Monday Mailbag: Two sport Loui, Focht talk, and what to expect from Nils Höglander at training camp

Another week, another mailbag.

I’m covering for David Quadrelli because he is busy streaming video games as you could have guessed from the contents of last week’s mailbag. Rumour has it that he has been skipping his 11 PM lasagna sessions to play “Be a Pro” goalie on Playstation with 2-5 Twitch viewers. Editor’s note: We’re doing Be a Pro and HUT now, thank you very much. 

Kids now-a-days I tell ya…

I always have a blast covering for Dave and I had my lasagna for dinner already.

Let’s see what you wonderful people asked this week!

Ya sorry Mike, it’s taken a bit to get to this question because Carson Focht is one of the Canucks prospects who is not currently playing games and with that, he has fallen to the back of our minds a bit. Blame Quads though, he does most of these.

I’ll get straight to the point with Focht. He’s a fine prospect. He played well in his draft year and picking him in the fifth round was a nice swing for the Canucks who need as many centres in their prospect system as possible. I would love to see him compete in some AHL games before making a serious assessment on his talent as the WHL and specifically his Calgary Hitmen team is tough to judge. Last season, Focht was fourth in scoring out of the forwards in Calgary and though he had some notable offensive outbursts throughout the season, the tape just doesn’t scream NHL talent to me.

I’d like to see a bit more momentum gained on his stride but that is something that a lot of players his age need to work on. The thing is that some players just have that power with each kick but to me it takes a bit too long for him to get up to full speed. I think it’s something he can work on and I hope he does before he lands in professional hockey.

I’ll need to see how his adjustment to the AHL is, but he is a good-sized centreman who does a solid job in the faceoff circle. His shot is something to be desired and if he and Dmitri Zlodeyev are the top two centres for the Utica Comets in a couple years, it will give the Canucks some flexibility with their potential call-ups for the 2022-23 season.

He will be fun to follow for the next couple of years though. I spoke with him last year and he was a great kid who was doing some pretty great things for his community off the ice along with his teammate Jett Woo. They are involved in the Hockey Gives Blood initiative.

Ya, I wasted my Saturday watching a YouTuber and a former NBA star have a boxing match.

I would bet that any former Canucks player aside from Mason Raymond should beat Jake Paul in a boxing match and the only reason I don’t think Raymond would be able to win is because he shouldn’t put his pretty face anywhere near a boxing glove.

Currently, I’d have a fresh 50 dollar bill on any Canucks player in a fight against that YouTube dude.

Easiest question ever.

It’s Loui Eriksson.

Watch him make former Canuck Jacob Markstrom look like a newborn fawn on ice with his dominant ping pong skills.

I hear he’s good at soccer too.

I would give up breakfast food for life if I could get a 45-minute interview with Vasili Podkolzin.

Pancakes are overrated and bacon is an all-day food.

Goodbye to cereal, eggs and hashbrowns. I’d miss waffles and hollandaise sauce though.

1C: Pettersson

2C: Horvat

3C: Gaudette

4C: Zlodeyev

Gaudette will need to grow as a C to be a consistent third-line contributor otherwise he could find himself as the 4C and the Canucks could look outside of their organization to fill that role.

Zlodeyev fits the future mold for a fourth-line centre. I really hope he develops into an NHL calibre one.

Dis Fabrelli

It would double for our artist name as an EDM duo that rivals Daft Punk with its funky tunes.

Pettersson may have looked good against the On the Bench boys but it has to be this man.

Alright, let’s get this train back on the tracks and close out with some actual hockey stuff.

The situation with Nils Höglander and Rögle BK has been good so far. He has been getting time in the top six but still only plays around 12-15 minutes every game. He’s not really a player that the coach trusts in the final few minutes of a game and he is still only getting power play time in half of the games this season.

The 5-on-5 play has been outstanding — we all know about his excellent skills with the puck on his stick — but he has impressed me with his ability to control the possession of the puck. He has one of the highest Corsi for percentages in all of the SHL and that was something that he wanted to work on last season. When I spoke to him last he said that it was time for him to start scoring more points and before the COVID-19 outbreak to Rögle, he was doing just that.

There are only a handful of games left for Höglander before his loan expires. With the Covid situation at Rögle and the team making cuts to player salary, I wonder if that opens a door for him to be travelling to Vancouver sooner than the projected date of December 13th.

I think he will compete at camp and surprise a few people. I’ve been saying it for months, he is a dominant practice player and could earn a spot if he is able to compete at camp and then look up to speed in some preseason action.

Thanks for coming by to check out this week’s Monday mailbag! Some real hockey news should be coming down the pipe pretty soon here and we are getting giddy just thinking about it here at CanucksArmy.

Dave will be back with next week’s so be sure to follow him on Twitter and send in your questions on Sunday!