OffThePost.org

I've got such a crush on this guy, just totally smitten.

https://imgur.com/xvpoo23

Love the pop on Scheifele's head.

Okay, I know concussion stuff but little guys can take a heap of abuse, a dman knowing there maybe consequences is a good thing imo.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Dude's dogged on the puck and has been working hard at both ends of the ice. Gets rewarded with a bit of a flukey one last night.

Hope he can keep it up.

He is making Horvat/Pearson better than any player they were with last year. Plus he plays great defense, so coach doesn't have to go thru the rookie nerves they usually succumb to.

He's just tenacious on the puck (and Pod is supposed to be similarly hard on the puck but bigger ) and I wish Greene would put him on the PK. I think he would be excellent there. However, I can't really blame Greene for being resistant to allow the rookies to play through there mistakes. He's on the last year of his contract. He should have been given an extension so he was more focused on developing Juolevi, Chatfield, Hoglander for the future and less focused on win now. Next year all of Juolevi, Charfield, Rafferty and Rathbone look to be on the Canuck's. That's going to be a lot of learning next year but needs to be done so they have a solid core going into the prime years for Pettersson and Hughes to win the cup. It would be best if Chatfield and Joulevi were playing almost every night now and growing instead of Benn who has zero future here. But Benning/Aquilini as always fail to impress regarding contracts.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

Joulevi needs to work on his pivoting and overall foot speed. Chatfield is looking good. Comparisons made to Bieksa on HNIC. Don't think I would go that far in terms of offensive output but an encouraging sign nonetheless. Don't know much about Rafferty and Rathbone other than they've been knocking on the door of the Canucks blueline for awhile now but haven't made it past the threshold. It would be nice for them to some extended NHL action this season, to your point, so we know what we've got.

Rafferty had 45 points in 57 games as a 24 year old rookie last year. Here is Canuck's army evaluation. https://canucksarmy.com/2020/05/11/raff/

and Rathbone is only 21 but was judged to be the best of Chatfield, Joulevi and Rafferty in training camp. Scouts are drooling over him and project as a 1st pairing dman. However it was felt he would be better off playing big minutes in Utica then 10 minutes a night on the 3rd pairing or worse as the 7th D in the press box. I'll be very surprised if they are not both on the team next year.

And I forgot Kole Lind. They're converting him to centre this year. With the switch he may need two years on the farm but he looks to make the team next year as well. That could be 4 rookies next year.

Hughes - Rafferty
Rathbone -Schmidt
Joulevi - Chatfield

keep one of Hamonic/Edler as - 7th
Saunter - 8th

Myers - Kraken ......fingers crossed!

4 rookies this year, (MacEwen, Joulevi, Hoglander, Chatfield) and 3-4 next year. That will help their salary cap issues, and set them up really well for the next several years as Pettersson and Hughes come into their prime production years.

Or more likely Benning will trade a couple of them at the trade line for Taylor Hall to make a push for the cup this year, and I'll be ranting and throwing things.

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Shoresy, "It's called a sweater"

I would agree that Juolevi needs to be a better skater. He looks vulnerable turning. I would add Podkolzin to the list of young guns coming up. With Pearson and Sutter as UFAs there are opportunities for these kids to play a big role but that will have a cost. It might as well be during this shortened season...

Semi-rebuild 2.0.

He doesn't warrant his own thread and comparisons to BXA are premature but so far, Chatfield looks pretty good.

Hoglander. Because it's his thread after all.