
BUZZ! The first period of the Young Stars tournament’s last game is over, and… well, the Canucks are losing 1-0 to the Flames. That’s a bit of a shame, but they still have forty minutes to figure things out. While you wait for them to hit the ice once again, let’s take a look at some of the questions that have popped up in the mailbag this week!
@MadCard05 asked: Best case and worst case scenario for Frank Corrado this year?
The best case scenario would be for him to make the Canucks, stay there, and earn his minutes. He’s shown degrees of NHL readiness in his prior stints, and you can argue that there isn’t a ton left for him to learn in Utica, so the best thing you can hope for is that he’s made the strides in his development necessary to stick around.
The worst case scenario would be for him to stick with the Canucks, but as a #7, rarely getting regular play time. He needs to see as much ice time as possible; I’d rather him play 76 games for the Comets than 27 with the Canucks.
@nas19ua asked: What’s your best way scenario for Virtanen’s development? Let him earn his spot with Dorsett or shelter him with the Twins?
The best-case long term scenario for Virtanen is to be a perfect compliment for the Sedins; a guy who will crash the net and take care of loose pucks, someone who will bounce around along the boards and clear room for his linemates, yet someone who has the hockey IQ to be a skilled player in his own right.
So naturally, it makes more sense for him to play with them than on a grinder line, where he’ll improve the “icing on the cake” rather than becoming a better cake. That said, there’s a lot of competition, and you can’t just gift wrap him a spot if he doesn’t deserve it. We’ll have a better idea as the full camp progresses.
@BertTheTank asked: Do you think Canucks fans are finicky because we want to win a cup and think making the playoffs just to be out in the first round is useless? Should we suck it up about winning cups and just enjoy wins?
Yes and no. Making the playoffs shouldn’t be considered “enough”, but at the same time, the playoffs themselves require just as much luck and sudden streaks as they do skill, if not more. If you build a team that perennially competes for the Presidents Trophy and they lose in the first round, you can’t really be happy about that, but it’s that’s a better team and one that’s more likely to succeed in a bigger sample than a team that barely makes it into the playoffs and overachieves a little.
Enjoy the wins, but always shoot for more wins. Even if you win the cup, nothing is “good enough” until you go 82-0-0 and sweep the playoffs every year. Never settle.
@BertTheTank also asked: Hunter Shinkaruk has so much skill, but at what point do you have to see production and not use injury as excuse?
This may come as an overly obvious answer, but you can stop complaining about the injury factor when the injury factor goes away. A healthy season will put the eyeballs on his actual performance. Obviously, the end goal is to get that combination of health, talent, and results, but for now, the latter won’t take care of the middle until the most former is taken care of.
@TheFlopFish asked: Who wins a 7 game series between the Canucks and Leafs?
The KHL. Because it would take a sudden mass exodus of talent from this league for the Leafs to make the playoffs, let alone win three playoff rounds.