5 thoughts

1. There is less than a month left for this team of destiny. The Canucks have already matched the point total most experts thought they would get for the whole year. I would be happy with a 75 point year. Ok….I just lied there. I hate having a shitty year. I want the playoffs. I really do. But this team is just not good enough. It really isn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered if Willie had made all the line changes you wrote about or yelled at the screen. On their best night, the Canucks were a good team, but never a great team.

2. I’ve mentioned Willie so many times this year and now Linden says Willie will be evaluated in the offseason. There are a lot of knocks against Willie when it comes to lines and their deployment. And most of those complaints are from those guys on twitter that want the team to admit that a rebuild is going on. And then they want Willie fired and a “better” coach brought in.

My question is “why?”. Why do you want a new coach at this time? If you want a real rebuild with some good draft picks, why not suck for a few more years under Willie? I have been a Willie supporter this year and even I know that his line combinations on most nights are not what I would want. But the vets seem to respect him and I agree with the policy of youth earning their ice time. That last policy was no different under Torts or AV so those complaining about Goldy’s ice time in his first game should have bit their friggin tongue. Goldobin’s defensive coverage has been shit.

Let’s keep Willie for one more year. If the Canucks suck…they suck. The real rebuild can’t happen until the Sedins retire. We really won’t know what we have until their gone.

3. The cap for next year could be $73 or $76 million depending on the NHLPA. $3 million will be a lot if we are talking about the Canucks being a cap team again. I put out some numbers in the Montreal recap that show the Canucks have 14 players signed for next year at a cost of $54 million. We need to sign Bo, which will probably eat $5 million/yr. That leaves $14 million for 8 more players. If the cap stays at $73 million, the Canucks are still a cap team.

Salary cap to be paid: $2,133,000

Lu – 800,000

Higgins – 833,000

Hansen – 500,000

Forwards: $30.638,333

Sedins – 14,000,000

Loui – 6,000,000

Sutter – 4,375,000

Baertschi – 1,850,000

Granlund – 900,000

Goldoblin – 863,333

Dorsett – 2,650,000

Defensemen: $17,525,000

Edler – 5,000,000

Tanev – 4,450,000

Sbisa – 3,600,000

Hutton – 2,800,000

Biega – 750,000

Stetcher – 925,000

Goalie: Markstrom $3,666,667

4. For those of you that read the point above and said, “Well either Edler or Sbisa will be gone in the expansion draft so there will be more cap money available.”, you better start thinking about the hard fact that neither one of those players is in high demand and there might be better choices available to Vegas when it comes to skill and the right amount of cap hit, so don’t be surprised if both are in Canucks training camp next year.

5. Let’s look ahead to next year and some of the minor league guys. Is there any player out there that has a legitimate shot of making the team next year? Does Jake get a second chance? Does Subban get a first chance? Will the Nucks give Juolevi a legitimate look or is it a guarantee he starts with Utica? I wonder if Pedan ever shows up in a Canucks uniform again.