So, I guess this is going to become a weekly thing during the offseason?

We are back with another CanucksArmy roundtable. I’ve sent out four questions to our contributors and they have sent in their answers.

If you have a question that you think could bring up an interesting discussion, leave it in the comments section and if it’s great, I’ll use it for the next roundtable article.

Let’s get to this week’s questions and answers.

It’s roundtable time!

No.

Controversial take incoming.

When it comes to jerseys, the Canucks are like U2: They still haven’t found what they’re looking for. They’ve had some fine jerseys over the years, but the sheer disparity in designs is evidence enough that they have yet to hit on something that is truly all-time iconic. So, keep trying. There are so many colour combinations and design schemes possible. Move forward, not back. In a few years, trot out a whole new jersey design, see if it hits, and if not, repeat again in a decade or so.

I would only approve of a switch to the flying skate full-time if a modernized white flying skate jersey came with it.

#FreeAllTheSkates.

No.

Maybe in my younger years, I’d think this was a good idea, but having dedicated black skate throwback nights is something I’d like to keep. Keep them as the third and please never go back to wearing them once or twice a year, but those things are awesome. Don’t think I want them back full time. Save the white jerseys for when the NHL inevitably makes teams come up with a third reverse retro for next season.

Absolutely not.

What makes the Skate jersey fun is the rarity of it all. When the Canucks brought the Skate back last season, they had to cram a lot of third jersey nights into the back half of the calendar after the Reverse Retros took over in the first. By the last few games in April, I was already getting pretty tired of seeing red, yellow and black every other night.

That’s why they’re perfect as a third jersey with a more spread-out schedule. The Black Skate offers a nice alternative option to the orca uniforms every so often, but the Canucks are hopefully a green and blue team for good now.

I would not want the team to make the switch to the black skate jerseys full-time. The blue and green jerseys give me a distinct Pacific Northwest feeling and the Canucks have already gone through so many different colour schemes. There is no reason to switch it once again. Keep the Skate jersey as a nice change of pace.

No.

I think permanently switching to the Black Skate jerseys would run the magic and nostalgia they currently hold. Let them be the third jersey, and throw them into the rotation more often, instead. The Canucks have been rocking the blue for long enough, a switch back to the black would be relatively pointless unless it marks a monumental shift in the current era, and the team is not there quite yet.

Yeah, I would 100% be down for the Canucks to go with the Black Flying Skate jersey as their full-time home jersey. I believe it’s better than the current blue jersey and though the flying skate logo is a bit more complicated, the overall kit looks so much meaner than the current home jersey.

The flying skate kit is simply better than the Canucks’ current uniform situation and I’d love to see those dirty mustard yellow jerseys even come back for an alternate. It would be a complete rebranding from the Canucks and yeah, I’m super down for the change to the Flying Skate and I’d like the white jerseys to be back for their road kits.

No (controversial, I know). Personally, I like the skate for nostalgia, but the blue and green just works for the west coast vibe and fits Vancouver better. I don’t think the colour scheme makes sense to represent BC where we have forests, the sea, the blue snow-capped mountains, all that jazz. I think the Skate is good as a third and that’s pretty much about it.

Pun potential, for one. But more seriously, it’s just so nice and so weird to have the stats and analytics community point out a player that would be a perfect fit for the Canucks’ needs, and then to have them…go out and actually sign that player. And not to a $3mil x 4 years contract or anything silly like that, but to a nice, tidy little deal that won’t get in the way of anything. This reads as a no-lose signing and a much better example of the kind of move the Canucks have tried and failed to accomplish in the past.

The best aspect of Suter’s contract is that there is a second year on the deal at a low number. If Suter plays great? Excellent, the team has a surplus-value contract on its hands, a rarity given the past decade of bloated multi-year contracts dished out to forwards!If Suter plays just okay in 2023-24? That’s fine! A $1.6m forward won’t kill the club’s offseason preparations for 2024-25. Especially if the upper limit of the salary cap increases as much as most pundits expect.If Suter doesn’t play well in 2023-24, the team can bury part of his contract in Abbotsford or trade him.

At a relatively minor cap hit of $1.6-million, the Canucks should be able to come out ahead on a Suter “change of scenery.” Despite an underwhelming stint in Vancouver, Riley Stillman net the Canucks a 20-year-old winger in Josh Bloom near the trade deadline. Even in a down year in Vancouver, Suter could be a valuable deadline piece if the Canucks are in a position to sell.

That the Canucks’ season no longer hinges on if Teddy Blueger can be a third line centre, really. The Canucks’ overall centre depth improves thanks to the signing, but the best thing about the signing might be that the club didn’t overpay for a free agent bottom six centre.

The flexibility it gives the Canucks for their bottom six. With Suter and Teddy Blueger both capable of taking on a third line centre workload, it takes a lot of pressure off them both to do so for 82 games. You can throw them both on a line together and feel out who’s winning draws more consistently as you go.

The thing I like the most about the Suter signing is that it gives the Canucks another centre. I am not really a believer in Blueger as a legitimate middle-six centre as I don’t feel like he’s ever shown the offensive chops to hold that role. Suter pushes him down the depth chart and has more offensive pop.

If an injury were to occur, having Suter as a second-line centre isn’t nearly as bad as having Blueger play that role. While it’s not ideal, at least Suter has consistently scored around 15 goals in the NHL while Blueger has never broken double digits.

In a league full of superstars, you need your Pius Suter contracts. Otherwise, the teams with the best players would always win the Stanley Cup, when that’s not obviously the case. You can’t build upon a rocky foundation. Suter’s acquisitions gives the Canucks the flexibility to place him as the 3C and move Blueger down to the fourth line. More importantly, he’ll be a cornerstone on the penalty kill, as head coach Rick Tocchet wants Elias Pettersson to play less minutes short handed this season.

The fact that the Canucks were able to bring in a solid option at third-line centre and do it with an average annual value of $1,600,000 is a, say it with me, tidy piece of business.

Suter will provide some good defensive play on the third line and it seems like he will put in 14+ goals next season as well.

Ultimately, I just like the low-risk bet here on this deal.

More centre depth! Never hurts to have more, and I really love how cheap and smart the signing comes off. It just makes perfect sense to have someone take more load off the bottom 6, and hopefully he’ll be able to step in the PK as well on top of everything. It is a Swiss Army Knife situation and I think this team can’t get enough of that.

I think the blueline prospects are going to be the most exciting to follow because there are some real immediate opportunities for all of them on the big roster. Elias Pettersson (it’s D-Petey, Stephan…) should be on his way to North America after this year, and with Hughes being the only long-term solution on LHD, the door is wide open.

The same could be said for Tom Willander, who seems to have a spot waiting for him alongside Quinn Hughes. The quicker and better these players develop, the sooner they make an impact at the NHL level, and the sooner the “real” shape of the Canucks as a contender can take form. Every step along the way is worth watching.

Jonathan Lekkerimäki.

After such a disastrous D+1 campaign, it’ll be fascinating to see how he performs now that he is fully healthy and playing up one tier from the HockeyAllsvenskan with Orebro HK of the SHL.

Aku Koskenvuo should get more starts at Harvard and I’m intrigued to follow along with his overall development after a frustrating year in 22-23 where he didn’t get to play much. If Arturs Silovs counts, definitely him though.

Besides Arturs Silovs?

I really loved watching Aidan McDonough after he made the leap from college to the Canucks last season. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what he does in his first full year of pro hockey, be it mostly in Abbotsford or Vancouver.

Jack Rathbone is someone that I’m interested in following. To me, he’s at a make-or-break point where he will likely need a fresh start if he doesn’t make some serious noise. I’d like to see him thrive in the AHL and force his way into the NHL lineup at some point, especially if the Canucks have injuries.

Cop-out answer, but Tom Willander. Love the decision for him to develop his talent in the NCAA rather than in Sweden, which he’s been doing his entire life. He’ll be playing against some of the best first-round selection from his draft year, and alongside fellow Canucks draft pick Aidan Celebrini, and his younger brother, and projected number one pick in this year’s draft class, Macklin Celebrini. Have to have eyes on your first-round pick.

It’s got to be the new shiny object in Tom Willander.

Willander may be partnered up with one of the most dynamic NCAA defenceman in the world with Lane Hutson and it’s going to be great to watch Willander play with Hutson, who has many similar strengths at the NCAA level comparable to Quinn Hughes. We all want to see Willander develop into Hughes’ partner one day and next season will give us a great viewing of that development as Willander heads to Boston University.

It’s also a nice little bonus for me that he is playing in the Eastern Time Zone instead of one of the European ones. More sleep is always cool.

Absolutely Willander. I know it’s a bit of a cop-out, but I just am very interested to see what steps he’ll take to improve his game, and most of all I’m curious how his play will transition to north american and the NCAA. It’s pretty rare to see a Swede go from SHL/Allsvenskan play to college hockey, and I think that will be something interesting to follow as the year progresses.

Are we grading on a curve? Because the bar is pretty low. But either way, it’s hard to find much to complain about in Allvin’s work this offseason.

All the players targeted were great fits and signed to non-obtrusive contracts. Nobody is on the books for an unfortunate amount of time. Aside from OEL, that is, but the decision to buy him out was also the correct one. Maybe one could argue that Allvin should have done more, but there’s also something to be said about avoiding doing “too much.” This isn’t a roster that can be fixed in a single offseason, and to try to do so is fruitless and potentially damaging. Allvin played this one right.

There’s no home-run acquisition worth the highest grade, but we can’t give him any less than a solid “B” based on what he did do.

B-

Keep in mind, the bar is so so so so so so so so so low. It was a perfectly safe offseason following a regular season that saw the team operate like they had never once sat fifth-last in the NHL. It was great to see the club not mortgage their future to land UFAs that only help the club win now. That being said, the “safe offseason” was rather odd, given how the club’s actions during the regular season seemed so heavily geared toward “winning now.”

B+

B+

I don’t love all of the big swings Allvin and the front office took at the draft, but they recovered really well with all their low risk, low cost signings in free agency. That being said, the biggest piece of business Allvin had on the checklist this summer – signing Elias Pettersson to a long term extension – is really what’s keeping my grade from being a solid ‘A’.

I’ll give a B+/A-.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the draft, especially when it came to some of the picks in the middle rounds. However, I find it hard to be against any of the moves made in free agency and quite like a lot of the signings. Allvin has a difficult job and it’s going to take time to get out of this mess but I like the progress he made this offseason.

B/B+

The Canucks were heavy on Willander for quite some time. Unsurprisingly, they chose him, a little surprising they did so with the talent still left on the board. For one, it shows the Canucks’ dedication to developing their defence prospects, which has long been ignored. Soucy had an impressive season with the Kraken, he’s not quite as physical as Schenn, but a good replacement for Hughes on the right-side. Blueger’s a good addition to the fourth line, and a dupe for the Lazar contract last offseason. I do, however, have a sneaky suspicion Ian Cole’s going to be out with an injury for a month or more this season (knock on wood). Suter’s a definitive plus, but I don’t like the Canucks’ goaltender situation. Hometown boy Martin Jones would have been a nice addition, and a cheap one at that.

I would say a solid B. It’s a surprisingly smart offseason for the Canucks, not dishing out hefty contracts and signing some needed depth as well as picking up cheap options to round out the roster. I wouldn’t say that he’s crushed it in other departments though, and Vancouver still finds itself in the mushy middle with many other pressing issues. But, there’s only so much that can be done in the offseason, and for now, Allvin has done a solid job in my books.

A-

There have been some good additions to fill the most obvious needs of this Canucks team. Allvin addressed the penalty kill by adding Carson Soucy, Ian Cole, Teddy Blueger, and Pius Suter in free agency. I actually think the Canucks had one of their best free agent signing periods in a long time.

As for trades, we have not seen one this offseason. The last move was when the Canucks traded away Dan Milstein’s client Wyatt Kalynuk for future considerations on March 3rd.

There’s not really a move that I was frustrated with this summer. I thought that buying out Oliver Ekman-Larsson was the best for this team moving forward and I was surprised that the Canucks actually pulled the trigger on that move.

Moving on from a winger contract and Tyler Myers’ $6,000,000 cap hit would bump my grade up a bit and I’m not holding the trading Myers’ money situation against Allvin because I believe he will have a lot more options once the bonus is paid to Myers on September 1st.

The one reason this drops down to a A- instead of an A is the later picks in the draft, which likely don’t matter that much but I thought the Canucks left some real good talent on the board in the third round especially. Hopefully these guys pan out and I’m just the dumb blogger and they are the scouts but time will tell. I won’t forget about this article, that’s for sure.

That wraps up another Roundtable article here at CanucksArmy.

We will be back again next week with a new crop of questions and answers.