-round pick for Duclair. The Canucks shouldn’t offer anything more than a second-round pick, frankly.

I always go back to Spooner, because of the obvious connection and the possibility of a buy-low candidate. Another player the Canucks might be looking at is Duclair, but I wonder how the Arizona Coyotes would feel about making that move in their division. I’d look at Winnipeg Jets winger Marko Dano if I were in their shoes, but I don’t get the sense that they themselves have gone barking up that tree.

We’ve already looked at what Spooner or Duclair might cost so I won’t rehash that discussion. I do think the Canucks could get a player of Dano’s ilk for a mid-to-late round pick though. That might be worthwhile.

The Canucks as a team probably deserve a C+. They were playing decent hockey for a lot of the season until injuries reared their ugly head. They deserve credit for that.

I’ve long had a bit of a hunch that Hutton wasn’t long for this team. I just never get the sense that Benning is a huge believer in Hutton, which is why he’s on a bridge deal and probably why his name keeps coming up in trade rumours. Should he be a long-term Canuck? Yeah, probably, but I have a hard time seeing it shake out that way. Hopefully, I am wrong.