Mailbag Part 2: Team Tank, Tyler Myers, and Elias Pettersson’s Defensive Game

It seems like the most likely scenario. Tim Schaller seems like the most likely candidate if you look solely at on-ice contributions, but I think the Canucks would be reticent to move on from him already given his contract status, which is why I floated Markus Granlund as a possible option in part one of the mailbag.

The only reasonable justification I can come up with is the same one I gave Darryl Keeping last week: Gudbranson’s struggled mightily in just about every area of the game since arriving in Vancouver, and pairing him with Ben Hutton is basically damage control. You’re not putting him in a top-pairing role, because he’s going to get shredded, and you probably can’t trust a Pouliot-Gudbranson pairing to not get completely embarrassed every other shift, so Travis Green is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

In reality, I think the team would be much better off running a second pair of Hutton and Stecher and trying their absolute best to shelter whatever mess of a third pairing they’re left with, but I can see a justification for the way things are at the moment. Of course, if Travis Green actually thinks Erik Gudbranson is his third/fourth best defender, then the team has bigger problems.

Assuming the question is simply which player I’d rather have, I’d have to go with Sutter. He’s younger and has less time left on his deal. In a vacuum, he’s probably a slightly more valuable player, but if I were in Jim Benning’s shoes he would be the one I’d be looking to trade in the future because his value on the trade market is higher. Up until last season I’d have probably said Beagle, because he was still a cheap utility player at that point, but his current contract undoes any value he may have held in the past.

I’m gonna assume that’s a typo, and that you aren’t asking for my opinion on the debate about prospect rankings that seems to occur every summer. Until the team has a sufficient amount of pieces in place and/or is playing sustainably good hockey, I’ll always come down on the side of team tank. The Canucks still have a long way to go, and the best way to get a head start would be to finally trade some of their pieces that have value and get another top pick. They’ll need to start rounding a corner soon, but they just aren’t there yet.

I have no idea, you’d have to ask him.

What I will say is that I think the “coming home” narrative is one that’s overblown by fans and the media. It’s definitely a factor for some guys, but the vast majority of players go where they think they are going to get the best opportunities to play and make money. Working in the same area you went to high school in doesn’t mean much if you can’t guarantee you’ll get playing time.

It depends on the criteria. If you’re talking about where I’d rank them in terms of trade value, Gudbranson would easily generate the most interest, with Pouliot in a distant 2nd place and Tryamkin having almost no value whatsoever given the fact that it’s unclear if he’ll ever return to North America.

In terms of who I actually think is the best player in a vacuum, I guess I would put Pouliot first, followed by Tryamkin and Gudbranson, but to be completely honest I’m not interested in passionately defending my case. I don’t think any of the three ought to be in the Canucks’ future.

Yes, as long as I’m not the one who has to do it.

Sven Baertschi signed a 2-year deal that paid him $1.8 million per year after a 28-point season in 2015-16, and I would expect Goldobin’s contract to land somewhere in that range as well. People forget this, but Baertschi was once a similarly maligned young player and was still considered a big question mark even after showing flashes of brilliance over his first full season with the Canucks. Goldobin is currently lagging a bit behind where Baertschi was at that point, but the cap has also gone up, so I’d expect the figures to be similar.

Edler has earned it, but that’s too much term for a team like the Canucks to commit to a defenseman who will be 33 at the start of that deal. As much as it pains me to say it, the Canucks should probably move on from Edler if they can’t keep the term on his deal down to a year or two, even if he won’t accept a trade. The roster is already too loaded with veterans that are being paid too much for too long, they should avoid making the same mistakes again.

It’s pretty obvious to me why teams have started to get the ball rolling earlier when it comes to trade negotiations. As negotiations inch closer and closer to the deadline, one of the teams generally gets more and more desperate to get a deal done, either because other options have evaporated, or because they can’t afford not to get something for a player on an expiring deal. It makes for shitty television, but it’s the right approach from a hockey operations standpoint.

If the price is right, then sure. My concern would be that guys like Ferland have a tendency to be overvalued for their physical prowess, and Ferland’s track record of producing like a top-six forward really only goes back to last season. He has real value in a complimentary role, but I could easily see teams falling over themselves to give him way too much money and term, so I’d have to know what the deal is before passing judgment.

While a significant portion of Kapanen’s production is the byproduct of playing on one of the league’s best teams, I think you could easily justify signing him to an offer sheet at that figure. He would immediately become the team’s second best right-winger after Brock Boeser, and would give the team another legitimate top-six player to line up alongside one of Bo Horvat or Elias Pettersson. Under most circumstances you’d like to see the Canucks retain their draft picks, but Kapanen is only 22 and is already producing at a 0.62 point per game pace. If the Canucks got a player like that with their second it would be considered a home run, so I think he’s worth the investment.

Aside from the aforementioned Kapanen, I also wouldn’t mind the Canucks taking a look at Andreas Johnsson or even Connor Brown, assuming the cost isn’t prohibitive. Johnsson has 10 goals and 21 points in 40 games this year and is just 24, and Brown is 25 and can play anywhere in your lineup. They’re both complementary players at the end of the day, but they would be a significant improvement over a number of players that are currently in their lineup.

Tyler Myers is a good defenseman, ideally on a second pairing, who will almost certainly get paid way too much come July 1. He’s had a few good offensive seasons in Winnipeg, and his underlying numbers are good, too; but I suspect that at least some of that is a product of being on one of the league’s deepest and best teams. What worries me is that when you look at the factors that often get players overpaid, he checks all the boxes. He’s 6’8″, has draft pedigree, he’s a right-shot defenseman, and has put up the kind of sporadic offensive numbers that can conspire to make a team justify paying him for what he could be rather than what he actually is. If you’re the GM of a contending team who needs help on the right side, maybe you live with the overpayment for what he can help you accomplish in the near future, but for a team like the Canucks he should be a hard pass.

There really isn’t any area of the game that Pettersson hasn’t excelled at. Defensively, he’s been more impressive than I ever could have imagined. The Canucks have controlled a whopping 70% of the goals when he’s on the ice. That simply can’t happen if a player isn’t dedicated at both ends of the rink. He backchecks harder than almost anyone else on the team, he never takes a shift off, and for a player who’s so creative and dynamic with the puck I’ve rarely if ever seen a bad turnover from him. His 49.95 even-strength Corsi % is fourth on the team among Canucks who have played at least 400 minutes, and is in the middle of the pack on the team in terms of the rate of shots and scoring chances against the team concedes with him on the ice. That’s extremely impressive for a rookie. He’s played less than half a season and he’s already making a case that he’s surpassed Bo Horvat as a two-way player. I’ve said before that he reminds me of Pavel Datsyuk, and if this is what he’s capable of at 20 years old, he could challenge for a Selke when he’s in his prime