CanucksArmy Monday Mailbag: November 6th

I’m pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. Won’t feel good or bad, frankly. I don’t think it’s in the best interests of the Canucks long-term fortunes, but what else can I add? Players and coaches don’t tank.

Considering just how badly this team needs more game-breaking talent infused into their prospect pool, it would be unfortunate if they finished outside of the top five of the draft for their long-term fortunes. For the short term, just enjoy it. This team won’t consistently win hockey games often based on their current trajectory.

Right now there are three Canucks prospects in legitimate contention for an Olympic roster spot. It’s Elias Pettersson for Sweden, Adam Gaudette for the United States and Olli Juolevi for Finland. I think the first of those two have a good chance of making it; I’m less sold on Juolevi.

I get where you’re coming from here and think that’s a fair line of questioning. I just don’t think we should hold Canucks head coach Travis Green accountable for the failures of the past, whether it’s in our analysis or the coaches themselves.

So, yes, I think it’s reasonable to have some skepticism, but I also think Green’s earned every bit of praise that’s been sent his way. The Canucks are winning more games than they probably should be given the talent level of this roster, and that’s always going to look good on the coach. Everything under the hood suggests the Canucks aren’t doing this with smoke and mirrors either — they are playing legitimately good hockey!

Clayton Keller.

All of the above.

I’m glad you brought up style. I think that played a huge role in the way that Green used the Sedin twins against the Pittsburgh Penguins. I also think it’s part of a larger trend though.

Not even close. I’d probably give that honour to the Calgary Flames’ 3M line of Michael Frolik, Mikael Backlund and Matthew Tkachuk.

If the Canucks play .500 hockey through November, that would be a massive success for this hockey club.

Erik Gudbranson is never going to sign for anything close to that, but if I had the choice to do so, I would take a pass every time. I think you could do worse than Gudbranson on your bottom pair; I also think you could do a lot better for $2.5-million.

I have no clue. All I will say is that age, right down to days and months, matters a lot when evaluating prospects around their draft year.

The Canucks? Yeah, I’m not seeing that right now. They’re playing fast and entertaining hockey, certainly, but if you look at the rate of events that are happening on the ice, they’re among the dullest teams in the league. I think something is missing in the data because nobody who’s watching this team can honestly say they look slow but it’s worth considering all the same.

The fastest team in the league is probably the Pittsburgh Penguins. Depending on when you catch the New York Rangers, they belong in that conversation too.

For the Canucks to get there, they’d have to give the Brandon Sutter line a lot less ice time and the Bo Horvat line far more. Maybe letting Troy Stecher play a more expanded role when he returns to the lineup would help, too.

It’s both. It’s hard to find a groove playing as little as the Sedins have been this season. That said, they’re not even that productive in a per hour view either. This is what the Sedins are at this stage of their careers: good middle-six forwards.

On most nights, I would lean towards Sam Gagner. I’d also consider Derek Dorsett, as much as that may pain some to hear.

It would be unfortunate if Elias Pettersson played his career on the wing, certainly, but hardly the end of the world. I even tend to think it might be headed in that direction. He hasn’t played centre often over the last two seasons.

I think it would be more of a bad look for the Canucks than anything. They’ve been adamant that he is a playmaking centre, and Canucks general manager Jim Benning even suggested that played a role in drafting Pettersson.

I don’t think I’m qualified to answer this question. Goalies can be incredibly difficult to project if you don’t have a strong grasp on all the intricacies of the position. Admittedly, that’s not an area of strength.

If I were betting on this, though, I’d put a little money on Anders Nilsson providing slightly above average goaltending for the Canucks before taking the starting job outright down the stretch.

The Colorado Avalanche made out like bandits. I mean, that is one hell of a haul. I also like this three-way deal for the Nashville Predators, who paid far less to acquire Kyle Turris, who’s not that much worse than Matt Duchene. This deal isn’t great for Ottawa. They paid a lot to marginally upgrade on Turris.

The Canucks blue line, but it will be unreasonably close.

I wouldn’t use it on Evander Kane. Let’s start there.

Honestly, the Canucks would do well to use that cap space to buy futures from other clubs in salary hell. Stack up draft picks. Benning does some of his best work in the mid-to-late rounds of the draft, so why not stack up picks?

Alexander Edler isn’t going to waive his no-trade clause. It’s a total non-starter. There probably isn’t a lot the Canucks can do to make that happen either. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the Canucks are considering a buyout of the last year of Edler’s contract this summer. It would cost $2-million against the cap next year and just $1-million the one after.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. The Canucks believe in Derrick Pouliot and Juolevi should be on the cusp of making the team next season. Not including Pouliot and Juolevi, the Canucks have three defencemen signed for next season and with big dollar values attached. They’re going to have to create room for their younger players somehow.

The Ottawa Senators.

It’s not looking good for Markus Granlund. He’s on pace for about 19 points as things currently stand. I would bet good money that he finishes the season with far more points than that though.

Nothing jumps out at me, no.

Right now, Brock Boeser’s personal shooting percentage and PDO are a touch high, which suggests his point production is due for a little downward regression. He might not be a point per game player by year’s end but I don’t think he’ll be that far off based on what I’m seeing. He’s a hell of a player.

I don’t know enough about players personal lives to make judgements about how it affects their games. So I usually stray from including that in my analysis.

That seems reasonable.

Fireman by Lil Wayne

We’re going to be starting something new this Friday! Ryan Biech is CanucksArmy’s resident prospects guru, so we’re giving him his own CanucksArmy Mailbag specifically for prospects. Starting this Friday, it will be a weekly feature throughout the season. If I were to guess, he’d send a call out for questions on Thursday. This should be a lot of fun.