Plays of the Week: February 12th, 2017

“No matter which metric you prefer for defenceman, Larsen’s teams generally fare about as well with him on the ice as off. For a third pair defenceman, that’s about all you can ask. And that’s probably all Larsen is anyways, so mission accomplished.”

“Burrows’ low salary could make him an appealing add for internal budget teams, especially given there’s no commitment beyond this season. Hansen’s versatility and affordability beyond this season could draw interest from any team in the chase.”

“The few explanations that we can come up with might reflect poorly on Gaudette’s character – flunking classes, a poor attitude, less than desirable behaviour at school – so instead of speculating on something that we have absolutely no evidence of, we’ll just have to admit that we don’t know why he wasn’t nominated at this point.”

“They cannot afford to go through another trade deadline with no moves that accumulate assets. That issue would snowball with the upcoming expansion draft, and that’s a situation the Canucks have to avoid.”

This is incredibly simple, but because it’s been stated so many times and hasn’t been put into practice yet, I’m going to use really big font to get my point across.

STOP OVERPLAYING RYAN MILLER

“Based on all the information above,  we can conclude that the Canucks are able to ‘control’ Virtanen’s workouts more within the season. However, once it is not within the ‘Regular Season’ or ‘Training Camp’ then it’s up to the player to control their workout and nutrition plans.”

“For the time being, it’s still very much Tanev & friends on the Canucks’ blue line. The team has made important strides to improve it’s back end, but still have neither the depth nor quality in their system for it to be considered a strength in any more than an extremely relative sense.”