Monday Mailbag: A sleeper team to trade for Miller, quantity or quality in the 2022 draft, and predicting Linus Karlsson’s rookie AHL season

We continue to move through the Canucks’ offseason, waiting patiently for the next news nugget to dive in on.

Juho Lammikko won gold at the world championships with Finland as they defeated Canada in the final. We saw some interesting 2022 NHL draft prospects show well at the world championships while representing their home countries.

We’ve got less than 40 days to the draft and keep up to date with all your draft coverage here at CanucksArmy. We will continue to give prospect reports with an eye to how that prospect fits with the Canucks.

After a weak week of questions last Monday, we’ve seen the people come through and blast open the mailbag with great questions this week.

So, without wasting any more words, let’s dive into the mailbag and see what the wonderful people of Canucks Twitter had to ask this week.

Over the weekend, I had a scout tell me to keep an eye on Ryan Chesley at the draft. The 6’0”, right-shot defenceman skates extremely well and another scout told me he expects Chesley to be a reliable NHLer who has a long career.

I’d have to spend more time watching him before making a prediction on him but this likely means we will be having a scouting report on him coming very soon!

Bob McKenzie’s latest rankings have him at 18th while almost every other major scouting has Chesley in the second round or even later than that.

The USNTDP has been excellent at development over the past handful of years and we will definitely dive deeper into Chesley’s game and get a full report up soon.

We are currently working on a scouting report about Jiri Kulich, who looks like a nice trade-down option if the Canucks want to snag a centre late in the first round.

My guess is that the Canucks make nine picks at the 2022 NHL Entry Draft.

I am thinking that they trade down from 15th to grab a later first-round pick and two picks later in the draft.

The other extra pick would come from a J.T. Miller, Tyler Myers, or Conor Garland trade.

It’s a good question, and the Canucks definitely need both.

They need to find their new top prospect in the system at this draft. That is very important. Their first selection in the 2022 draft should immediately be a more valuable prospect than Danila Klimovich and Jack Rathbone.

This makes the argument of trading down from the 15th spot a difficult one. You clearly need to get more swings in the draft but there is a lot of value in that 15th overall pick. The Canucks would like to select in the second round and if trading down a handful of spots can get them a second-round pick, they likely need to make that move.

The Canucks prospect pool isn’t bare but it is definitely lacking top-end talent. This draft needs to have the Canucks select multiple defencemen in this draft but in general, quality is most important.

I was actually much higher on Viktor Persson before he came to North America. He dominated the lower levels of Swedish hockey and I thought we were going to see more end-to-end rushes from the kid in the WHL.

The North American game hasn’t been easy on him but it’s not like he’s been bad this year. It’s just that he hasn’t played better than I expected him to play.

We want to be blown away by prospects when they are in the prime years of development between ages of 18-21.

I’m happy that Persson has been able to live over here, away from his family. The goal for him should be to crack the AHL team next year but I’ve heard that he has options in Sweden.

I’d like to see the Abbotsford Canucks give him a shot but am not sure if he did enough in the WHL to earn it. He’s had some really bad giveaways for Kamloops in their playoffs and doesn’t have a goal through 16 playoff games.

That’s not great for an offensive defenceman. That being said, I’ve liked the way he moves around on the ice for a 6’2” defenceman.

There’s still hope that he can become something in the AHL but to answer the question — no, I haven’t exactly “liked” what I’ve seen from Persson this season, unfortunately.

First off, I believe that Linus Karlsson will be a top-six AHLer for game one out in Abbotsford. He should be on the first power play unit and this should be a player who all the coaches are working their hardest with to get the most out of Karlsson.

There’s a close-eye on development now that Abbotsford is just down the highway. Pressure is on for the team to turn Karlsson into an NHL-calibre winger.

I don’t believe that we will see Karlsson in the NHL unless there are four or five wingers going down with injury. I expect the Canucks to have a handful of tweener NHL-AHL players who will get the call before Karlsson.

The Swedish winger needs to prove himself once again after proving himself in the SHL last season.

I can see Karlsson getting into some NHL games late in the year if everything goes splendid for Karlsson and the Vancouver Canucks don’t look like a playoff team.

After hearing Trent Cull’s comments on development and not wanting to rush a player like Adam Gaudette — we will likely see Karlsson be a player where Cull can show his development skills over at least a full AHL season.

My prediction for Karlsson’s rookie AHL season is that he will play 64 games, score 21 goals and add 24 assists.

Florida Panthers.

They are already very good but they need some help to get over the hump.

I would do it if I was the Canucks.

Not only to bring my cousin home but because Brock Faber shows all the skills that I’m looking for when it comes to a partner for Quinn Hughes.

It wouldn’t shock me to see some of the computer boys play a role in the Canucks’ analytics department.

I have not heard any of their names mentioned but the analytics department in Vancouver is a lot more private than Bruce Boudreau and Jim Rutherford.

Vasily Podkolzin has almost definitely jumped Nils Höglander in management’s eyes and Höglander didn’t make the greatest impression on Boudreau this past year.

I’m confident that Höglander is going to have a bounce-back season next year. He works hard and has good enough puck skills to succeed in the NHL.

Höglander didn’t have great luck last season and I’d imagine he starts in a bottom-six role next season but thrives against bottom-six competition. If that’s the low-end of his potential, you should still be happy with the Canucks’ second-round pick of the 2019 draft.

That wraps up another Monday Mailbag! Thanks to everyone who contributed the great questions that help make these articles fun every week.

We will be back next week with another mailbag article and will continue to pump out more draft content as we are now just 38 days away from day one of the NHL draft!