MacEwen gets his ass handed to him by Reaves.

The last guy we had who could go toe-to-toe with Reaves was Sestito. Reaves is one of the few true heavyweights left in the league.

Why do the media and shit focus so much on that idiot Reaves, guy plays what 10 minutes a game tops??? Fuckin ignore him... all this talk of how to counter him.... woopteedoo he gets a few hits a game. Big deal. Roussel needs to ignore him too. He’s only effective cuz we are paying attention to him.

Big dude, hits hard, got 13 hits in game 1 of the series. Making the opposition feel pain and discomfort early gives you an edge.

That said, bigger deal is that Vegas gave up very few scoring opportunities and their top 6 dominated.

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-will be very interesting to see what kinds of adjustments that Greener will make for game 2 and the rest of the series.

If I was armchair coach for a day, these are the game plan adjustments that I would make for the team:

1)Play Vegas at their own game. Relentless forecheck on their defence men and forwards. Turn the tables on them. If they are forechecking hard on our forwards and defence men, we do the same thing. Make their zone breakouts really difficult. We need much more offensive zone time.

2) Puck recovery and possession. Our forwards need to go after that puck relentlessly like a hungry dog charging after a big, juicy bone. Win the puck battles on the boards. When our d-men are going after the pucks, make sure there is one d-man to clear out the forwards in front of Markstrom’s crease.

3) Heavy physical game. The big hits need to come back for the Canucks. I only remember one big hit from Edler in the Vegas zone during the third period of game 1. Greener needs to keep emphasize finishing bodychecks on Vegas’ defence and forwards. In particular, shotgun Jake must finish all his hits. Stop letting up on your hits, Jake! :mad: No more playing like a cupcake!! :mad:

4) Make life very miserable for that goalie Lehner. Much more traffic in front of Lehner on 5 and 5 play and power play. Greener is definitely looking at video to look for weaknesses in Lehner’s game. We need garbage goals from Bo, Roussel, JT Miller, Virtanen or any forward in front of Lehner’s crease. I would not mind Roussel giving more trash talk to troll him. Give Lehner more snow
showers. Get up into his grill. :lawl:

5) Increase shot attempts from the slot.

Greener and his assistant coaches need to figure a way to make more time and space for Petey, Boeser, JT Miller, and Bo to get good quality scoring chances from the slot. Heck, the Canucks need to shoot the puck more from any angle with traffic in front of Lehner.

6) Hughes makes adjustments at Vegas blue line and with zone breakouts. Coaching staff and some veterans like Sutter were giving encouragement to Quinn in game 1 when he looked upset at the beach. Vegas forwards
Kept hitting Quinn in his own zone and took away the middle of the Vegas blue line when Quinn tried to skate along blue line to set up
Offence in their zone. Hughes needs to figure a way to set the plays faster in the Vegas blue line and counter the Vegas forecheck with faster zone breakouts. Forwards need to help out Quinn by being ready for the quick pass.

7) Power play. The PP is a difference maker in this series for our Canucks. Again, more traffic in front of Lehner. Winning puck battles along the boards for longer puck possession in the Vegas zone. Garbage goals from rebounds. High quality shots from the shots. Turn the Vegas zone into a shooting gallery.

In particular, our zone breakouts for the power play are too predictable. The Vegas penalty killers are recognizing the back pass. The guys on the power play units need to change up the zone breakout. Hopefully, Greener and his assistants change the zone breakout for the PP.


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Sadly it went exactly how I thought it would go, I think if the Canucks clean up the turn overs and play their game they could have a change but I honestly doubt it. Vegas is a different beast and this experience they are getting is the most important thing.

For a 3-yr old expansion team, how did VGK get so good? I remember back in the day, expansion teams would suck for many years before gaining any sort of respectability.

VGK got picked from a very good pool of players for the expansion.

Florida, Minnesota, and Anaheim made some awful decisions.

Vegas plays wayyyy tighter than the blues did. Gonna be very difficult to create legit scoring chances.

They are also relentless on the puck when we are cycling in their zone, very little room to do anything and players like Hughes etc that had a bit more time before are now having to dish the puck off almost as soon as they get it.

Gonna be a tough go

They were gifted a lot of decent/good talent from other teams because of cap restrictions.

I don't think there has been any other recent expansion team that was given such favourable terms.

That way of expansion wasn't very good for the new owner or the league. Spend all that money and no chance of making the playoffs for half a decade?

And don't expect to see Seattle getting the same terms too.

And given a lot of draft picks to not take certain players from teams which Vegas in turn traded away for good players.

A lot of things happened and went in Vegas' favor.

How is this all fair, though?

This is why I don't follow the NHL anymore, it seems so beer league. Has there ever been an expansion team in professional sports awarded such favorable terms? It just seems insane to me that this newly formed expansion team was allowed to load up in talent, and essentially steam through the entire league essentially right from its formation.

If you think about it, it's more like some of the other GMs in the league trying to game the system and systematically loading up VGK's roster :lol

Previous NHL expansion drafts resulted in terrible teams for several years.

Years to first 40-win season:
San Jose: 10
Ottawa: 7
Tampa Bay: 12
Anaheim: 10
Florida: 3
Nashville: 8
Atlanta: 7
Columbus: 9
Minnesota: 3
Vegas: 1

Exemptions (All eras):
- Unsigned draft picks
- Signed players with 2 or fewer years of pro hockey experience
- Signed players drafted from Europe within the previous 4 years who are still playing in Europe
- Most recent expansion team(s)

Protected lists:
1991 (21 teams, 1 expansion team): 16 skaters, 2 goaltenders
1992 (21 teams, 2 expansion teams): 14 skaters, 2 goaltenders
1993 (22 teams, 2 expansion teams): 9 forwards, 5 defensemen, 1 goaltender
1998 (26 teams, 1 expansion team): 9 forwards, 5 defensemen, 1 goaltender or 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, 2 goaltenders
1999 (26 teams, 1 expansion team): 9 forwards, 5 defensemen, 1 goaltender or 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, 2 goaltenders
2000 (26 teams, 2 expansion teams): 9 forwards, 5 defensemen, 1 goaltender or 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, 2 goaltenders
2017 (30 teams, 1 expansion team): 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, 1 goaltender or 8 skaters, 1 goaltender
2021 (30 teams, 1 expansion team): 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, 1 goaltender or 8 skaters, 1 goaltender

NHL Entry Draft:
1991: 2nd overall
1992: 1st overall, 2nd overall
1993: 3rd overall, 4th overall
1998: 2nd overall
1999: 2nd overall
2000: 3rd overall, 4th overall
2017: Equal to 3rd best odds in draft lottery
2021: Equal to 3rd best odds in draft lottery

As you can see, the NHL increased the number of teams that expansion teams could choose from while simultaneously allowing those teams to protect fewer players. There was also the introduction of the salary cap which didn't exist in previous expansion drafts.

I feel like the NHL saw that previous expansion teams generally struggled (even the teams that did find early success like Florida and Minnesota weren't able to sustain it) and continued to try to improve their starting position, but underestimated the aggregate effect of:
- being the only team choosing players
- significantly more teams to choose from
- smaller protection lists
- the salary cap

... when it came to the Vegas and upcoming Seattle expansion drafts.

Again, it didn't help that Florida gifted them 1/3 of their top 6 forwards with Minnesota and Anaheim throwing in more quality players (Tuch, Theodore) to help them out in what were, even at the time, considered dubious decisions. Pittsburgh kept Fleury for a cup run (which they won) but otherwise could have traded him prior to the trade deadline instead of exposing him in the expansion draft.

That along with the draft picks they got. Basically loaded them up with currency to trade for other players.

They did do some good scouting in taking William karlsson. They team would be a lot different if they weren’t able to find a centre in that top 6.

I would be inclined to think that Vegas doesn't deserve a great team to be gifted to them like that, where they usually want to bring in a pro sports team to appeal to tourists who are fans of other teams.

However I heard that they have a really good fan base, so good for them

I hope the Raiders get a good following too if that's the case, as much as it sucks for their Oakland fans

Being a tourist team really sucks

Columbus wanted to protect goaltenders Bobrovsky and Korpisalo (of which they could only protect one by the rules) and Jack Johnson. They also wanted to dump David Clarkson's contract (unofficially retired via LTIR). So they agreed to trade Vegas a 2017 1st and a 2019 2nd if they left Korpisalo and Johnson alone and took on Clarkson's mostly-insured LTIR contract.

If Columbus doesn't make that stupid trade and Vegas takes Korpisalo or :lawl: Johnson :facepalm: ...

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The Daily Shit is reporting that Toffoli may play in game 2 tonight. :considered:

-as reported by Dan Murphy and Rick Dhaliwal.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canu...lineup-tonight

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Toffoli is playing tonight. Loui is out of the lineup.


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Toffoli! We get a goal!

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All on Pettersson :thumbsup:

Yes, I missed the first 2 minutes while making breakfast. You're welcome SeemsGood