You do not move a Selke winner for scoring when you already have the last two Art Ross winners in the line-up.
That to me is addition by subtraction.
Stamkos is 22, scores 50g+ year, on track for 95p this year, has yet to peak. That's at least 10 years of quality play ahead of him and doesn't have Kesler's groin worries.
What we lose a little on defense and more than make up for it on offense. The Sedins will slow down over the next few years.
And he can't score on the shootout so he'll fit in nicely.
Edler had just come back from LTIR, Salo was not back to 100% from his Achilles injury, Samuelsson had been hobbled with a sports hernia for a good part of the year that finally did him in, Malhotra nearly lost an eye which forced Kesler to do way more defensively. Ballard going down a coupe of times also meant he was not getting into the groove and Hamhuis was recovering from a concussion.
Then the other injuries would hit later.
From mid January to the end of the 2nd round last season the Canucks scored at roughly 2.70 G/G. That was equivalent to 17th or 18th G/G pace last season over a 55 game sample. I don't think that's explained away by a couple of injuries.
The Canucks scoring dropped dramatically from the 3.43 G/G they put up in the 1st half of the season. From January onwards they put up 3/4 of a goal less per game than they did prior to that.
It was probably a one time thing and not worth going overboard to try and remedy, but it's foolish to pretend that the Canucks weren't having some offensive issues from the middle of the regular season to the end of the playoffs.
How about blue chip defenseman prospects? Maybe Connauton. That's it (not much even if you include Tanev).
You don't often need "blue chip" prospects in order to develop top 4 defensemen. Since most dmen develop late, you can grab quality guys between rounds 2 and 5 very easily. Guys like Ehrhoff, Edler, Bieksa, and Salo were all late picks for example, not to mention Weber. This can be true with forwards too, but it happens less often. It's easier to find late round steals on the back end is what I'm saying. With Connauton, Tanev, McNally, Price, and others I'd say we probably have a couple top 4 defensemen waiting in the ranks. Top 6 forwards though? Not NEAR as many.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wetcoaster
It was not a mistake, the Wings could not keep him on the roster at the time and Holland was hoping he would sneak through. He rolled the dice.
GMMG had the same sort of situation with Grabner and decided to trade him rather than take a chance on losing him on waivers.
I'd still consider it a mistake in the form of poor asset management. I get what you're saying, Detroit did what seemed right for them at the time. What is right in the short run isn't always right in the long run, sort of deal. But still, they should have traded Quincey, I'm sure there was some interest. In reality though, you never know. I doubt he was shopped considering Detroit gambled and tried to send him down.
Even in the SJ series we were bad offensively after game 2. If not for our PP during a 10 minute stretch in game 4, and Luongo coming up with 56 saves in game 5, we might not have won that series.
I'm not going to complain too much about a series where we averaged 4 goals a game. Chicago and Nashville though, no excuses for the dismal offense there.
Thats not not good enough and is just making excuses for a poor performance. I can understand giving the team a pass in the Boston series but there isn't a good enough excuse for the rest of the playoffs. Far too inconsistent offensively.
It is good enough for me.
Too bad the Canucks lost those earlier series... oh wait.
