I actually like the direction of this team moving forward. Allvin and Rutherford have chosen Miller, Pettersson, Hughes, and Kuzmenko to be the core moving forward, with young pieces like Hoglander, Podkolzin, and Raty coming up through the system.
Defensively there remains a glaring hole, which is a factor of poor cap space management and a weak prospect pipeline. Enter David Reinbacher. With the mid first that the Canucks received in this year's draft (conditional of course) I think the Islanders will land somewhere in the 13-16 range. With that pick there are a lot of defensemen that could potentially become steals, none more than David Reinbacher in my opinion. A complete defensive prospect with incredible maturity and poise in the defensive end, playing top minutes in the NL which is unheard of. His presence on the Swiss WJC team was also felt, helping to stop the bleeding on an otherwise weak Swiss team.
Additionally, the Canucks have their own pick in the top 10 this year which remains a huge wildcard but is our future 2C. With guys like Bedard, Fantili, Carlsson, Michkov, Smith, etc. all projecting to be elite players, the Canucks will be in the range to land themselves a good talent IF they do a good scouting job. No more Virtanen's and Juolevis here. The Canucks need a top end talent the likes of Elias Pettersson to take this team to the next level.
Prospect development as well is huge. Getting Lekkerimaki over to North America and hopefully into the WHL will help him. Being so close to Vancouver and the Sedins will help the Canucks develop him with specific goals in mind. Elias Pettersson 2.0 and Jacob Truscott are two guys that I could also see crack the lineup in the near future.
The biggest thing for the nucks will be getting rid of anchors and overpaid wingers for draft picks. Boeser and Garland have no use to this team with Podz, Lekkerimaki, and Hoglander coming up next season.
Canucks are certainly accumulating some good pieces now, but if they manage to nab Smith and Reinbacher in the draft, they’ll have a really good core moving forward
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