Sportsnet Stats
@SNstats
·
23h
Canucks under Rick Tocchet rank last in the NHL in:

Goals Against / Game (4.66)
Penalty Kill (64.3%)
Save Percentage (.826)

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Rick There It Is

Sportsnet Stats
@SNstats
·
23h
Canucks under Rick Tocchet rank last in the NHL in:

Goals Against / Game (4.66)
Penalty Kill (64.3%)
Save Percentage (.826)
Goaltending is the biggest issue, good for the tank crowd.
...................................................................

Rick There It Is
- VANTEL

Not a good night for outcomes related to the two 1st rounders.

Flames lose 5-2 to Det. Why wouldn't they? Canucks did it so Flames have to copy. Can anyone say Bubble Flames?
- VANTEL

Pacific is garbage.

Not a good night for outcomes related to the two 1st rounders.
- boonerbuck

They will pick the wrong one so it doesn’t really matter, I don’t follow it.

They will pick the wrong one so it doesn’t really matter, I don’t follow it.
- Bettmanhatesus

Sportsnet Stats
@SNstats
·
23h
Canucks under Rick Tocchet rank last in the NHL in:

Goals Against / Game (4.66)
Penalty Kill (64.3%)
Save Percentage (.826)

...................................................................

Rick There It Is
- VANTEL

Travis Green 2.0

OEL's level of play has just dropped off the map this year. 2nd most (63) this season in 5v5 goals against. Only Erik Karlsson(80) is worse by quite a bit but he has at least cancelled that out by scoring at an insane rate.

For reference OEL was only on the ice for 54 goals against in 79 games last season.

- VANTEL

Bedard is a game changer.

Travis Green 2.0

OEL's level of play has just dropped off the map this year. 2nd most (63) this season in 5v5 goals against. Only Erik Karlsson(80) is worse by quite a bit but he has at least cancelled that out by scoring at an insane rate.

For reference OEL was only on the ice for 54 goals against in 79 games last season.
- manvanfan

OEL is terrible this year. The only hope is that with a better team structure he can get back to being not a liability. Really doubt they're going to be buying him out any time soon

OEL is terrible this year. The only hope is that with a better team structure he can get back to being not a liability. Really doubt they're going to be buying him out any time soon
- NewYorkNuck

If you don't buy him out, the team is just never going to get better. No one is going to take his contract even at 50% unless you are including a 1st plus.

Heard teams want SJ to retain 40% of Karlsson's contract and the return was not very good.

If you don't buy him out, the team is just never going to get better. No one is going to take his contract even at 50% unless you are including a 1st plus.
- manvanfan

The team isn't going to get better for another 2 years at least. Why buy him out now? It's not like he's standing in any prospect's way... and what are they going to do with the cap space, pay too much to bring someone in in free agency? I highly doubt they'd go full rebuild weaponize cap space route with FA writing the checks.

Play him the next couple seasons, hope he has a miraculous rebound, or just hope he can get back to being OK. When they're ready to actually compete, then look at a buy out.

The team isn't going to get better for another 2 years at least. Why buy him out now? It's not like he's standing in any prospect's way... and what are they going to do with the cap space, pay too much to bring someone in in free agency? I highly doubt they'd go full rebuild weaponize cap space route with FA writing the checks.

Play him the next couple seasons, hope he has a miraculous rebound, or just hope he can get back to being OK. When they're ready to actually compete, then look at a buy out.
- NewYorkNuck

The team going to get better by sitting their twiddling your thumbs? No different then Minnesota buying out Parise and Suter. You make plans for later, you don't just let opportunities pass you by.

When is "ready to compete"? Draft high for two seasons and pray picks work out? What if Vancouver wins a spot this season and Bedard or Fantilli join the team? You going to say, we aren't going to try this year again because we are hoping for a miracle that OEL gets better?

There probably is no perfect time for buying out OEL. It just has to be done. 2m down the road isn't going to hurt.

Rob Simpson

Meanwhile, Vancouver will be without veteran defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson for at least the next game.

It’ll be interesting to see if Jack Rathbone gets a call-up. He had a goal on eight shots in Abbotsford’s 4-2 win over the Calgary Wranglers on Wednesday.

Be a good time to showcase him.

Allan Walsh

@walsha
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Also, negativity sucks the joy right out of players. cc:
@NHLFlames

Taj
@taj1944
·
10h
Rumors been going around for past week or so that the Flames players are done with Sutter.

They sure played like that tonight

Travis Green in coming?

The team going to get better by sitting their twiddling your thumbs? No different then Minnesota buying out Parise and Suter. You make plans for later, you don't just let opportunities pass you by.

When is "ready to compete"? Draft high for two seasons and pray picks work out? What if Vancouver wins a spot this season and Bedard or Fantilli join the team? You going to say, we aren't going to try this year again because we are hoping for a miracle that OEL gets better?

There probably is no perfect time for buying out OEL. It just has to be done. 2m down the road isn't going to hurt.
- manvanfan

I would say yes, if they plan it to where they acquire a few picks and finish low they can get better by drafting some really quality young players. Once that happens then you can look at buying out OEL, it’ll be cheaper in a few seasons.

I would say yes, if they plan it to where they acquire a few picks and finish low they can get better by drafting some really quality young players. Once that happens then you can look at buying out OEL, it’ll be cheaper in a few seasons.
- LeftCoaster

- NewYorkNuck

To me buying out OEL only makes sense if you’re attempting to use the money somewhere else, to get better. If they plan on purposely having another bad season, which to me makes sense, then he’s not hurting anything when it comes to tanking. He actually helps.

The team going to get better by sitting their twiddling your thumbs? No different then Minnesota buying out Parise and Suter. You make plans for later, you don't just let opportunities pass you by.

When is "ready to compete"? Draft high for two seasons and pray picks work out? What if Vancouver wins a spot this season and Bedard or Fantilli join the team? You going to say, we aren't going to try this year again because we are hoping for a miracle that OEL gets better?

There probably is no perfect time for buying out OEL. It just has to be done. 2m down the road isn't going to hurt.
- manvanfan

Yes, by drafting and developing players, flipping buy low candidates, etc. Minny is a bit different as they have a fantastic prospect pool to replace Sutter and Parise/players that would need that money. Who the (frank) do the Canucks have?

What opportunities are the Canucks missing out on by not buying out OEL?

Also, if you buy out OEL it's not just a 2 mil cap hit. It goes:

23-24: 150k
24-25 2.3 mil
25-26 and 26-27: 4.7 mil
27-28 through 30-31 (4 seasons): 2.1 mil

You wait 2 years:
25-26 and 26-27: 4.1 mil
27-28 and 28-29: 1.5 mil

It's pretty bad cap management to buy him out this summer.

Yes, by drafting and developing players, flipping buy low candidates, etc. Minny is a bit different as they have a fantastic prospect pool to replace Sutter and Parise/players that would need that money. Who the (frank) do the Canucks have?

What opportunities are the Canucks missing out on by not buying out OEL?

Also, if you buy out OEL it's not just a 2 mil cap hit. It goes:

23-24: 150k
24-25 2.3 mil
25-26 and 26-27: 4.7 mil
27-28 through 30-31 (4 seasons): 2.1 mil

You wait 2 years:
25-26 and 26-27: 4.1 mil
27-28 and 28-29: 1.5 mil

It's pretty bad cap management to buy him out this summer.
- NewYorkNuck

I would say yes, if they plan it to where they acquire a few picks and finish low they can get better by drafting some really quality young players. Once that happens then you can look at buying out OEL, it’ll be cheaper in a few seasons.
- LeftCoaster

How well has that planned worked out for Arizona?

Yes, by drafting and developing players, flipping buy low candidates, etc. Minny is a bit different as they have a fantastic prospect pool to replace Sutter and Parise/players that would need that money. Who the (frank) do the Canucks have?

What opportunities are the Canucks missing out on by not buying out OEL?

Also, if you buy out OEL it's not just a 2 mil cap hit. It goes:

23-24: 150k
24-25 2.3 mil
25-26 and 26-27: 4.7 mil
27-28 through 30-31 (4 seasons): 2.1 mil

You wait 2 years:
25-26 and 26-27: 4.1 mil
27-28 and 28-29: 1.5 mil

It's pretty bad cap management to buy him out this summer.
- NewYorkNuck

From our conversation yesterday. NHL execs say rebuilds are hard. Fans scream for it, every single year and make it out to be easy and everything will go as planned.

Yes, by drafting and developing players, flipping buy low candidates, etc. Minny is a bit different as they have a fantastic prospect pool to replace Sutter and Parise/players that would need that money. Who the (frank) do the Canucks have?

What opportunities are the Canucks missing out on by not buying out OEL?

Also, if you buy out OEL it's not just a 2 mil cap hit. It goes:

23-24: 150k
24-25 2.3 mil
25-26 and 26-27: 4.7 mil
27-28 through 30-31 (4 seasons): 2.1 mil

You wait 2 years:
25-26 and 26-27: 4.1 mil
27-28 and 28-29: 1.5 mil

It's pretty bad cap management to buy him out this summer.
- NewYorkNuck

This.

Travis Green in coming?
- manvanfan

Bruce Bump

To me buying out OEL only makes sense if you’re attempting to use the money somewhere else, to get better. If they plan on purposely having another bad season, which to me makes sense, then he’s not hurting anything when it comes to tanking. He actually helps.
- LeftCoaster

Cam Charron: When Vancouver Canucks management talks about not wanting to rebuild, the reason why is that most rebuilds never succeed.

When Vancouver Canucks management talks about not wanting to rebuild, the reason why is that most rebuilds never succeed. Teams that lose games purposefully may wind up with a nice player or two, but it takes more than that to turn a team from a bottom feeder to a playoff team to a contender. It takes ambition and vision, and a team looking to rebuild simply can’t do it without charting out a multi-year plan to improve.

What Vancouver Canucks management wants less than anything is to become like the Ottawa Senators, a team doing its hardest to recruit Ryan Reynolds as a minority owner, for Reynolds to become the most-famous hockey-adjacent graduate of Kitsilano Secondary (the current top spot is held by Joshua Jackson, who played Charlie Conway in the Mighty Ducks movies). The Senators played through the entry-level contract years of Thomas Chabot, Brady Tkachuk, Drake Batherson, and Joshua Norris without even sniffing the playoffs. They are in a real deep hole to prevent this from happening again with Tim Stutzle and Shane Pinto.

The Sens haven’t come close to the playoffs in years, not since Chris Kunitz ended their season in overtime of Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals, the year that Erik Karlsson made a case to be awarded the Conn Smythe despite not seeing the fourth round of the playoffs. Since then, the Sens have finished in the bottom two of the division in each subsequent season, with no change to management or coaching. The organizational philosophy was to collect players and hope they succeed. They have not drafted well, nor have they developed well.

A good forward core gives a hockey team a sturdy floor, but to have a high ceiling, a team needs a strong defensive group that can move the puck well. The Senators do not have this. Their plan in the offseason was to hope that Jake Sanderson could step in to an NHL top four role and, while their prayer may have been answered (Sanderson looked excellent Tuesday night), it simply isn’t enough. They should never have taken Nikita Zaitsev’s contract off Toronto’s hands. They should have developed Erik Brannstrom’s raw skills better. They should have never taken Travis Hamonic’s contract off Vancouver’s hands. A series of questionable moves around the defence have really limited this team’s ceiling, and now they have dropped 6 consecutive games when they cannot afford to drop games and fall out of the playoff race this early.

But not all rebuilds must be like this. A key thing organizations must do to turn the corner is to identify their stars and pay them, and then go about finding and developing players whose productive years will overlap with your stars’ primes. Financial flexibility must be wielded, not on overpaying brand name players like Claude Giroux, but seeking out undervalued commodities like John Marino or Oliver Bjorkstrand whose teams cannot pay them.

The Canucks are going to rebuild. First, they need to admit to themselves that they will. But if done properly, with the proper infrastructure in place to draft and develop correctly, a team can be turned around in two years rather than five or six.
And it’s important for the Canucks to rebuild, because this current roster, structured or not, needed a lot of good fortune to defeat this Senators team that has been bleeding points. This roster isn’t good enough as is.

From our conversation yesterday. NHL execs say rebuilds are hard. Fans scream for it, every single year and make it out to be easy and everything will go as planned.
- manvanfan

Ok, you didn't address or answer any questions/points with that. I assume you now also find it dumb to buy OEL this summer?

Unfortunately, the Canucks already suck. They have for years. Rebuilds are tough, but it's better than to try to "win now", crater the franchise, and still end up bottom of the table. And not buying out OEL isn't a complete rebuild. It's just not rushing things that don't need to be rushed. Trading FOR OEL is the exact same mindset as buying him out this summer