Canuckz.com

Trade Deadline Aftermath

Tonyz Tanti — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:00:35 +0000

Am I the only one that had a little bit of trouble adjusting to life after Olympic hockey? What an amazing tournament with such speed, skill and intensity. Then two days later, we have to watch the Canucks take on the Blue Jackets? Tough transition, but I think I’m getting back into the swing of things. The Canucks are on a nice little post-Olympic roll, beating the Blue Jackets in a comeback and laying a surprising beat down on the Red Wings.

They did this, despite not making a significant trade deadline acquisition (apologies to Andrew Alberts and Yan Stastny). The only thing tougher to do than watch Blue Jackets-Canucks hockey two days after one of the greatest moments in Canadian hockey history is watch TSN/Sportsnet/CBC hours upon hours of non-events! True, Wednesday’s trading deadline set a record for trades, but none were of the spectacular variety. TSN went on the air at 5am Pacific time on deadline day! The biggest names (Kovalchuk, Phaneuf, Jokinen) all moved before the Olympic trade freeze, which made for a challenging day for all the insiders. Including this guy:

It’s always difficult to judge a GM’s trading ability because we simply don’t know what he was offered. The only thing we can really do is to look at the other big names that moved, and judge whether or not we would have given up more to get that player. Looking at the list of players that moved, there weren’t many that would have significantly upgraded their defense or forwards. Of those who would have made a mild impact, they were given up for more than the Canucks should have been willing to give up (ie. I wouldn’t have given up a second round pick for Eric Belanger).

So what would I have done? Well, a 6th rounder for Milan Jurcina would have been smarter than getting Andrew Alberts for a 3rd rounder. Getting Scott Walker might have been well advised as well, considering that it only took a 7th rounder to get him. Other than those, I don’t see what the Canucks had to give up. They’re thin in the prospects pool, and just because you have Cory Schneider to trade doesn’t mean that you give him up for nothing.

So who is Andrew Alberts? He’s a 28 year old big defenseman that was a plus-player playing 15 minutes a night for the Hurricanes. Seems promising that he was a plus-player with such a terrible team, but averaging only 15 minutes a night worries me a little bit. I’m not certain that he’s an upgrade over any of their top 6 defensemen when they’re all healthy.

Mike Gillis also made a couple of other moves on deadline day, acquiring Yan Stastny for Pierre-Cedric Labrie (minor leaguer for another minor leaguer) and getting rid of Mathieu Schneider for Sean Zimmerman (depth defenseman for the Moose) and a conditional 6th round pick (I assume it’s conditional on Schneider clearing re-entry waivers).

All-in-all, a very underwhelming trade deadline day, but probably for good reason. Making a deal for the sake of making a deal usually doesn’t turn out well, nor does giving up draft picks and prospects for 2nd or 3rd liners. Stay patient, I say, build-up the farm and then roll the dice.

Canada’s Rough Road Ahead

Tonyz Tanti — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:51:11 +0000

After a long absence (bloggers get caught up in the Olympic hoopla too you know), Canuckz.com is back with a look at the Olympic hockey tournament. Most notably, what’s wrong with Team Canada, and what is head coach Mike Babock going to do about to fix things?

Brodeur vs Luongo

The pundits have spoken, and they are in almost total agreement: Luongo should start the next game. And I have to say, I agree with them. Brodeur looked shaky against the US and couldn’t stone wall the Swiss. He hasn’t been terrible, but he’s been the 2nd best goalie on the ice in the last two games and that’s not good enough. Put Luongo in net against the Germans and ride him the rest of the way.

The Forward Lines

In my mind, there are too many players playing too many minutes right now. They’ve spread the ice time so evenly amongst the forwards that nobody is finding a groove. Sidney Crosby is their star and he should be playing 20+ minutes. They’ve also got to find him a winger (please not Bergeron, thanks). The San Jose Shark line in my mind is also getting too much respect at the moment. Heatley is scoring, but what has Joe Thornton done? To answer my own question, Thornton has produced one assist. That’s it.

Babcock has to find a way to get Jarome Iginla and Jonathan Toews more involved. They’ve played great and have received minimal ice time.

Here’s what Mike Babcock is expected to go with against Germany:

Staal-Crosby-Iginla

Perry-Getzlaf-Nash

Marleau-Thornton-Heatley

Richards-Toews-Morrow

Bergeron

Defense

By “defense” I mean both team defense and their defensemen. Babcock needs to play his top guys as much as possible and go with 6 defensemen. You can’t play with 7 d-men without throwing everyone’s rhythm off. In the realm of team defense, they need to be blocking a lot more shots. Shot blocking, along with goaltending, was the difference in the game against the US. The US got their shots through at will, while Canada’s point men had a terrible time trying to put pucks on net.

Canada should beat Germany, and if they do, Russia will be waiting for them. It’s the worst case scenario for this team, but it is not an obstacle they are not capable of overcoming.

Alex Burrows February 2010 Calendar Wallpaper!!!

Sean Ovariez — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:10:57 +0000

It’s late but it’s here! Alexandre Burrows.. easily one of the best contracts in the NHL! If this reverses the mini-slump, you’ll know who to thank!

Download here (missing a weird resolution that you use that we don’t have? Post a comment to let us know and we’ll gladly add it!):

Trades… and Moustaches!

Tonyz Tanti — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:57:51 +0000

It looked pretty weird seeing Dion Phaneuf and J.S. Giguere in Leafs practice gear today. Once the faces of the Flames and Ducks respectively, both were traded to Toronto on Sunday. A day later, Calgary sent Olli Jokinen to the Rangers. For those of you that haven’t heard yet, here’s how the trades shook down:

To Toronto: Dion Phaneuf, Fredrik Sjostrom and Keith Aulie

To Calgary: Matt Stajan, Niklas Hagman, Jamal Mayers and Ian White

Analysis: What are the Calgary Flames thinking here? Even if they wanted to get rid of Phaneuf because of poor play and problems in their dressing room, is this really the best they could do? Stajan and Hagman wouldn’t make the Canucks top two lines, while Mayers wouldn’t be able to crack their lineup. Ian White’s not a bad defenceman and he’s still young, but he could probably develop into a number three defenceman at best. To make matters worse, Stajan and Mayers are scheduled to be UFAs at the end of the season. Someone out there must have been able to put a better offer for a 24 year old Norris trophy finalist with the kinds of tools that Phaneuf has. Getting a bunch of spare parts for Phaneuf is eerily similar to the Joe Thornton trade a few years ago. And thanks to Ian White and Niklas Hagman, it’s also the best moustache trade since 1979 when Lanny McDonald and Joel Quenneville were both traded from Toronto to Colorado.

To Toronto: J.S. Giguere

To Anaheim: Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake

Analysis: This trade makes a lot of sense for both teams. Toronto takes a gamble that Giguere can regain his Conn Smythe Trophy winning form, taking on Giguere’s $6 million salary. Even though he’s overpaid and underperforming, it works for them because they shed the salaries of Toskala and Blake (they each make $4 million). This deal makes sense for Anaheim because they’re paying less for their backup goalie and add some scoring with Blake.

To Calgary: Ales Kotalik and Chris Higgins

To NY Rangers: Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust

Analysis: Clearly Darryl Sutter felt like he had enough staches on the team with the acquisition of White and Hagman that he could let Olli Jokinen and his handlebar moustache go to the Rangers. Seriously though, what is he thinking? In this trade he gets more spare parts, overpaid spare parts at that! Higgins has 14 points and makes $2.25 million. Kotalik meanwhile makes $3 million and has 22 points. Jokinen hasn’t done what Calgary hoped, but he’s still a heck of a lot better than those guys.

David Backes Rumoured to be on his way to the West Coast

Tonyz Tanti — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:22:02 +0000

Who likes rumours? Everyone! Matthew Sekeres is reporting that the Canucks and Blues may be working on a deal that would see the Canucks acquiring David Backes with Cory Schneider heading the other way. Apparently Mike Gillis decided last minute to skip the Top Prospects Game in Windsor in favour of the Habs-Blues game in Montreal, presumably to watch Backes.

Here are some other interesting things that Sekeres is saying about this rumour:

- In July 2008, one of Gillis’ first acts as Canucks GM was to sign St. Louis centre David Backes to a three-year, $7.5-million (all currencies U.S.) offer sheet. The Blues, grudgingly, matched.

- The Blues are six points out of a playoff spot, and have 16 games remaining before the Olympic break

- Blues president John Davidson was in Winnipeg in early-January, and told a local radio station he was there to scout the American Hockey League’s Manitoba Moose, Vancouver’s farm team, and the Hershey Bears, the Washington Capitals farm team. Both the Canucks and Caps are in playoff position.

- The Blues have been trying to get by with the tandem of Chris Mason and Ty Conklin, a pair of 33-year-olds who have been backups more than starters over their careers. Prospect Ben Bishop seems to have fallen out of favour, and long-range prospect Jake Allen proved that he is not nearly ready for prime time with an abysmal performance at the world junior championship in Saskatchewan earlier this month.

What would this trade mean for the Canucks:

-Acquiring a 25 year old 31 goal scorer (last season)

-Adding size and grit

-Upgrading on Kyle Wellwood as a 3rd line centre

What this would mean for the Blues:

-Securing their goaltending future

-Shedding some salary for a relatively cash poor franchise

Acquiring David Backes is very intriguing to me. Is he the 31 goal scorer we saw last year or is he the under performing player we’re seeing this year? Probably somewhere in between. He’s the right type of player they need: a young big bruising forward. My only concern is that giving up Cory Schneider might be a bit too much. If they could throw-in a draft pick, I think they may have a deal.

Lets hope this deal gets done if for no other reason than to wonder what Kesler and Burrows have to say to Backes when he walks in the room:

Mike Peca Retires

Tonyz Tanti — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:35:37 +0000

Mike Peca called it a career today. Hardly a surprise given he hasn’t played a game this year, but still notable nonetheless. From a Canucks perspective, I will remember “Captain Crunch” for a couple of different reasons.

At the 1995 draft, then Canucks general manager Pat Quinn pulled off one of the biggest blockbuster trades in Canucks history. The city was in a frenzy as Quinn had just acquired former 76 goal scorer Alexander Mogilny, reuniting him with countryman Pavel Bure. Well, Mike Peca was one of the key prospects that went the other way and remarkably (considering Mogilny was still a pretty good player) it would turn out to be a trade that Canucks fans would like to do over. Mogilny had one big year with the Canucks and then began a downward spiral in his production, matching the Canucks downward spiral in the standings. Meanwhile, Peca quickly developed into a leader and a Selke trophy winner with a scoring touch, just what the Canucks of the late 90s and early 2000s needed.

But most of all, Canucks fans will remember this:

MacLean-Gate

Tonyz Tanti — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:42:33 +0000

Alain Vigneault is fuming mad at a member of the media and his name is… Ron MacLean?! How weird is that? This, the same man who is beloved so much in this country that when the CBC decided to let him go, that the entire nation rose up and demanded (successfully) that he get whatever contract demand he wanted? A bizarre situation, indeed. For those that missed MacLean’s comments and Vigneault’s rebuttal:

In my mind, Vigneault is more than justified in his criticism of MacLean. Ron MacLean focused on the diving and embellishment that Alex Burrows has been guilty of in the past rather than focus on the real story: did referee Stephane Auger pre-determine penalties against Alex Burrows as a form of retaliation? That’s the real story, and I think most people would find it hard to believe that Burrows would make up such an elaborate story with such conviction.

MacLean attacked the character of Alex Burrows and in my mind they could have easily done the same to Stephane Auger, just as Pierre Lebrun did for ESPN:

During a December 2005 game between the Coyotes and Canadiens in Montreal, Auger handed Doan a 10-minute misconduct penalty after concluding the Phoenix forward had verbally abused an official and made culturally insensitive comments against the referees. Both referees and both linesmen for the game were French-Canadians.

The league conducted an investigation and found the allegations against Doan to be baseless. As a French-Canadian, I’m particularly sensitive to this stuff, but I can tell you, from the conversations I had with Doan, both at the time and since then, I believe the Coyotes captain when he says he did not make ethnic slurs.

In any case, I don’t believe that Ron MacLean necessarily has to run segments for Hockey Night in Canada like some kind of judicial process with representation from all sides, but he has look at the story. Even if Burrows was the biggest diver in the league (he’s not), Auger should not be allowed to make-up interference penalties as a form of revenge.

This brings me to another point. Diving in the NHL: is it a penalty or isn’t it? I wish they could decide. It seems to get called sometimes and ignored other times. And about 90% of the time they call diving, they also call hooking/tripping/etc as well. That’s not the way to get rid of diving. You get rid of diving by calling just the dive. To me, a dive should negate any kind of hook/trip/etc. Do you think Burrows would dive every game if say, every 4th game he received a diving penalty which could potentially hurt his team? Not a chance.

Burrows Beef

Demitra to Play Saturday

Tonyz Tanti — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:39:45 +0000

Team 1040 is reporting that Pavol Demitra will likely make his season debut Saturday versus the Pittsburgh Penguins. Great news, now all they have to decide is where to put him. Has the second line of Samuelsson, Kesler, and Raymond shown enough to not get broken up? I’m not sure it has.

It appears Alain Vigneault isn’t ready to shake up his top two lines. Here’s what the lines looked like at practice today:

Sedin-Sedin-Burrows

Raymond-Kesler-Samuelsson

Demitra-Wellwood-Bernier

Hordichuk-Rypien-Glass

Jannik Hansen looks to be a healthy scratch, Ryan Johnson is still injured and Alex Bolduc is injured because he’s crazy.

*Update: It looks like Bernier re-aggravated his groin injury, so look for Jannik Hansen to take his spot on the third line.

Burrows Beef

Tonyz Tanti — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:09:12 +0000

With a pair of goals on Monday against Nashville on top of last week’s NHL number one star of the week honour, Alex Burrows is red hot at the moment. But it’s the controversy that revealed itself on Monday night that is all anyone can talk about. Burrows accused referee Stephane Auger of carrying out a personal vendeta against him, looking to call penalties because Burrows showed up Auger a month ago. Listening to Burrows in his post game interview and looking in his eyes, it’s not likely that he is fabricating this story. If it’s true, the NHL will have a messy situation on its hands. Helping Burrows’ case is the fact that his chat with Auger was caught on camera, although you can’t tell what they are talking about.

Laser-Gate

It seems that the only thing more beloved than those green men at GM Place is the laser pointer guy at GM Place. Well, at least for some. The Calgary Flames aren’t too happy about it. For good reason, I guess. You shouldn’t have to deal with that for that long, but I think some people are starting to exagerate things a little bit. Take a look at the Calgary Flames message board. Here’s a sample of some of the best:

That was not the same laser you use to play with your cat. It has to be considered assault. I don’t care if it was a kid fooling around, an over enthusiastic college kid or somebody’s Grandma, it’s assault and they should be charged for it. Set an example before this gets out of hand.

Not only an ejection but the !%@##+ should be charged for trying to cause bodily harm to another person.

This whole incident appears to be a security issue at GM place.
Now that it has been highlighted, there is no excuse for the owners not to fix it.
If it continues then perhaps a league fine and/or movement of the remainder of the games to a safer venue is in order.

It’s a laser pointer people. It probably won’t appear again, and if it does, the security at GM Place will do a better job of finding the person. It’s also not some kind of retina burning laser or a shark with a laser beam attached to its head. Actually, it’s something more like this:

Henrikmania, Schneider-Lukowich Swap, Jannik “Dangerfield” Hansen and More!

Tonyz Tanti — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:00:14 +0000

After lets face it, a boring first 20-30 games this season, there are now lots of things going on in Canuckland. In fact, I can think of at least ten of them:

1. Henrikmania

Henrik Sedin, Art Ross Trophy winner… could it happen? You would have been laughed at if you suggested this even a month ago. But not now. Henrik was named the NHL first star for the month of December and is currently tied for first in the league in scoring! This is not just a small streak that he’s on, we’re more than halfway through the season. Take notice: Henrik (and Daniel) have arrived as elite players.

2. Mathieu Schneider is Gone

Apparently he’s nice and happy in Manitoba now and apparently it sounds like the Canucks wanted to see him go as much as he did. One of the more interesting excerpts:

“You’re speaking to a guy who generally believes in forgiveness,” assistant general manager Laurence Gilman said. “But there’s been a certain amount of water under the bridge at this point. He hasn’t been happy with what has occurred here, and we haven’t been happy with what has occurred.”

Doesn’t sound like they’ll be interested in recalling him anytime soon. Something was obviously said/done behind the scenes that we don’t know about.

3. Lukowich is Back

Brad Lukowich is back in town! The Canucks entered this season with 9 defencemen under contract and it looks like it was a good decision. They’ve used them all. Luckily Lukowich got through re-entry waivers (a little surprising if you ask me).

4. Jannik Hansen Gets No Respect

Jannik Hansen is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Vancouver Canucks. He has seven points in 20 games so far, playing only 12 minutes a night on the fourth line. Those are great numbers, he has an even plus-minus rating and I think he checks well also. So why has he been a healthy scratch since the December 27 win in Calgary? I know why: no respect.

5. Louie’s Lights Out

So why are the Canucks playing so well of late? Well as usual, the Canucks go as Roberto Luongo plays. He’s been lights out lately and so has the team. He’s starting to climb up the ladder in goalie stats to where he belongs.

6. Tickets to Canucks Games

Notice how many times the Canucks have released tickets for games at GM Place lately? I can’t remember another season like it. Any chance they’re not actually selling out all of their games anymore? Maybe they’ve finally reached the ceiling for ticket prices, especially in this economy.

7. Rick Rypien

Need we say more?

8. Pavol Demitra

He practiced this week for the first time in months and he’s almost back from his injury. Lets just hope he can stay healthy once he gets back.

9. Cody Hodgson

Watching the World Juniors without Cody Hodgson got me thinking, has he played this year yet? Well the answer is no. It also got me thinking once again: why was he playing in the NHL preseason again?

10. On the Right Side of the Bar

Finally the Canucks have re-joined the top 8 in the Western Conference! I don’t think I was the only one who was getting nervous about that. Don’t look now, but they’re knocking on the door for the division lead too.