Well it’s official. Today is August 1st and that means we can finally say Canuck’s training camp is next month!
It’s been a hot week here on the West Coast and the Canucks haven’t done too much at all this week. There are still a few potential lower-value free agents the Canucks could target, but right now it feels like the roster will change with a winger-for-defender trade.
On this week’s episode of the Canucks Conversation podcast, Quads and I laid out our ideal forward lines if there are no roster changes by opening night. We both had Nils Höglander in our fourth line and it doesn’t feel like the Canucks want to lead things in 2022-23.
It got me thinking, which is more likely…
Is it more likely that Tanner Pearson will start in the fourth row or that Höglander will start in the AHL?
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments and I’ll be working on an article on Höglander this week.
For now, we have a few questions to answer in this week’s Monday Mailbag below Canuck’s Army! We have a few questions from last week’s mailbag. As the new procedure dictates, add (#MM) to your question in the comments section of this article for possible inclusion in next week’s mailbag. It was great to include the comments section instead of just relying on twitter.
We’ve had a bit of a slow week in Canuckland, but there are still many questions we need to address. Let’s rip open the digital mailbag and see what questions we have this week!
Would you go skydiving if it gave us a 50/50 chance at drawing Bart?
— jl (@xcaperalitea) July 31, 2022
If you want to see the Canucks win, you have to answer yes to that question. I always thought skydiving was easier than bungee jumping. Skydiving gives you the feeling of being so high up that maybe your fear of heights isn’t that strong.
I would definitely make the jump. Connor Bedard has the potential to be the next franchise player and he’s a huge Canucks fan.
Landing that kind of talent would be amazing for the Canucks, and skydiving for a 50/50 shot shouldn’t be a no-no for almost any Canucks fan.
Bungee jumping though? That’s scary.
Did the Canucks play the Miller situation a little too slowly?
— alasdair™️ (@ae_allchin) July 31, 2022
After a week’s break from JT Miller’s talk, I guess it’s my duty to get back on track this week.
The Canucks may have played this situation too slowly with Miller. The trade market was feeling hot on Miller at the close, and I’m beginning to wonder if the best value could have been achieved in a trade where Miller was a two-year lease. The Canucks could have kept a portion of his $5,250,000 and probably made a huge profit as of last season’s deadline.
It feels like a lot has moved around the league, but one of the most rumored trade targets hasn’t moved. I think the Canucks have an extremely high demand for Miller, and quite frankly, they should.
There are times I worry about what the return will be like for Miller if he’s a Canuck by the upcoming season’s deadline. It leads me to believe that trading with Miller as of last season’s deadline would have yielded the best profit with even a small amount of money withheld.
We are now in a situation where Miller’s next contract makes up the bulk of a trade. The Canucks will be able to pull off a strong return if the trading partner is able to tie Miller to a small overtime. The return can be absent if a team simply adds Miller as a one-run lease for the 2022-23 playoffs.
There’s still a very good chance Miller will return a great haul before the season starts, and we’re excited for the new building blocks of the Canucks’ future. I don’t think the team slowed this situation past the point of no return, but in my eyes they took the riskier route of managing an asset as large as JT Miller.
Let’s do something crazy! What would it take for us to remove the TD logo from our helmets? Another will gladly pay the same amount.
Td logo = Boston logo.
It’s so hard to see@fr_aquilini @ChrisFaber39— Egg (@Eggfacesalad) July 31, 2022
It would cost a lot of money from another sponsor.
The good news about Jett Woo is that he just turned 22. He celebrated his birthday last week, and while he didn’t earn a spot on defense in the AHL playoffs, he still has some skills that are pretty exciting.
We didn’t include Woo in our top 10 contenders last week because he had such a difficult time last season. Battling injuries and playing forward really made us wonder if there was NHL potential for Woo. He was looking impressive after his rookie AHL season and we thought if he continued to improve we could talk about a potential NHL bottom pairing of Jack Rathbone and Woo.
Woo didn’t get many games alongside Rathbone last season and, quite simply, wasn’t one of the top three right-shot defenders when it came to making the playoff list. Some of that could have come from battling an injury mid-season, but it also shows there haven’t been big improvements from last season.
For a while we thought Woo would find his game early in the season and his coach had high expectations for what Woo would do in the second half of the season. It just seemed like he hadn’t improved much with his puck handling and that bit his ass as he came back from injury.
We hope he comes out next season and surprises us. There’s an easy way for him to get back into the top 10 prospects in the system as he plays a position of extreme value and we like his playstyle when he’s in his game.
It will be at least another season of AHL development before we can talk about Woo even getting a whiff of NHL. Even getting games in the NHL feels like a long shot right now. A lot of improvements need to be made to his game in the coming season before we consider Woo a better drafting option than Noah Juulsen, Kyle Burroughs or Brady Keeper.
Let’s hope Woo can surprise us this fall. We need to see a big improvement over last season.
Strange? You have it. If Myers doesn’t trade this season, will he roll over at a lower cap hit?
— Eric Blow (@EricBlow92) July 31, 2022
That’s an interesting question because Tyler Myers has played quite well as a defensive back this past season, more so than at any time in his NHL career.
If he continues to improve defensively and get a little more physical, Myers’ career could add a few more years. He could re-sign with the Canucks after this year. He had the big deal of coming here, maybe he would take a little less than he could earn elsewhere to stay.
Myers spends his offseason in Kelowna and he clearly likes it here in British Columbia.
Three years at $3,500,000. Would that be okay?
What happens to Will Lockwood?
— Richie Abercrombie (@RichieAbercromb) July 31, 2022
Right now, Will Lockwood is probably the 14th or 15th forward on the depth chart.
I expect he’ll do very well around camp, but it would probably take a couple of very strong preseason games for him to crack the NHL roster away from camp. Lockwood plays an aggressive game, but lacks the scoring consistency needed to stay in the NHL.
He’s not a point in 15 NHL games, and that needs to change if Lockwood can one day be an everyday NHLer.
The good news is that when it comes to injuries in the forward group, it’s a great thing to have Lockwood as a caller to slip into your fourth line. Lockwood will come with energy in each shift and uses his speed to give opponents a hard time.
There’s still a long way to go before Lockwood is an NHLer, but for now he’ll be a very important part at Abbotsford and will be waiting for that call once we see a forward or two go down early in the NHL season.
Those interested ran in teams at the Moorhuhn grind at the development camp.
Here is a post about the times. I was told the Sedins ran in the morning before the development camp groups left.
Grouse grind times for players in development camp. @canucks @grousemountain pic.twitter.com/pXMGZoQ8Vl
— Harpreet Pandar (@HarpPandher) July 15, 2022
So we don’t know which player was fastest as they had to work in teams and couldn’t finish until their entire team was up to speed.
Were the renovations Rutherford spoke of done at Rogers Arena?
— The Rocket (@flying_skate) July 31, 2022
Not sure if they were completed but we had Patrik Allvin’s free agency availability at the sports bar. This leads me to believe there is a lot more going on in the former media and changing room areas.
What record do you think the Canucks would need to have as of deadline to consider not moving JT?
— JJnumber1 (@Jnumber1J) July 31, 2022
If they’re a top-two team in the Pacific Division, then and only then should they consider keeping Miller.
I don’t like when an asset goes for free, but if the Canucks can be one of the top two teams in the Pacific, they’ve earned the right to fight Miller in the playoffs.
Well, that includes another Monday mailbag here Canuck’s Army. We’ll be back with more updates about the team throughout the week and begin to assess how some of the lines will shake down.
It’s that time of year for some slow stuff, but that should give our imaginations some room to breathe and have some fun.
See you next week for another Monday Mailbag article. Thanks again for all the questions on Twitter and in the comment sections here. If you want to ask a question, make sure you start your comment with (#MM) and start asking!
Till next Monday.
#Monday #Mailbag #extension #Tyler #Myers #skydiving #Bedard #Canucks #slow #Miller
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