Remember when Christian Ehrhoff was a Vancouver Canuck? Those were good times. He put up points and he drove play while he was here, and I know a lot of our readers were in favour of bringing him back if the price was right.

Well, we found out the price was extremely right yesterday; but the team of choice, not so much. Why do good things happen to the Los Angeles Kings? It’s not fair. Anyway, you all had some mailbag questions, so lets get to those.

Here’s the thing, though; Bonino’s “good last season” was a repeat. He only had three more even strength points than the year prior, and had a near-equal points per sixty. He did do it with a closer-to-average shooting percentage and under tougher deployment, but his time with the Canucks could be argued to be the very affirmation that you desire.

That said, the Canucks feel that they’re getting a great asset in Brandon Sutter. Are they right? I don’t think so, and many are also skeptics, but I suppose the possibility is there. But it’s a safe bet to assume Bonino to be a 1.75-2.00 P60 guy moving forward, and seeing as he’ll be used as a depth scorer by the Penguins, I’m sure they’re happy with that.

In regards to Jake Virtanen: “Projected NHL arrival: 2015-16”. I’m a bit more optimistic about Virtanen’s NHL potential than most people are, but does it make sense to rush him? You can argue that he doesn’t have a to prove in the WHL, but seeing as he didn’t get a full season is and didn’t entirely light up the league, it might not hurt to give him another run to really grow his offensive game. Playing low minutes with the Canucks isn’t going to help him very much.

Oh, nice, a Twitter parody trying to get involved. That’s, uhh, very original. Anyway, we can still have some fun with this question, since Las Vegas and Quebec City are both making their way through the process and could get teams, let’s create a fantasy world where a draft happens right now.

Based on the rules in 2000 (Minnesota/Columbus), the Canucks would be allowed to protect either nine forwards, five defencemen, and a goaltender, or seven forwards, three defencemen, or two goaltenders. I’m going to choose the former. Players who haven’t played two years of pro are not eligible to be snatched (aka, no need to protect the likes of Bo Horvat, Hunter Shinkaruk, or Brendan Gaunce).

I’m protecting the Sedins, Radim Vrbata, Alex Burrows, Jannik Hansen, Sven Baertshi, Brandon Sutter (a team would still give up assets for him, even if you dislike him), Linden Vey, and Chris Higgins up front. On defence, I protect Alex Edler, Dan Hamhuis, Chris Tanev, Yannick Weber, and Frank Corrado. In net, I’m protecting Jacob Markstrom (low cap hit).

One of the teams will surely take Ryan Miller to get to the cap floor and have a “veteran between the pipes”; Minnesota did this with Chris Terreri and Mike Vernon, while Columbus did this with Dwayne Roloson (who somehow ended up playing another decade) and Rick Tabaracci. Somebody else also probably takes Luca Sbisa, causing somebody else to have a party. From there, teams are only allowed to take forwards; I imagine Derek Dorsett and Brandon Prust get picked up, and maybe a few fringe Utica guys as well. 

This is all on a ten minute brainstorm, so you could probably do better than this with more effort.

I really want to make the comment section on here a habitable place. I love that we’re active and conversational here, but there’s a lot of hostility towards writers and other commenters that has to stop. We’re definitely going to start deleting parts of, if not full comments that are overly hostile, and we’ll be trying to make sure that people stick to topics at hands.

This will happen more starting next week; I’m still transitioning from the day job to the desk but gain full attention by the end of the weekend. But we’re already starting to pick off bits and pieces – if you see something that we haven’t caught, don’t hesitate to tweet to us linking to the offending comment and we’ll address it if it’s problematic.

Keep in mind that we won’t censor stupid; if someone says something that you heavily disagree with but it pertains to the content and isn’t hateful, we’re not going to delete it so you can feel “more correct” in your assessments. That would be even more stupid.

Just be happy we let you out of your cage from time to time.