I had a realization on the way home today. My income is defined by the words that I say in reaction to watching the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs play. They are the only two teams that haven’t made it to ten wins yet.

Please buy me hard liquor for Christmas.

The simple answer? You don’t fill the holes. 

Drance waxed poetic in his farewell post to Josh and MP today, and while my thoughts have mostly been placed on Reddit and Twitter, I share a lot of the same sentiments. These guys are two of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Despite only physically meeting Josh once and doing the bulk of my interactions with MP through Slack and Twitter, I’ve learned an immense amount from them and they’ve changed the way I see the game, specifically when it comes to player development.

We’re not going to sit here and say, “we need a coder and an analyst to make a counterfeit PCS right now”. We are not going to try to create a new Josh Weissbock and a new Money Puck. But we’re going to continue scouring all avenues to find the top up-and-coming talent out there, and we’re going to be giving all the opportunity in the world to the current writing staff in the coming months.

Something that both Josh and MP did that made them as great as they were, much like the wave before them, was that they rooted their work in asking questions. I feel that the new generation of public hockey research is missing this; many spew out data for the sake of data, but don’t apply it to a case study or ask questions about the process that leads to the data. Keeping a tradition of experimentation, curiosity, and discontent is my number one priority for not just myself, but for the site and something I’d like to spill into all of our peers and “competitors”.

The current staff already does an excellent job with this. They’re all students of the game who want to learn. Dimitri’s return gives us an expert. The two JD’s (Jerk and Davis) are never satisfied with any solution either. That’s just to name a few; even the members of the staff that aren’t seen as analytics types have the type of curiosity that makes Canucks Army what it is today.

Even if it’s not exactly the same work, we aim to continue to be the biggest pests to the status quo in new hockey media. Prospects and player development will still play a huge role into that, naturally, and Jeremy plans on continuing the prospect reports into the future.

We do not. MP and Josh took PCS with them, which, given that it’s their model, is completely fair. As suggested in the last post, we’re going to aim to break ground on new methods of unbiased evaluation of player development, but you won’t see PCS or a direct clone of it come from us or, well, any platform.

Johansen is obviously a golden child in this city, given his local roots and his fantastic talents. At the same time, he plays a position that the Canucks are quite deep in. With Henrik Sedin likely to play out the last few years of his career here and the likes of Bo Horvat, Jared McCann, and a potential high draft pick in the mix, centre doesn’t appear to be the most pressing need for the club right now.

Obviously, you look into it if he hits the open market and the price is right. But an aggressive push? That’s tricky.

Mediocrity. Back and forth streaks, a barely missed playoffs, and false hope for both Desjardins and Benning as neither get the hook as a result of the team never completely falling off the rails in the process. Due to a positive pendulum swing in late February, the Darkest Timeline Canucks do a minor buy at the deadline instead of a sale.

Absolutely not. The Canadian hero factor of Eberle is cancelled out by the Russian Factor of Yakupov. For there to be any hope of this deal going through, I think each team has to add a piece. Linden Vey can head to Edmonton while Connor McDavid makes his way to Vancouver. The return’s Canada ratio is thus repaired, and the trade can be made.

Goals scored by Vancouver in their losses: 2, 3, 1, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 1, 2, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0.

Miller and Markstrom are running just below the league average save percentage right now, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, they aren’t all-out losing the Canuck games. Yes, they could be doing a lot better, but the Canucks should probably score more  in those losses before anyone whines that they’ve done all they could.

I checked in with my sources around the various leagues, and after much effort, I finally nailed it down. While Josh and MP talked to many teams far and wide, the two decided that the best choice for them was Carl Neill. The club’s “we’re all in this as a singularity” philosophy enticed the pair more than money ever could.

I’ll miss you guys, I really will. 

You can bet on the NHL at Sports Interaction by following these 3 easy steps: