Monday Mailbag: Trade Targets, Jake Virtanen, and Lucky Lager

Peyton Krebs is the best player I’ve seen listed that low, but I highly doubt he actually falls that far. Boldy and Caufield are the two players who seem to come up the most consistently and I can see the case for both, although I’m more partial to the latter. From a pure best-player-available standpoint, I’m intrigued by Alex Newhook as well. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to know who will remain on the board when the Canucks make their selection. I will say this much: there’s a significant drop-off in defensive talent after Bowen Byram, and I’m not convinced there’s a defenseman available at 10 that would warrant such a high selection.

Your guess is as good as mine. Things have been very quiet on that front since Francesco Aquilini threw cold water on reports he had interest in Dean Lombardi and Mike Gillis. Among remaining candidates, I would say someone like Ron Hextall or Ron Francis would make the most sense, but I honestly have no idea what direction the Canucks are going to go in.

I can see the thinking here- Pulock is 24, a proven right-handed defenseman, and due for a big raise in 2020- but I just don’t see the Islanders parting ways with him. They’re not in a cap crunch yet, and Dobson had a bit of a down year in the QMJHL and is likely to spend some time in the AHL next season. Even if we accept the premise that he’ll be pushing for a spot next year and the Islanders will be looking to make room, the Islanders would only have to scratch Scott Mayfield of bury his 1 million and change contract in the AHL to make that happen.

The Islanders are an up-and-coming team that surprised a lot of people by making a run to the second round this year and are likely to try and build on that success. Their right side would look pretty bare without Pulock, so I don’t think they’d be eager to move him at a price the Canucks can afford.

Aside from Thatcher Demko, who looks all but guaranteed to take on full-time backup duties next year behind Jacob Markstrom, there’s Mikey DiPietro, who had a strong year in the OHL and is likely Utica bound next season, and Jake Kielly, a promising longshot out of Clarkson University in the NCAA, who’s likely to start the season in the ECHL. There’s also Matthew Thiessen, but he’s basically an afterthought at this stage. He’ll have to significantly improve on his .889 save percentage in the USHL before he gets any serious consideration for an ELC.

I don’t see it working with just 31 teams. I think you’d have to get the AHL involved and at that point you run the risk of diluting the talent in the league. I may be biased here, but I also think that Americans are unlikely to find the threat of being relegated anything other than a nuisance, rather than it increasing the game’s entertainment value.

I’ll be honest, I’m mildly skeptical of the methodology of the WAR models that are out there right now. I often find that the ways individual inputs are weighed against one another are either counter-intuitive or difficult to understand. To some extent, that’s on me for not taking the time to understand the inner workings, but at the same time, for a tool to be adopted by the mainstream it has to be easy enough to explain to the average person.

The EvolvingWild twins and Emmanuel Perry’s models each have massive descriptive value, but I think they’re also still in the process of improving their predictive value. As far as cutting-edge work being done in the field of hockey analytics, I really respect Micah Blake McCurdy and what he’s been doing with Threat. That has a lot to do with the fact that Micah is such an effective communicator.

I would guess somewhere in the neighbourhood of 6 years at 7 million per. I think contracts are going to trend towards shorter deals as agents get smarter and look to maximize their clients’ paydays by getting them to market earlier. Boeser might even leave money on the table to do so, depending on what his personal desires are. Either way, I will be surprised if the term surpasses 6 years.

If the Canucks want to make a big move without making a big move, trading Virtanen makes a lot of sense. The Canucks could easily come out winners if they were to trade him for a young, underperforming defender of similar pedigree and perceived upside. I’m not convinced Maatta is that guy, though. He’s had parts of six seasons now to prove himself and he just never really took that next step. Even if he’s your guy, I’m not sure the Penguins would part with him. That blueline is looking mighty thin these days.

I don’t think so. The closest we’ve seen to a “trap” team in the postseason is the New York Islanders, who were just ousted unceremoniously by the much more offensive-minded Hurricanes in four games. The Blue Jackets definitely play a slightly more “old-school” brand of hockey than we’ve been accustomed to from teams in the final eight, but they are anything but passive. If anything, we might see increased emphasis on aggressive forechecking, but we’re a long way off from returning to the dead puck era.

I don’t get it either, man. A friend of mine is in this great band, and I always think of a line from one of their songs when Lucky Lager comes up:

I think there’s a segment of Vancouver Island that feels as though Lucky is tied inextricably to a sense of up-island working class identity. It’s also what a lot of guys quite literally grew up drinking. For anyone who lives north of Shawnigan Lake, grew up sneaking off into the woods for bush parties, and never left their hometown, I think Lucky is a reminder of a simpler time. That was as good as things got for a lot of us, and I think it helps some people hold on to a piece of their youth, whether they realize it or not.

It still sucks, though.

I don’t think NHL free agency is going to be too terribly affected. A few teams might get into an arms race and someone might overpay for Micheal Ferland, but that had a high chance of happening anyway. At the draft, we could see more movement. My gut says Tampa will stay the course, but the Capitals, Penguins, Predators, and Flames can’t be happy with how things went and might be looking to shake things up. The Canucks, as always, don’t really have a lot of assets to work with and seem reluctant to part ways with the expendable assets they do have, so I wouldn’t expect them to be in on any action. At best, we’ll just see them throw more money around in free agency.