Pokecheque wrote:
Logical Progression wrote:
Yeah - from my side, the tables turned when MacKinnon was hurt. He's an elite talent and drives that team. The Avs would have won had he finished the game. Totally agree with your breakdown on speed. Green has been harping o speed generated from puck movement versus speed via skating fast all season long. The Canuck's early season success was clearly based on the former. They seem to be slowly rounding back into that form.
Not sure I agree...MacKinnon has struggled a bit of late, mainly because he's getting frustrated because the opposition is taking liberties with him. He actually wasn't really that effective and took a dumb penalty not long before getting hurt. He needs to grow up a little if he wants to be one of the Greats. Alex Kerfoot took the center spot and had himself a hell of a game.
No, the team scored three quick goals without MacKinnon factoring in at all IIRC, they still could've won this game had they not done stupid shit down the stretch. The one thing I disagree completely with Avs fans is that this was somehow an "easy" game. What it was was a trap game. They thought this would be an easy win against an easy opponent, and that's just not true. The Canucks are much better than what their record indicates, though they need to get rid of pluggers like NotGoodbranson to take those next steps.
Sorry that should have read "former" re: speed. But yea point taken. The Canucks really suffered with their depth when the injury bug hit after 14-10 start but seem to be rounding back into form. They are a very hard working team but need to out work their opponent every night just to stay competitive. They simply don't have enough elite talent to take parts of the game off. Green has been driving this message home all season.
As far as Gudbranson is concerned, totally agree. The game has passed him by. That was a bad trade period. He is slow and has very little puck moving skills. Usually his zone one exit passes involve banging the puck off the boards - painful. Talk in this market has emerged via management that they were upset with the lack of push back by the Canucks when Boeser was hit from behind by Trevor Lewis in the Kings game. And presto -- they are talking about now re-signing Guddy because he provides grit and accountability. This greatly concerns me. Media spin to increase his deadline trade value or cover their asses for a bad trade? Or are they actually serious???
Dude is a 3rd pairing defenseman at best. If they pay more than $3M per for 2 years for him they are just plain stupid and only have themselves to blame. I would say get whatever you can for him at the deadline, but he appears to carry very little trade value at this stage.
Even though that was a Benning trade, it is Linden who is the total gong show.