WWYDW: 7th Overall

Let’s cut to the chase. It’s the moment everyone has been waiting for.

Last week I asked: if you’re the Canucks, do you move up, move down, or stand pat?

If you are looking at drafting a forward, you stand pat or move up.

If you want a dman, unless you have the foa pick, you trade down.

bpa sounds nice but dmen are such a crap shoot.

Buffalo’s not trading the #1 unless they get an obscene haul (Boeser, Petterson, the #7, potentially more).

I would love to see the Canucks move down – perhaps significantly – if it meant acquiring another 1st round pick. There will be several players available around #15 with the potential to be impact NHLers. If you could pick at 15 and 20, for example, rather than 7, I’d do that in a heartbeat given the depth of the 1st round this year. I can’t imagine Benning making a move like that, though – it’s too new-school for him, and he’s desperate to land an impact defenceman.

This is difficult to answer as it really depends where you are moving to and what is being offered in return. Without really knowing those particulars it is similar to going on a bind date, you find out when you meet if it was a good idea. With that said I wouldn’t be opposed to moving down for the right return depending on who was left on the board. If Wahlstrom is there I think you have to take him. If not and you can move back and still get a decent D man plus sweetener, do it.

I think the idea of surplus picks is fine for the later rounds but in the first round you go with the highest you have. I wouldn’t go for a higher slot because the cost is too much for a rebuilding franchise to bear. But dropping out of the top ten is a non-starter for me. I just don’t see evidence that this works as a strategy. In Horvat’s year, pretty much every pick from 1-9 yielded an excellent-to-solid NHLer. Picks 10-20 have a couple of good players (Mantha and Morrissey, maybe Wennberg) but really nothing like the quality of those top 9. 2014 is a similar kind of story; way more of a chance to hit a home run with the higher pick. I’d stand pat and see if anyone above us makes a weird pick. If Wahlstrom or Hughes falls to us we will be in heaven; but even if not, the drop-off between the 2nd and 3rd tiers and all beneath them is substantial.

The only team that I would trade down would be the Islanders if they were willing to trade their two first rounders for 7 overall. Two talented players will still be available at picks 11 and 12.

Even then I would do it only if the player they had their eye on (Dobson, Wahlstrom or whoever) had already been picked.

Once you understand how much moving up would cost the Canucks its easy to dismiss it and to me, make the idea of trading down even more attractive. I would be happy to move down up to 5 spots or less as long as the Canucks could take Ty Smith out of Spokane. Add in a 2nd and a prospect or a 2nd + 3rd etc for trading down and I think it helps the Canucks rebuild along more than just the #7 pick.

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