Prospect Watch
A good night for Vancouver Canucks' defensive prospect Anton Cederholm on Sunday as his Portland Winterhawks rallied from a three-goal deficit to reach overtime, then forced a deciding Game 7 in their WHL championship series against the Edmonton Oil Kings.
Cederholm scored a goal and was a plus-two on the night, bringing his playoff totals to five points and a plus-four over 20 games. Not bad at all!
Game 7 goes tonight in Portland at 7 p.m., televised on Shaw TV.
No issues with back-to-back games and travel for these kids. I read last night that both teams were traveling to Portland on the same plane. That must have been interesting.
Once this title is settled, it's on to the Memorial Cup, where Bo Horvat and his London Knights are waiting. The tournament gets underway on Friday.
Captains Jumping Ship?
Big buzz in the Twitterverse yesterday that captain Dion Phaneuf of Toronto and captain Jason Spezza of Ottawa could be headed for new addresses—ideally, out west.
Toronto needs to make changes, but has decided to stick with coach Randy Carlyle, so it looks like those changes will need to come on the player-personnel side. Phaneuf signed a contract extension last New Year's Eve: seven more years at a cap hit of $7 million a season. He's being targeted as a trade candidate because he's the only one of Toronto's long-term core that doesn't have some form of a no-trade clause—sound familiar?
The Leafs say they're not shopping Phaneuf, but they'd be willing to listen to offers:
Ottawa also needs to make changes after taking a big step backwards this season. Spezza's in the last year of a deal with a $7 million cap hit. He does have a no-trade clause, but is apparently open to moving.
I think it's pretty clear that neither of these players is a fit for the Canucks right now. Phaneuf is 29 and Spezza is 30—not exactly the injection of youth that Vancouver needs. Spezza's numbers are decent as a scoring centre, but with just one year left on his contract, he's basically a rental player. The Canucks are no longer in that "one more piece of the puzzle" mode—they need players who can grow with the team as it develops its new identity.
A player like Phaneuf could be a good addition in Edmonton, where they could use a veteran top-pairing defenseman to help bring along their youngsters. I wonder if Calgary would take him back?
If Not Jim Benning...
While the hockey world seems certain that Jim Benning will be hired as the Canucks' next general manager, I'm not willing to get completely on board with that. A whole bunch of people repeating each others' rumours does not necessarily equal the truth.
I've mentioned this before, but when looking at Benning's draft record with Boston, it's important to note that he joined the team in July of 2006—after the 2006 draft where Boston hit the motherlode with Phil Kessel, Milan Lucic and Brad Marchand.
If you look at
this chart from HockeyDB.com, you'll see that from 2007 to the present, the Bruins have produced only three players with more than 100 NHL games: Tyler Seguin, Jordan Caron and Dougie Hamilton. Joe Colborne's at 96.
Yes, it's better than the Canucks, who have only Cody Hodgson, but which teams have better records?
Washington, for one. I remain intrigued by the possibility of George McPhee. In addition to his history with the Canucks, he'd be available immediately. And look at his draft record since 2007:
Karl Alzner - 345 games
John Carlson - 316 games
Marcus Johansson - 263 games
Cody Eaken - 159 games
Dmitry Orlov - 119 games
Braden Holtby - 105 games
Click here for the full list.
We've barely talked about assistant GM Paul Fenton of Nashville, but they're another team that has produced a solid collection of talent in that same timeframe.
Click here for their full list. Highlights:
Nick Spaling - 297 games
Colin Wilson - 291 games
Craig Smith - 195 games
Roman Josi - 172 games
Gabriel Bourque - 151 games
Ryan Ellis - 144 games
Jonathan Blum - 106 games
The Predators aren't dripping with superstars, but they've developed a serviceable group of players who'd probably get a lot more recognition if they played for a different team.
So—there are two candidates with proven track records that look better to me than Benning. And as I've also mentioned before, I'd be willing to take a look at Portland's Mike Johnston, too—he's currently both coach and GM of the Winterhawks.
My hope is that the new GM does a through re-evaluation of the Canucks' scouting group. That's why I'm so fixated on draft results. I believe the teams that are successful in this area already know how to assemble and deploy a solid team of scouts to deliver the best possible results from a very inexact science.
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