Mailbag Part 2: Nikolay Goldobin, Travis Green, and Rebuilding vs. Contending

I think so. I feel like they’d have traded him by now if they weren’t planning on giving him another shot. I could see him getting dealt as a sweetener for taking on a bad contract, but at this point it seems unclear whether or not such a deal is going to come to fruition. I imagine we’ll get a better sense of what the future holds as we inch closer to training camp.

Despite his recent extension, I think Jim Benning is gone if the Canucks fail to qualify for the playoffs this season, and I would imagine Travis Green would follow suit. There’s certainly a precedent for a new GM to hang on to the prior GM’s coach, but it’s exceedingly rare for any bench boss to survive three straight losing seasons. The safe bet is that if Benning is gone, Green will be too.

I’d take Hutton. He’s younger, faster, and more comfortable in the modern NHL. I loved Kevin Bieksa when he was a Canuck, but unfortunately I think his days as an NHL player are behind him.

Kole Lind seems like the safest bet to me. Things really went off the rails for him for much of last season and he wasn’t able to translate the offense prowess he showed in junior to the AHL. He’s still a talented player, though, and a summer of training and preparation should help him put together a more respectable sophomore season.

I still think all the RFAs are waiting for Marner to sign, but we’ll see what happens. I think if anyone were to crack early, it would be Brock Boeser, so I won’t be surprised if he signs a few days before training camp even if the other RFAs haven’t inked with their respective clubs.

Based on the figures that are being tossed about in the media, it has to be Mitch Marner. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player go from criminally underrated to ridiculously overrated so quickly. He’s a great player, but anything over 9.5 would be too much.

I was a little curious as to why the Canucks felt the need to rush out and sign Arturs Silovs, too. They must see something in him, I guess. His MHL numbers are decent and the Canucks other recent draftee at the goaltending position, Matthew Thiessen, doesn’t look like he’s going to work out. They had plenty of time to sign him, so I’m not sure why they felt the need to get it done this summer, but it’s nothing to worry about. It never hurts to increase your team’s depth at the goaltending position.

He’ll probably sign a PTO with a team looking to add depth on defense and sign a cheap one-year, two-way deal. His stock has plummeted since his rookie year and I don’t see any team out there being willing to commit significant money or term to him.

I’m not against it, although personally I think Elliot has a better idea:

I know it’s been brought up before by a few members of the media, and I honestly believe it will be the next major example of the NHL borrowing from other leagues as the league continues to modernize and embrace analytics. It’s truly insane how many players absolutely burn themselves out by the time the playoffs start. I think there’s a strong case to be made that the team that wins the Stanley Cup on most occasions also happens to be the team that did the best job of staying healthy. We already see some players rest for a game or two at the end of the season if they’ve clinched a spot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually we see that number grow to 10 or 15.

I say this with 100% sincerity: I have no idea. I don’t think he’ll be making another appearance here.

I didn’t get anyone fired. Most of the authors here expressed concerns about his behaviour and the Network heads made a judgment call. It was extremely weird and we’ll probably talk about it on Roxy Fever, but I won’t go into any more detail here because it feels wrong to air out dirty laundry with a colleague, even if it’s one who only wrote three articles. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have a better idea, Audrey: why don’t YOU write an article about how good Puck Bunnies is. Or about anything, for that matter. We’d love to have you on board.

If you consider how many teams can truly be called contenders, which can sometimes be as high as 10 or 12 if the field is open enough, it shouldn’t be controversial to say it’s harder to win a cup than to build a contender. Bottoming out and acquiring talent is a relatively easy thing to do. Hell, the Canucks have managed to do it over the past few years mostly by accident. A player like Elias Pettersson obviously doesn’t come around at the fifth overall spot every year, but a GM should be drafting good players if they’re picking in the top ten consistently. Taking those pieces and surrounding them with the right talent, finding the right coach, and knowing when to push all your chips in and go for it is much more difficult, which is why most GMs fail even when they’ve got a strong roster. Rebuilding is the easy part, because teams can say they’re doing it indefinitely. It’s hard to judge the process objectively while it’s happening, because observers have yet to see the results. The outcome can only be determined with the benefit of hindsight.