#6: Vancouver Canucks
On the ice…
The Canucks have a fine group of young players who could really surprise people. It is easy to continually take this team to task for not rebuilding, and for adding players like Vanek…the kind of player teams usually don’t add until they consider themselves “a player away.… And the Canucks added really good players in Sam Gagner as well as Del Zotto…. The Sedins are still the Sedans, but it will be players like Virtanen and Brock Boeser that will make the Canucks potentially way more dangerous than most are going to predict. My gut tells me to put the Canucks closer to a playoff spot than this.
Potential Surprises…. * Jakob Markstrom has the net all to himself…I expect him to take advantage of the opportunity. * Sutter and Granlund are both way better than third liners… * Loui Eriksson had a rough year after signing that deal..he will relax and become more off the player they wanted.
In the rumor mill…
If things aren’t going well look for Vanek to bring the Canucks a solid second round pick…There is an outside chance that Edler could be moved if thing REALLY fall apart. If things go well the Canucks will try and add defense at the deadline..
Best Case Scenario: They are a playoff team finishing in 4th: 20% Worst Case: They can’t get it together and they finish 7th. :20% Most Likely: They land somewhere between 7th and 5th, but miss the playoffs.. 60%
Crazy Prediction… Thomas Vanek nets 30 goals playing between the Sedans..
Coming up shortly, #5