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CanucksArmy Monday Mailbag: March 5th — Part Deux
Vancouver Canucks mailbag
Photo credit: Matthew Henderson
J.D. Burke
Mar 6, 2018, 21:56 EST
Comments
It’s hard to imagine that there’s anyone in the NHL that’s eager to take on Loui Eriksson and his albatross of a contract. Frankly, it’s looking like such a bad contract right now that the Canucks might have to part with a draft pick at some point to rid themselves of it.
Best-case scenario, the Canucks retain the maximum allowable salary (50%) on Eriksson’s contract and perhaps a team desperate to hit the salary cap floor bites for a song. Seeing as Eriksson’s contract is buyout proof, that’s about the only way I see the Canucks getting out from under it.
Had I run the Monday Mailbag on time, on Monday, I would’ve voted no on this one. Now that Brock Boeser’s season is essentially over, it seems like a virtual guarantee that Mat Barzal will win it. Barzal is playing out of this world hockey this year and doing it at a premium position without the benefit of massively inflated percentages — he’s earned it.
That’s not exactly a knock on Boeser, who’s played amazing hockey in his own right. I just don’t think I can make an objective case for Boeser as being more deserving than Barzal.
I can’t guarantee you that the Canucks will part with Chris Tanev in the offseason or not, but it’s more likely than it’s ever been. As for the return, I can see the Canucks getting a first-round pick and a high-end prospect.
Here’s the thing about Adam Gaudette: almost every team in the NHL has a prospect of his quality in their system. That said, not every team can find a Gaudette in the fifth-round, and I think that’s what’s special about him.
As for whether the hype is real, I guess that depends on what level of hype we’re talking. If you talk to amateur talent evaluators and people in the prospects community, they almost unanimously see someone who’s going to be a good middle-six forward at the NHL level. Some won’t even rule out the possibility that he’s a good second-line centre.
That’s more or less how I see the Gaudette situation panning out. That’s worth getting hyped about, but not too hyped.
No. Also, thanks for your many questions.
My first move would be to gauge market interest in everyone on my team save for Brock Boeser and Bo Horvat and move accordingly. I’d strip this team down to the foundation.
I wouldn’t bet on them beating the Russian team; I’ll tell you that.
I just don’t think there would have been much of a market for Reid Boucher. This is a player that’s cleared waivers this season after all. You can apply the same sort of thinking to most if not all Comets wingers.
I wouldn’t think it the worst decision if the Canucks re-signed the Sedin twins. I just wouldn’t do it myself. The Canucks need to find a way to maximize their asset collection by whatever means possible. That could mean using the cap space and roster spots that the Canucks might allocate for the Sedin twins on younger veteran forwards on one-year deals that they can flip at the deadline.
I don’t even disagree with your assessment of the Sedins. That said, they’re getting quite old, and it’s not a given that they perform as they have this season next year.
I think we’re all slaves to a capitalist hellscape that forces us to compromise our dreams in the pursuit of money on a regular basis. So, no, we’re not free. Eat Arby’s.
As someone who loves intense, rivalry-driven hockey, I’m pretty excited by the prospect of a rivalry between Vancouver and Seattle. And I think it might be there pretty quickly too because they’re both going to be getting good at about the same time.
The Canucks front office has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to random picks out of the United States that make almost no sense on the surface — Gaudette, Will Lockwood, and so on. That said, I don’t know if I would’ve made the call for Jack Rathbone in the fourth-round. That pick and the sixth-rounder they used on Kristoffer Gunnarsson are the only two from last year’s draft that seemed ill-advised to me.
Like you said, Rathbone is such an unknown, and it’s really hard to track high-school hockey players progress and how it relates to their chances of an NHL career. This is especially true for someone playing high-school hockey in their draft-plus-one season. I guess we’ll have to #waitandsee on Rathbone.
I don’t know if I place a tonne of value on goals ahead of assists when I’m comparing two players. To me, it’s more about possessing a different skill set, not a superior or inferior one. Besides, Barzal is still going to finish the season with probably 20-plus goals anyway.
Reid Boucher, who the Canucks recalled from the Utica Comets earlier today. I want to see this guy get a real shot. Boucher might not be a top-six difference maker, but I think one could do a lot worse than Boucher in their 13th forward spot.

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