In all honesty I think our D is fine (if they get their shit together and all healthy)... they're all proven in the past that they can play well defensively, there just needs to be some change on the roster (preferably AV).

With Bieksa out of the line-up, we finally see how valuable he has been, especially the past two seasons. He's pretty much the glue that holds our D together and the only guy capable of playing on the right side. If anything we need a power play quarterback. When Hoff and Salo were still around our PP was tops in the league because they played that role perfectly, granted Hoff was shitty defensively. Now that they're gone our PP is 20th, and Henrik and Daniel aren't leading the league in points. Coincidence? I think not

My proposition before we talk shit about this PP even more is to throw Garrison at the point again w/ Ballard
If he establishes that rocket shot again (that we paid for) nobody will want to block it.. similar to Salo..... and Ballard can at least pass pretty well.
Oh.. throw Kassian in front of the net too please.

AV's proposition to curing the PP is making the boys do pushups. lol

The one time he should juggle lines, he doesn't

I'm not sure why people who have a hard-on for AV think he's a genius. I'm not actually sure what AV does to coach the team. He has his assistants take care of d-zone and special teams, which are clearly working fantastic... He seems to like letting the veterans and players work out and solve their problems themselves and also motivate themselves. He's continually shown that the only in-game or even between game adjustments he's capable of making is throwing names of players from line 2-4 in a hat and drawing them out at random. He has a coin that decides who starts in goal. Pretty sweet gig he's got going on here.

I'm still puzzled as to how the argument "THIS TEAM WAS 1 WAY AWAY FROM A CUP IN 2011" still gets brought up. Clearly, this is nowhere near the same team. The team we saw in 2010-2011 was probably the best Canucks line-up we'll see in a long, long time.

Sedin-Sedin-Burrows (Solid 1st line)
Raymond-Kesler-Samuelsson (Beast second line when healthy)
Torres-Malhotra-Hansen (Pre-injury Malhotra :()
Higgins-Lapierre-Glass (Could compete with any 4th line out there)

Hamhuis-Bieksa
Ehrhoff-Edler
Ballard-Salo

Arguably the best D core in the league, when healthy

I think Kesler not producing hurt us the most. Kesler was a key part in trading and building the team around on the second line and without Kesler that just falls apart. Now we got a bunch of grunts with no finesse trying to play an over used system that AV dictates

don't think we should get rid of coach v unless we don't make playoffs this year
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MG took a gamble on Booth, hoping he'd revert back to his 25-30 goal form. Unfortunately for us, I don't think we'll see that kind of Booth, ever again.

On paper, Raymond-Kes-Booth looks good tho
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Have the Canucks ever had success with signing players to "revert to form"?

Nevermind Booth.
I don't even think we'll ever see 41goal Kesler again.
All these injuries have to make you wonder if he's already past his prime.

:okay:
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News1130sports reporting that Schroeder is sent down for Ebbett and Pinozotto will be called up on Thursday.

^

Makes sense, they were pretty much wasting Schroeder away on the 4th line. Can't see him developing much playing with Weise and Sestito, would rather him play 20+ minutes a game down in Chicago.

This is good to hear, though.

Kesler not scoring as much is one thing. IMO, his biggest asset has to be his defensive game, and not having that hurt the canucks more than ever.

This is a good thing. He needs playing time, Ryan Johanssen of CBJ last year played almost the entire year with no results.

He is playing much better now with some seasoning in the A

I'm pretty sure that season was a bit of a 'fluke' more than anything. Kesler has always been a great 2 way center, not really a scoring center... so that was just a crazy season for him. If anything, the high expectations might be making things even worse.

If our powerplay was more efficient like years past, we'd be winning theses one goal games and all this panic wouldnt of been created. Fix the powerplay and i think were fine.
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If only fixing the powerplay were such a simple thing.

24th ranked PP in the league, 15.8% on the PP, something like 0/25 recently.

:okay:

We need a 2nd/3rd line C badly.

We lost 2 of our best faceoff centres in Kesler and Manny.

When you have Lapierre as our PK centre...we have a problem. As much as we can have Lappy, we need a better centre.

moar pushups is the answer to our pp

in all seriousness, when we get set up in the zone, we seem to be moving too much, whether it be skating or passing. the boys are trying to get a clean shooting lane on net, and are taking too long to get the puck towards the net. thing is, the shooting lane won't be clear if there is sufficient traffic to screen the goalie for an effective powerplay. so it seems the only shot the canucks are willing to shoot on are the tick tac toe lateral passes which are generally lower percentage passes, or simply blast it from the blueline when there is a clear shooting lane (assuming shooter can hit the net and doesn't shoot wide/high) hoping the goalie can't stop it even if he can see it, once again a lower percentage play

Our 4th line was awesome relatively.
:okay:

the 4th line is like our 2nd line now...

if only we could get erhoff back and not have resigned edler pp would have been fixed...

I think it's safe to say Edler has topped out as a very good top 4 D-man. As we can see, if he's given number 1 minutes, he tends to fall apart.
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The Province reporter Ben Kuzma is spot on in terms of putting some of the blame of the Canucks' problems on AV.



http://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/03...table-canucks/

-good article.


Besides the coach, Mike Gillis is accountable for the free fall that the team is going through now.

-Where's the "bold moves" that MG promised when he became the team GM? Where's the trade to bolster the team's offence??

Basically, we have the second line center being filled by a committee of different forwards because Gillis cannot or does not have the ability to make a deal to jumpstart the team offence.

If you don't have a strong defence, and good centres in today's NHL, forget about your chances of playoff success.

We miss CoHo.

Funny you say that.

Cause Hodgson doesn't have strong defense. Remember that Detroit game last year where we snapped their home streak? Sure he scored a goal in that game but was on for 2 goals against.

Sure the kid's talented, but he can't play defense for shit. Its being shown in Buffalo too. He's putting up goals and great numbers but getting scored against.

You can look at his +/- and say "but he's just a -4". Sure, but remember his GF/being on the ice for the + "balances it out".

There's some stat out there that he's last for worst GA for a forward.

He looks like he could be used for the Canucks second line, but he would've predicted Kesler would have off season injury, then RE-INJURE his foot and be out 4-6 weeks again? Certainly not Gillis.

hes also 47% on the dot so I don't see how that helps either lol..

Gillis has made many "bold" moves. None have really panned out in our favour:

- Signing Mats Sundin (UFA)
- Trade for Ballard
- Trade for David Booth
- Trade for Zack Kassian
- Signing Jason Garrison (UFA)
- Signing Dan Hamhuis (UFA)

The only bold move that has panned out for us is Dan Hamhuis. I don't consider the trade for Ehrhoff a "bold deal" because it basically fell into his lap.

I don't blame Gillis for trying, but clearly, there's an issue in the Canuck scouting department. In fact, one could argue that these deals have been disastrous since Gillis/AV have been known to use advanced stats in evaluating players.

We're seeing the window close as we speak. Gillis has maybe 1 or 2 bold moves at best before the window closes for good. But, who out there has the ability to break games open? Corey Perry?
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You're saying Garrison hasn't panned out for us..

In what? 25 games into his first season as a Canuck?

:seriously:

Give him more time than that bud :lol .

Powerforwards like Kassian take 'awhile' to "pan" out. Booth was playing good before his knee on knee that took him out of the lineup. Sundin had a HUGE impact on Kesler. Ballard is playing decent when given the chance.

All of those moves are debatable, but I agree that Gillis has made bold moves that haven't panned out. Like:

- Letting Ehrhoff walk
- Marco Sturm signing :lol
- Giving Luongo that long contract WITH a NTC
- Giving NTC's out like candy

post 9900!