The overachieving Vancouver Canucks

[TheBert 0]

Weighing in on the team, I'm impressed by how much our depth and prospects have delivered: Edler, Raymond, Jaffray, McIver, Weaver and Bourdon all exceeded my expectation. It's a chronic disease of Vancouver fans to undervalue our prospects given our drafting history, but I think Raymond is very promising. Certainly not good enough to be thrown into trades, but give him another year or two and we'll see.

Ryan Kesler is looking to be doing his best Mike Peca imitation. Disclaimer, I'm a Kesler-fanboy, so I'm really holding out on the hope that his hands elevate him into a top 6 forward. Biggest concern is whether the team really is just overachieving. No Morrison and Bieksa and they're still on top of the Northwest (probably only a close 2nd to the Atlantic in competitiveness).

It seems teams with great goaltending have the tendency to think that every year is "the" year and end up trading the farm at the trade deadline for playoff rentals. But you got to think that barring Keenan becoming GM that Luongo will be here for a while longer. I'm putting my sentimental eggs in the basket for '09. I still think dropping/re-signing Naslund/Morrison at cheaper salaries is necessary and that won't happen till the end of the season.

Looks like Ruutu's been reading the pranks thread http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08008/847520-61.stm

It was great when he pulled this stuff with the Canucks

Ruutu also might have had a hand in a recent prank in which rookie defenseman Kris Letang nearly missed a team flight because someone had sewn shut the sleeves and pant legs of his suit.

[gxc999 7]

Luongo can only hold them together for so long. This team still lacks goal scoring. Naslund only scores points b/c the Sedins drag him on the scoresheet.

They're great but not goal scorers really, they're set up men. If this club added 1 true sniper, they'd be scary.

[mattzilla 0]

I think its pretty funny how everyone makes them out to be a GREAT defensive team ( or at least on the Island where i live... ) when If they didnt have such a phenomenal goalie, they'd be exposed as a pretty mediocre defensive team.

If they didnt have luongo, they would be a near the bottom of the conference team. Every night he has that team on his back. Even when he doesnt have a GREAT game.. he still makes HUGE saves when he needs to, or ones that just seem to suck the life out of the other team.

[TheBert 0]

I think its pretty funny how everyone makes them out to be a GREAT defensive team ( or at least on the Island where i live... ) when If they didnt have such a phenomenal goalie, they'd be exposed as a pretty mediocre defensive team.

If they didnt have luongo, they would be a near the bottom of the conference team. Every night he has that team on his back. Even when he doesnt have a GREAT game.. he still makes HUGE saves when he needs to, or ones that just seem to suck the life out of the other team.

I've never been a fan of the "what if they didn't have" argument.

What if Detroit didn't have Lidstrom?

What if Edmonton didn't have Gretzky? :P

[Andoy 5]

I've never been a fan of the "what if they didn't have" argument.

What if Detroit didn't have Lidstrom?

What if Edmonton didn't have Gretzky? :P

Detroit is a deep team.

Edmonton back in Gretzky's days were pretty deep as well....can't say much about the Canucks :(

[TheBert 0]

I get ya, but point is that it's always been weak to argue that "X team sucks without their superstar, Y".

[Chadd 916]

I get ya, but point is that it's always been weak to argue that "X team sucks without their superstar, Y".

Yes and no, injuries happen all the time so debating the fortunes of a team that relies heavily on one guy isn't strange.

[Clark12 0]

What if Detroit didn't have Lidstrom?

What if Edmonton didn't have Gretzky? :P

What if the Islanders didn't have Milbury? :P

What if the Islanders didn't have a crazy owner? :P

[mattzilla 0]

What if Detroit didn't have Lidstrom?

What if Edmonton didn't have Gretzky? :P

What if the Islanders didn't have Milbury? :P

What if the Islanders didn't have a crazy owner? :P

Anyway, if they dont get him some help soon he is going to be worn out by the playoffs.

[TheBert 0]

I agree. They need to get Sanford more starts.

Canucks picked up Kris Beech. No idea where he fits.

[cbj05 0]

Kris had a stretch of 3-4 games where he racked up the points playing with Z and Nash, but has been silent and invisible since. It could work out for him in Vancouver because of all the injuries, but from what I saw of him in Columbus, I doubt he has the consistency to make a difference.

[jbyun04 7]

Kris had a stretch of 3-4 games where he racked up the points playing with Z and Nash, but has been silent and invisible since. It could work out for him in Vancouver because of all the injuries, but from what I saw of him in Columbus, I doubt he has the consistency to make a difference.

can't be worse than Isbister, can he?

I'm sure Sanford will get some starts coming up since Luongo will be in Florida with his wife.

[bruins4777 1]

If the oilers didn't have gretzky they'd only have a stanley cup.

[mattzilla 0]

If the oilers didn't have gretzky they'd only have a stanley cup.

clever!...

[KC83 2]

beech, looked pretty bad in the defensive zone last night... (coyotes)

he did get a couple of shots off, which is better than isbister, and he seems to try to skate once the puck leaves the defensive zone

I can see beech being in the doghouse of our coach, just cause of his non defensive efforts

[jbyun04 7]

not to mention Raymond just got sent down and Rypien got called up.. Why? I don't know.

[KC83 2]

raymond was playing really well, and i think everyone was super excited to have him playing, but if you look at it... he didn't really have anyone to play with, the sedins seemed to have found pyatt again,

kesler has burrows and some checker (cowan, cooke,ritchie,)

naslund cooke beech

linden, rypien, ritchie/brown/cowan

i think that we need raymond, but the way we are playing there was no space for him right now even though he was a solid addition, but we should dump beech soon unless he pulls something out of his ass and plays way better than he did against the coyotes