Impressive core of youngsters
Vancouver took time to build roster of young talent but finally got there
The Vancouver Canucks scored positive reviews at this weekend’s draft, but now comes the scary part for the faithful: July 1 and free agency. While we nervously wait, here are the always soothing Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports.
One of the stock gags in The Pee Wee Herman Show consisted of Pee Wee crashing his bike, then stepping out of rubble and proclaiming, “I meant to do that.”
So it is with the Canucks. For the better part of the last three seasons, they insisted their goal was to remain competitive and the notion of tanking was abhorrent to them.
To the dismay of their fan base, a number of their organizational decisions also reinforced that position. They signed Ryan Miller to a threeyear, $18-million contract. They threw stupid money at Loui Eriksson, then signed five more veteran free agents last summer. They traded draft picks and young assets for players who were supposed to help them immediately.
But three years later, here we are, and if the Canucks weren’t intending to execute a full-on tank-job, they got there anyway. Through their own incompetence and some drafting acumen, they’ve succeeded in assembling the young core their fans wanted all along. The only part missing in the process was some luck in the lottery, but when you’re picking fifth, fifth and seventh overall in consecutive years, you should be able to accumulate some talent.
The exercise still isn’t complete. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to envision the Canucks going deep into the lottery again next summer, which means another high draft pick and another blue-chip prospect.
They might not have planned it this way, but in the end they got to the desired destination.
Still on the question of luck: The ping-pong balls haven’t been kind to the Canucks but they caught a couple of big breaks on Friday when Montreal and Arizona reached to take centres Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Barrett Hayton respectively. That set in motion a sequence of events that left the Canucks looking at either Filip Zadina, an elite goal scorer, or Quinn Hughes, their top-rated defenceman after first-overall pick Rasmus Dahlin.
The Red Wings passed on Hughes, who plays at Michigan, and selected Zadina. The Canucks then gleefully took Hughes, who they regard as the offence-generating, power play quarterback the organization has lacked since forever.
One Eastern Conference scout compared Hughes to former Ranger hall-of-famer Brian Leetch. But whatever he becomes, Hughes will be the litmus test for the Linden-Benning administration. They had their choice of the top-four defenceman in his draft: Hughes, Adam Boqvist, Evan Bouchard and Noah Dobson. They selected Hughes who now becomes absolutely crucial to the team’s future.
If they got it right, it will accelerate the rebuild by a year. If they didn’t, they’ll have some ’splaining to do.
This has to be England’s year in the World Cup, right? I mean, six goals against that powerhouse from Panama. It’s not like they can go from here and lose their first game in the knockout round on penalties.
Brian Burke is a complicated, polarizing personality but he looks to have found a home on television. He’s candid. He’s insightful. But the sharp edges have been softened and he isn’t picking a fight with anyone who crosses his field of vision. If he commits to the medium, he might be the one personality who can replace Don Cherry.
And finally, winners and losers from the draft :
The Canucks weren’t the only team to benefit from other team’s curious selections. The Islanders went into the draft with the 11th and 12th picks and came out with Oliver Wahlstrom, a 6-foot-1, 208-pound elite goal-scorer from the U.S. developmental team and Dobson, the second-rated defenceman after Dahlin on some boards.
This stuff just seems to follow Lou Lamoriello around.
It was a similar story in Detroit. The Red Wings woke up on Friday to find Zadina dropped in their laps, then took Joe Veleno, a playmaking centre who figured to go in the middle of the first round but inexplicably fell to 30th.
As for the losers, Calgary, who didn’t have a pick until the fourth round, traded their first-rounder to the Islanders for Travis Hamonic last summer, then watched them take Dobson. They still owe the Isles two second-rounders for that transaction.
The reviews of the Flames’ big trade were also mixed. They got a pair of former fifth-overall picks from Carolina in centre Elias Lindholm and defenceman Noah Hanifin. But they gave up Dougie Hamilton, a right-shot defenceman who averaged 14 goals and 46 points over his three years in Calgary; Micheal Ferland, a tough winger who scored 21 goals last season, and Adam Fox, an elite blue-line prospect.
There was also something about the parting comments from Flames GM Brad Treliving that didn’t sit right.
Treliving didn’t come right out and say Hamilton has character issues but did offer this assessment: “We take everything on and off the ice into consideration here. I’m going to keep that stuff internal.”
Not sure what purpose that served but it says as much about Treliving as Hamilton.