[PGT] Holy Cow we did Things!! - Free Agency Thread - July 1st

[fuzzy]

Overall, I'm glad they didn't throw around big money and huge term on mid level players. They made wise signings, adding players with size, speed, and upside. I like that they kept some cap space for another move or two.

[Ghostsof1915]

I find it interesting we're seeing a tale of two cities. Pittsburgh selling off pieces, bit by bit. Then Washington pulling out all the stops so that Ovi breaks the record, and has a chance to make a splash in the playoffs.

[tas]

11 minutes ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

I find it interesting we're seeing a tale of two cities. Pittsburgh selling off pieces, bit by bit. Then Washington pulling out all the stops so that Ovi breaks the record, and has a chance to make a splash in the playoffs.

I'd say sid could stick around for the first few years of a retool, whereas ovi's on his last legs. 

[fuzzy]

Mgmt was smart to lock up the core early to allow us to focus on supplementary players. They didn't go crazy on bloated contracts and term for ufas. This will allow us to take advantage of alot of teams that did. Good players will be available for pennies on the dollar either later in the summer or during the season.

[Lady Blue Green]

 

 

Today @ 9:04 AM ET   I stole this from another fan site. But it is interesting and seems to confirm that JG was never a real target. Yes, had he hit FA they would have kicked the tires but were more inclined, given the cap they had to work with, to pursue Debrusk as their number one target for the top six.

Some interesting tidbits from Drance:   1. Jake DeBrusk appears to have been the Canucks’ top target The Canucks never attempted to trade for Jake Guentzel’s signing rights. While Canucks brass loves the player and would’ve found a way to make it work if Guentzel had made it to free agency, and been open to coming out West, the club was concerned with how adding a $9-$10 million cap hit to the books might impact the team’s balance. All along they preferred the younger, more affordable option of Jake DeBrusk to punch up their top-six forward group. Obviously the Canucks kept a tight lid on information surrounding their intentions in free agency, to the point of breaking nearly all of their own signings themselves, but multiple team sources indicated to The Athletic once the dust settled on Monday that one of the reasons Vancouver didn’t try to trade for Guentzel’s rights is that DeBrusk was their primary top-six forward target all along.

Edited Tuesday at 01:29 PM by Lady Blue Green

[Googlie]

3 hours ago, stawns said:

While I'm happy they spread the cap around instead of big game hunting, I think they should have focused on really bolstering the defence.  PA dropped the ball their, imo.

 

C+, maybe a B

 

On Nov 30th, the day before we aquired Zad, our D was:

 

Hughes-Hronek

Cole- Myers

Friedman- Juulsen 

 

Is it better today?  By a country mile (and would still be better if we inserted Soucy in place of Cole and dropped Friedman

 

What was our record......

 

24 games, 15 wins, 8 losses. 1 OT loss.  31 points, tied for 2nd in Conference with Avs, behind Vegas,  tied 4th overall

1st in the entire league in goals for with 92, Avs next at 83

9th in the league in goals against at 61, but 3rd in Conference behind Kings and  Vegas 

1st overall in goal diff at +31

 

That was a good team before we aquired Zad.   Not extending him stings,  but we're a better-rounded team now than then.  110 points here we come!!

 

Good job well done by PA and his team

 

Edited Tuesday at 01:31 PM by Googlie
Spelling corrections

[Googlie]

Good summary ....

 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5609713/2024/07/01/canucks-free-agency-jake-debrusk/

[MeanSeanBean]

Man I hope we can get Sprong for a song like we did Suter

[-dlc-]

 

[Task]

I really liked Zadorov and it sucks that we couldn’t sign him. He was awesome in the playoffs. It seems like a bit of a waste of assets trading for lindholm and Zadorov. I’m glad they tried to bolster the roster for the playoffs it was fun. 
Some of these contracts are going to bite some of these teams in the ass but not the Canucks. 

There seemed to be too few high end players for how many spots teams had to fill this year. I know that’s the case every year but this year seemed tighter. 
I think we will be glad they went with the younger cheaper options.

i trust our coaching staff completely. This is the best coaching team I’ve ever seen on this team. They can get more out of any player. 
Go Canucks Go!

[Bob Long]

8 minutes ago, MeanSeanBean said:

Man I hope we can get Sprong for a song like we did Suter

 

I like the goals.... But would it be Kuzy all over again?

[timberz21]

1 hour ago, fuzzy said:

Mgmt was smart to lock up the core early to allow us to focus on supplementary players. They didn't go crazy on bloated contracts and term for ufas. This will allow us to take advantage of alot of teams that did. Good players will be available for pennies on the dollar either later in the summer or during the season.

 

Exactly, it didn't make sense to throw 5-6-7-8 years terms for a top 4 RHD when we just locked up Hronek and Willander is waiting in the pipeline.  We would've been stuck with that contract once Willander made the jump in the top 4.

 

Like you said, I think this is a good opportunity for the Canucks to acquire a good player for pennies (i.e. a righthanded Chychrun, with 1 or 2 year term left).  I'm sure other players like him will be available for cheap before training camp.  

[Nucker67]

So far, is the Forward group better than last season?

 

OUT - Lindholm, Mikheyev, Lafferty

IN - DeBrusk, Heinen, Sherwood, Smith

 

I would say yes. Lindholm wasn't very good in the regular season. He looked disinterested and didn't produce. He did play well in the playoffs and was very good at faceoffs, though. Mikheyev was a huge disappointment and had hands of stone. Lafferty failed to show up in the playoffs, where he should've excelled. 

 

DeBrusk is a Tocchet kind of player and he'll have every opportunity to rack up the points playing with Petey. He'll be way more engaged than Lindholm and Jake is just entering his prime. I don't know enough about Heinen, Sherwood and Smith, other than they're hard to play against and could fit right in.

 

Is the D better?

 

OUT - Zadorov, Cole

IN - Desharnais, Forbort

 

IMO, they're similar, other than the Canucks got a bit bigger. Desharnais might not be as entertaining on camera as Zadorov, but who cares. As long as he can hit like a truck and play good D. Cole cost a lot of playoff goals against and was slow.

 

The Demko-Silovs tandem next season should be one of the best.

 

 

 

[Bob Long]

4 minutes ago, Nucker67 said:

So far, is the Forward group better than last season?

 

OUT - Lindholm, Mikheyev, Lafferty

IN - DeBrusk, Heinen, Sherwood, Smith

 

I would say yes. Lindholm wasn't very good in the regular season. He looked disinterested and didn't produce. He did play well in the playoffs and was very good at faceoffs, though. Mikheyev was a huge disappointment and had hands of stone. Lafferty failed to show up in the playoffs, where he should've excelled. 

 

DeBrusk is a Tocchet kind of player and he'll have every opportunity to rack up the points playing with Petey. He'll be way more engaged than Lindholm and Jake is just entering his prime. I don't know enough about Heinen, Sherwood and Smith, other than they're hard to play against and could fit right in.

 

Is the D better?

 

OUT - Zadorov, Cole

IN - Desharnais, Forbort

 

IMO, they're similar, other than the Canucks got a bit bigger. Desharnais might not be as entertaining on camera as Zadorov, but who cares. As long as he can hit like a truck and play good D. Cole cost a lot of playoff goals against and was slow.

 

The Demko-Silovs tandem next season should be one of the best.

 

 

 

 

The F group is definitely better, more balanced. Losing Lindy on the PK and key matchups will hurt tho. But otoh, that bottom 6 could be amongst the best in the league shutting down opponents so we just have to wait and see.

 

The d feels like a bit of a project to me. If VD actually has upside that can be realized quickly (say by Dec) then maybe we have something solid there too.

 

[NHL97OneTimer]

6 hours ago, iinatcc said:

 

I don't think this team can afford to take a step back. That already happened after the 2019/2020 season. I can't imagine the core players accepting that after the mess they went through.

 

Plus the team doesn't exactly have a long window (perhaps 2 to 3 years) maybe they get lucky and extend it through some good fortunes but they way this team is constructed, I don't think taking a step back is a good idea anymore 

LOL, it's never a good idea.  I'm not suggesting it's a strategy of management's!  I'm just saying I expect it based on personnel.  Given the year they just had and the number of free agents this summer in a cap era with dead cap space.....inevitable until they rotate some younger guys in that outperform their ELCs......or more Dakotas of last year.  We were a stronger team built for the playoffs due to Lindholm and Zadorov being added but we knew we couldn't afford them both in the offseason.  So here we are.

 

With that said, we have a good team still.  We're better than the start of last season but worse than the end of last season at least on paper.  IF DeBrusk gels really well with EP and Hogz picks it up and IF we don't lose D to injuries (a big IF given our history with travel), we'll be in the hunt.  But those are two very big ifs.  I think it's more likely that we'll see DeBrusk and the new D take time to adapt here and we'll have times of seeing a slower D that dumps the puck out of the zone more than initiating offensive exits from our own zone.....and more of Jet Woo due to injuries.  We'll see, but I think this will be the regression I expect for a good chunk of the season.

[arsenalian]

16 hours ago, OldFaithfulcap said:

It's a bit underwhelming but big z sadly isn't worth that. His presence will be missed but they never trusted him with top minutes so they weren't going to pay him that. 

 

Quite often you expect some overall regression from a team that overachieved like we did last year. That's the challenge to overcome and these new guys may help build things that were missing last year like depth scoring and powerplays. Who knows. It would nice to get someone else of note (skinner - nope oil)but i'd take joshua stepping up and brock/miller keeping pace over a high priced addition. Shocked no offer sheet for silovs.

Silovs was qualified. Can offer sheet go to a qualified RFA? I honestly have no idea how any of that works.

[bh90]

If can be had for a 1 x 1 contract what do you guys think of

 

Tyler Johnson, James Van Riemsdyk, Mike Hoffman ?

 

 

[Kootenay Gold]

2 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

I find it interesting we're seeing a tale of two cities. Pittsburgh selling off pieces, bit by bit. Then Washington pulling out all the stops so that Ovi breaks the record, and has a chance to make a splash in the playoffs.

I see it as a tale of three cities, as I would add Boston into the mix. Boston was one of the oldest teams a few years ago and now they are younger overall than either Wash. or Pitts.

Marchand is the last of the oldtimers will be a UFA next year. Through all of the changes in Boston they have stayed competitive for over a decade. 

[Provost]

1 hour ago, Googlie said:

 

On Nov 30th, the day before we aquired Zad, our D was:

 

Hughes-Hronek

Cole- Myers

Friedman- Juulsen 

 

Is it better today?  By a country mile (and would still be better if we inserted Soucy in place of Cole and dropped Friedman

 

What was our record......

 

24 games, 15 wins, 8 losses. 1 OT loss.  31 points, tied for 2nd in Conference with Avs, behind Vegas,  tied 4th overall

1st in the entire league in goals for with 92, Avs next at 83

9th in the league in goals against at 61, but 3rd in Conference behind Kings and  Vegas 

1st overall in goal diff at +31

 

That was a good team before we aquired Zad.   Not extending him stings,  but we're a better-rounded team now than then.  110 points here we come!!

 

Good job well done by PA and his team

 

Well that is some seriously cherry picked massaging of reality…

 

We were under .500 between when Soucy got hurt and when we picked up Zadorov because that defence wasn’t nearly good enough.

The team recognized it had a significant need if it didn’t want to lose the season after a stellar start.  At that time Cole was also still playing lights out as our third best D by a mile and had completely stabilized a pairing that was capable of playing significant hard shut down minutes.

 

Adding Zadorov allowed us to still have three reliable pairings and not to overload other guys with more or harder minutes than they could handle.

 

We have seen for years what happens when you try to put Myers into too tough a role.  When Allvin talked about it being his fault that Mikheyev was put too in a position to fail by being too high in the lineup, this is where we are currently with the Soucy-Myers pairing.
 

Neither Forbort, nor Desharnais are at all likely to be able to replicate close to what Cole brought for the first half of the season.  As a pairing they are likely to have much more limited minutes and roles and not relied on for 18 minutes a night like any of our pairings last year could be.

 

It is by far the biggest risk with the roster as it is currently constructed.  We are probably going to see Hughes-Hronek back up into the high 20’s for minutes played to compensate and that means they will be less effective and prone to injuries.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

10 minutes ago, arsenalian said:

Silovs was qualified. Can offer sheet go to a qualified RFA? I honestly have no idea how any of that works.

If a player received a qualifying offer, he could still be offer sheeted but the team retains the right to match the deal.  I've seen every episode of Matlock & Perry Mason so I know the law.

[bh90]

11 hours ago, Provost said:

Cole in the first half of the season was our 3rd best D by a wide margin.  We had three solid pairings so didn’t have to over work Soucy-Myers.

 

When he started falling apart with a large workload we picked up Zadorov to take up a lot of hard minutes.

 

Forbort-Desharnais is not a pairing that can reliably play 18 minutes a night.

 

I can only imagine that we are going to be playing in the secondary signing/trade market. 

 

I'm not so sure about that

 

PA specified Forbot was one of their top targets 

 

And Dwaharnais and Juulsen defenietly have the potential to continue to improve

 

Hughes and Hronek might also get split

 

I think rhe current intention is to start with our current group of 7 D and use first quarter/half of season to assess and see how pieces fit. Than maintain that cap flexibility to be able to add pieces in-season as needed.

 

But the calling card for Forbot and Desharnais is PK. Our PK was one of the worst to start last season.

[Comox Blaster]

Every year some surprise rises from the ranks to fill a much needed spot.  Defense, forward, PK, PP.  Certainly, lots of young players wanting to make their mark on the club.  Should be interesting.

[steviewonder20]

1 hour ago, Googlie said:

Good summary ....

 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5609713/2024/07/01/canucks-free-agency-jake-debrusk/

Can you post the article? Don't pay for The Athletic.

[flickyoursedin]

1 hour ago, MeanSeanBean said:

Man I hope we can get Sprong for a song like we did Suter

I was just coming on here to say this. Little shocked he’s still not signed. He’s a guy our management drafted and we all know how much they like their guys! If we could give him a 1 year deal. Only problem is does that make you too rich on forwards newly acquired Danton Heinen would now be a 4th liner.

[Devron]

6 hours ago, stawns said:

While I'm happy they spread the cap around instead of big game hunting, I think they should have focused on really bolstering the defence.  PA dropped the ball their, imo.

 

C+, maybe a B

While I would have signed Z to that deal if it were me. I don’t think they have much for options on D I found them grossly overpaid and old