Monday Mailbag: The Draft, Meddling Owners, and What to Expect From Elias Pettersson Next Season

The fatigue theory makes a lot of sense. Even the most talented, best conditioned junior-aged athletes will struggle with the grind of their first 82-game season. That having been said, I think Pettersson’s decline in production over the back half of the year would be most easily explained by just pointing to his personal shooting percentage regressing back towards the mean. No player is going to score on a third of his shots for an entire season, no matter how good he is.

Even if he plays more games, I think another 60+ point season should be seen as a success, especially if he’s putting up points more consistently and doesn’t lose a step towards the end of the year. I’m uncomfortable putting a floor or a ceiling on his next season until we have a better idea of whether  the changes across the league that led to an overall jump in offence this year are permanent or something that teams will adjust for.

Some mock drafts have Peyton Krebs falling as low as 10, which would be an absolute steal, so obviously he’s my guy if he somehow manages to slip all that way. Among players who are likely to still be available at 10, I prefer Alex Newhook to each of the defenders you listed. If the Canucks feel they absolutely have to take a defender in that spot, I’m not sure Soderstrom is the guy, and I’m definitely not sold on Philip Broberg. Right now, I’m leaning towards Cam York as the best available defender in that spot, but I’m still getting acquainted with much of this year’s first round.

To be honest, not really. The Bolts have four defensemen coming off the books this year and I suspect the plan is for Cal Foote to make the jump and Mikhail Sergachev to take on a more prominent role on the team’s back end. If they could be convinced to part with Erik Cernak, I would be interested at the right price, but I just don’t see Tampa being all that interested.

There’s definitely a market for Ben Hutton. His season may not have quite lived up the “bounce-back” hype it was generating back in December, but he’s proven he can be a serviceable NHLer at the very least and there’s always a team out there looking for a young defender with a bit of upside.

There’s a market for Sutter too, if they look hard enough. They won’t get offers like the ones they were getting a year or so ago, but if they’re lucky they might be able to move on without taking dead weight back. I would suspect that the market for Spooner, Motte, Granlund, and Schaller will be virtually non-existent but if David Clarkson can be traded in a post-cap world, than anyone can.

Well, yes, but I don’t think this would be the appropriate space to get into it. If you really want to know who and what I hate about the NHL, my podcast would be a good place to start, I suppose.

If the Canucks move up, it will be to #4 to draft Bowen Byram. That’s the only scenario I could possibly see unfolding. Jack Hughes isn’t happening.

NCAA and it’s not particularly close. Those athletes have an average of at least a couple years of development on any CHL roster, and the level of competition is much closer to the NHL than junior hockey is.

If I had to choose, I think I’d prefer Caufield at this point. In a vacuum, he’s the more valuable player due to his status as an elite pure goal-scorer. Really, I think it just comes down to personal preference, though. You can’t go wrong with either player and Boldy’s skating ability and projectable 6’2″ frame might make him the safer bet.

Obviously this question is a bit out of date now, but my answer would have been Toronto, regardless of the outcome of the series. I just don’t think the leafs are quite ready to contend yet, and the Blue Jackets combination of skill and tenacity would have made that series a favourable matchup for them.

I would say the right-handed defenseman would be more important for the team’s future, but the issue is that a top-six winger is much more valuable than a bottom-pairing or depth defenseman, and I’m not entirely sold on the defensive depth in this year’s class. My preference this year would be to select the best player available (likely a winger,) in the first round and then subsequently take a volume approach to drafting defenders in the middle rounds.

Over the past few years, as the quality of the Canucks’ roster has diminished, the team has made a series of increasingly strange decisions from a hockey operations standpoint that really only make sense if the goal is to maximize ticket sales over the short term. Given the bizarre fashion in which the 2013-14 season unfolded, the departure of Trevor Linden last offseason, and the relative difficulty the Canucks seem to have had in finding a replacement, I would speculate that, at the very least, Francesco Aquilini has much more of an influence on hockey operations than is common for an NHL team. He’s still got a long way to go before he reaches the level of someone like Eugene Melnyk, but it’s safe to say that, for better or for worse, he’s probably in the top 5 or so most meddlesome owners in the league.