Looks like a retool so far and not a rebuild. Garrison looks like a salary dump for Benning to sign someone big on July 1st.

They got about 14 mill to sign two players...

I'm happy we're going in a direction of drafting Canadian players instead of Swedes like Gillis was so notorious for. Canadians win Stanley Cups period!

Interesting stats:
La Kings hadn't have a single Swedish player on there roster
Conversely Kings had 14 Canadian Players on there roster

http://i.imgur.com/GvPjDJh.jpg

How was Gillis notorious for Sweedes?

Uh... playoff built teams with skill win Stanley Cups

Interesting stat:
2008 Red Wings had 7 Swedish players on their roster and STILL won a cup :derp:

Skilled players help win a cup--regardless of nationality............

2008 wings the only team in the history of the NHL to win with a euro captain, nice example.

Edit* Nevermind, bruins as well

Either way, the perception and appetite for more euros on the Canucks is not there.

And that euro captain was Nicklas Lidstrom.... arguably the best Swedish player ever.. so

Gillis inherited a bunch of Swedes from Burke/Nonis. IIRC, the only one he brought over was Samuelsson? Could be wrong..

Gillis' biggest success, Sundin.

^No idea how I forgot about that :lol

this is what he actually did
acquired: ehrhoff, demitra, sundin, hamhuis, lappiere, garrison, tanev, higgins
drafted: gaunce, hutton, jensen, horvat, shinkaruk, hodgson, corrado, subban, cassels

problem is that there were locker room problems, coaches lost the teams. the year they went all in injuries played a major part in the scf loss. luongo and kesler stunts, fucked with the team pretty good to be honest

as for benning.
we now have roughly 8 or 9 3/4th liners on the team, to say that's a retool..seems more like the plan for a tank job atm

Gillis primarily drafted out of Ontario ...

You realize that the people in charge of making the decisions in this years draft are COMPLETELY different from the people that made the drafts last season and before right? :concentrate:

According to bobby mac...sabres are starting on the compliance buyout process for erhoff.... The boatload of proposals are coming

Yeah...don't think Ehrhoff is coming back to the Canucks when this dumbass made this comment:


Yeah you didn't lose anything besides a successful powerplay, a good partner for Edler and your 90+ point season(s) Henrik :lawl:

^ Wow.. you really give Ehrhoff a lot of credit.

In hindsight, the Canucks fell apart after he left. He played really well with Edler, was a huge part of the powerplay, transition game and could actually skate/get the puck into the offensive zone.

Now we see an incredibly mediocre, overrated, slow group that has trouble getting into the offensive zone on a powerplay and has trouble setting up the powerplay that we have to watch today. Management tried to fix it by bringing in Garrison but it failed--and has now been bought out.

I'm not saying he's the solution to all the Canucks current problems just that they're lacking an offensive defenseman that can quarterback a powerplay like Ehrhoff. Maybe the Canucks should've tried to get Ekblad :troll:

But yes--I'm still bitter about the Canucks not keeping him :lol

Jovo bought out. more than likely to retire as well

This year we are so gonna blow dem away! Stanley Cup so ours!

Had more to do with the NHL relaxing on obstruction calls than Ehrhoff. If you look at the stats since 2011, penalty calls (especially obstruction calls) have dropped significantly.

Even with less penalties called--the Canucks still have trouble on the powerplay recently...

With Ehrhoff:
2009 - ranked 6th on the powerplay
2010 - ranked 1st on the powerplay

Without Ehrhoff:
2008 - ranked 17th on the powerplay
2011 - ranked 4th on the powerplay
2012 - ranked 22nd on the powerplay
2013 - ranked 26th on the powerplay

Team Power Play Percentage: 2013-14 NHL Season

There's no denying the fact he improved/was a huge part of the success on the powerplay and the significant drop of success on the powerplay of recent is alarming.

Of course there's always the intangibles like who's running the powerplay/whos on it/etc etc.

Ehrhoff was solid for the Sabres, this move was purely to avoid any future recapture penalties on the Sabres' cap if Ehrhoff retired before his contract expired, even if they had traded him, the recapture risk would be there.

Maximum 10 mil cap re-capture, minimum 3/6mil cap re-capture in the final 2 years, gross

I appreciate Ehrhoff for his ability to shoot hard and accurate through screens, and just get it through from the point

http://i.imgur.com/oPtXtas.gif GWG

if NYR can't get Stralman under contract I would love to see Sather try to get Erhoff depending on the price I think he would be a good fit for the team and would be playing under a system and coach he is familiar with Vigneault

pics from the Gino Odjick event today

Gino Odjick - Imgur

:tears::tears::tears::tears::tears::tears: