Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
I've always considered the Canucks to be weak on defencemen. IMO wingers are the last pieces to add.
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Let's be honest they are weak everywhere. And while one can say build from net out etc and it's true you need good goaltending and defense plenty of team every year show you can get by without the goaltending aspect to a good degree. At least in a rebuild/retool/whatever you want to call it scenario.
Competent and good defenders are found throughout the draft at a greater rate than true impact forwards. Heck look at what the canucks have right now on the blueline...Tanev (College UFA), Edler (2nd round), Stecher (College UFA), Hutton (5th round), Tryamkin (3rd round). The two worst defenders by my eye are the first round picks Sbisa and Gudbranson.
Now it's not a great blueline at all and I certainly have questions about it moving forward as it depends highly on ALL three rookies/sophmores hitting ceilings which is unlikely. While you can find good forwards elsewhere most of the true impact guys are coming from the first round and early in the first round. The canucks had nothing in the system when they made the Virtanen pick and it is turning out to be a big miss. They barely had anyone when they stepped up and took Juolevi. They very much needed and still very much need young forwards that can have early career impacts. Age has caught the Sedins. The likes of Baertschi and especially Granlund are very unlikely to lift a team out of mediocrity with increased roles. They very much needed Nylander/Ehlers and Tkachuk far more than Virtanen (thought was correct in this case...the pick wrong) and Juolevi.
IMO it's easy to say wingers are the last piece to add when you actually have something in the system. When there is nothing and you have a severe shortage of scoring talent in every aspect of the system you add scoring talent whether from the wing or center. Add in that Tkachuk was very much the best player available and Juolevi was a bad pick. Again not because Juolevi is a bad player (he isn't though his ceiling appears to be dropping) but I'm not even convinced he was the bet D-man available let alone player.