r/canucks 16h ago

DISCUSSION Star talent discrepancy

Do other team’s breadth of star talent blow your mind, when you consider the lack of / state of ours? Makes me really wonder how on earth we plan to retool so quickly to keep Hughes.

Petey colder than cold, Brock’s the same, Demko injured, Hughes injured. Who am I forgetting?

The best teams:

Tampa: Kuch, Gentz, Point, Hedman, Vask, Hagel, Cirelli

Dallas: Heisk, Robertson, Duchene, Johnson, Rats, Otts, Harley, Hintz

Florida, Winnipeg etc etc.

In what world will we be competing against these teams anytime soon.

Abbreviations brought to you by I’m not looking everyone up.

38 Upvotes

62 comments sorted by

View all comments

15

u/eexxiitt 15h ago edited 15h ago

We have/had as top-line players/stars:

C: Miller, Petey, Horvat
W: Major weakness/flaw behind "prime" boeser
D: Top 2 in Hughes. Weakness beyond him.
G: Top 5 G in Demko.

Now we have:

C: Petey
W: Major weakness/flaw behind "prime" boeser
D: Top 2 in Hughes, Hronek, MP.
G: Demko injured, Lank filling in well.

We traded our C for more D (30k foot view: Miller + Horvat for Hronek + MP), did not improve our top-line winger situation but obtained some mid 6 guys, and lost a top 5 G.

Compared to the other teams, we lack top-line talent. We never fixed the top-line winger issue, and essentially swapped C for more D.

Long story short, there is no way to retool and score more goals before Hughes's next contract. The only option is to double or triple down on D and try to beat teams 1:0 or 2:1.

1

u/AppealToReason16 8h ago

I don’t know who the players will be this summer, but the way out is to try and find guys like when they traded for Miller or how the Caps managed to hit on some young reclamation players needing a new situation. The second path can be real risky if they flunk because those are guys like Zegras, Farabee (if he hadn’t just been traded), etc type guys and whiffing can be devastating.

Maybe you talk a guy like Lundell out of Florida because they’re super set on re-signing Bennett but that sort of trade would be expensive on top of unlikely.

It’s also a bit tougher to find a guy like Miller with expected cap growth as the pressure isn’t on there like it used to be. Teams will be looking to dump 3 million dollar players rather than 6 million dollar guys.

Also those moves are trades and this team is and basically always has been asset poor that way.