how many bottom seeds have made the finals ? of coarse the cream will rise , but it's not as simple as you imply
- onesmallleap

Not many, that's how many, and when they do, they get crushed by a top team. Look do you wanna win a Championship or do you just want to be the Oilers of the 90's and sqeek into the playoffs in the hope that you can win it all.....which has only happend once or twice in the history of the the modern league.

SHL playoffs are not even close the Stanley cup playoffs , nor are Calder cup , or Memorial cup.
It will help it just is not a stat that can be quantified, the 2009 Hawks were supposed to lose to the flames in the first round, and for sure wouldn't beat the Nucks in the second round , and just happened to win the cup
- onesmallleap

2009 hawks were favoured against the flames and they also didn’t win the cup ...the penguins did lol

Again, you don't know or you don't acknowlege the facts. Finishing second last a few years ago meant the Canucks would pick no worse than top five, so you're wrong, it does guarantee you access to the top of the draft class.

Top five is a quality top pick imo.
- LeftCoaster

didn't we finish 2nd last and drop to 5? didn't the Flyers go from 13th to 2 ?

I always get a chuckle out of the "tanking doesn't work" comments, which totally ignores the fact that our best player came from getting a good draft position, to take Pettersson, from the tank.

What matters is the team had a top five pick, not that they picked Pettersson, which allowed them access to the best players before anyone else.
- LeftCoaster

Control. Exactly. Problem with picking 16 (or late in future rounds) is that someone else is manipulating your selections. It's much harder to implement your drafting plan/strategy.

Thanks Carol

2009 hawks were favoured against the flames and they also didn’t win the cup ...the penguins did lol
- Redmile247

2009-2010 sorry

didn't we finish 2nd last and drop to 5? didn't the Flyers go from 13th to 2 ?
- onesmallleap

Yes, that's the point, second last guaranteed us a top five pick. You can only fall back max three places.

Playoffs are all but a formality. Marwood must be furious !

Thanks carol !
- CanuckDon

Remember the good old days, when every other fan base hated us, and everyone here got along - except for RF4EVA and that skinny Asian martial arts kid?

Good times!

Oh yeah, suck it

Not many, that's how many, and when they do, they get crushed by a top team. Look do you wanna win a Championship or do you just want to be the Oilers of the 90's and sqeek into the playoffs in the hope that you can win it all.....which has only happend once or twice in the history of the the modern league.
- LeftCoaster

LA kings won , and the 7th seed has won 12% of cups since 94

well the MATH says if you make the playoffs you have a chance to win the cup , no cups are won on draft day
- onesmallleap

Theoretically, I think you are wrong...



I can post three versions of the same image if it helps illustrate my point.

Yes, that's the point, second last guaranteed us a top five pick. You can only fall back max three places.
- LeftCoaster

how do you suggest we fall to bottom 5 with how this team plays?

2009-2010 sorry
- onesmallleap

So they were the 3rd best team in the regular season and favourite in every series but one ...hardly how you described in your previous post lol

Theoretically, I think you are wrong...



I can post three versions of the same image if it helps illustrate my point.
- bloatedmosquito

and if you go back the "playoff experience " that losing in the finals gave sid and the pens is what helped them win the next time around
i think they even made a commercial about it

Theoretically, I think you are wrong...



I can post three versions of the same image if it helps illustrate my point.
- bloatedmosquito

Draft lotto day .....not draft day 😉

This is a fairly common conclusion reached by many Hockey Men.

At its core is this thought: “There are no guarantees with getting high picks. Nothing is absolutely certain. Therefore, everything is equal.”

If building through the draft is the only real way to get a contender, and it is, what exactly is the alternative to high draft picks?

If high picks don’t work, what does?

Low draft picks?

You don’t really see this in other sports.

People don’t say, “Look at the Cleveland Browns, high picks didn’t work for them. It’s a cautionary tale.”

No. They say, “Look at the Cleveland Browns. They were dumb. Don’t be dumb.”

As someone said to me about this Sabres take:

“This is literally the anti-vaccination argument.

“Don’t need to vaccinate our kids because there’s some kid out there who still got sick.”

The answer to any rebuilding question can’t be “high picks don’t work.”

Decades of evidence that show definitively in all sports better players are taken earlier in drafts.

There’s just no getting around this fact.

So instead of looking at where the Sabres picked, why not look at their scouting?

Why not focus on why they missed and why they whiffed?

Maybe get better scouts? A better tracking and data system? Stop using Stathletes? (OK, that last one is only a joke, Meghan.)

I find all of it troubling in Vancouver because where the Canucks sit now and how they look going forward has been re-shaped by one Elias Pettersson.

He is an elite player. Full stop. The Canucks got him by tanking. Full stop.

In the 2017 season, the Canucks traded veterans and they shut down veterans who would have played if the team was any good. They added kids. They let Willie Desjardins do whatever he wanted, including playing the poop out of Chaput and Megna, and he did that when they needed goals and no one cared.

The team tanked. There was literally nothing more they could have done to be worse. They were the worst team in hockey. They went 4-14-2 after the deadline and finished the season with eight consecutive losses.

They finished with 69 points. Two teams ahead of them had 70. There was also Vegas in the mix. One more win and they could have dropped two spots.

They had the second-worst record in hockey.

What do people say?

You need high picks, and you need luck, too.

It’s well known by now the Canucks would not have taken the so-called big two at the 2017 draft because the Canucks admitted it.


Linden said canucks wouldn't have picked Hischier or Patrick 1st OA had they won the lottery #wow

— RD (@BuckFoston_) August 25, 2017



There is one player who they may have taken ahead of Pettersson, and it’s Makar.

But the draft fell their way. They lost the lottery and still had a top-five pick.

Everyone says you need to bad and lucky. They were both. It was a tanker’s dream come true.

Without Pettersson, the rebuild is dead in the water, over before it really started.

He is that kind of difference-maker.

Without him, I could easily see the Canucks getting to the point where they’d have to consider trading Horvat to re-start things.

Interestingly, Blashill was asked yesterday about the stage the Wings are in during this rebuild cycle and he said this:

“I think the biggest thing is, to be a team that’s in the playoffs, you have to have elite players.

“Can some of our young guys become elite?

“The quicker they can become elite, the quicker we’re back in the mix.

“I think a guy like Dylan Larkin on a night-by-night basis is an elite player.

“I think on the Canucks, Boeser and Pettersson, I would say the same thing.

“You probably have to get to three (elite players) to be a playoff team.

“You probably have to get to four or five to be a real Stanley Cup contender.”

I’m not going to go through every team, but look at the one at the top.

Tampa has Stamkos, Point, Kucherov and Hedman as elite players and then maybe five or six players at the Horvat level.

I’m not sure where Boeser would slot in on that team, but you can debate whether he’d be included as elite or not.

The Canucks do have Quinn Hughes, and he has the potential to be elite.

how do you suggest we fall to bottom 5 with how this team plays?
- onesmallleap

Do you mean being badly outplayed for a majority of the game by some of the worst teams in the league but managing to come out on the right side of the ledger by the final whistle?

As fans we can appreciate the (good part of the) effort, but if you use your brain and your heart you can see that a .500 team isn’t destined to win anything important.

So they were the 3rd best team in the regular season and favourite in every series but one ...hardly how you described in your previous post lol
- Redmile247

hmm i swear the Flames were supposed to win much like Nucks, maybe i'm wrong , but they were not cup favorites

how do you suggest we fall to bottom 5 with how this team plays?
- onesmallleap

EP gets hurt again and marky’s hot streak ends ?

how do you suggest we fall to bottom 5 with how this team plays?
- onesmallleap

Hire Hextall.

This is a fairly common conclusion reached by many Hockey Men.

At its core is this thought: “There are no guarantees with getting high picks. Nothing is absolutely certain. Therefore, everything is equal.”

If building through the draft is the only real way to get a contender, and it is, what exactly is the alternative to high draft picks?

If high picks don’t work, what does?

Low draft picks?

You don’t really see this in other sports.

People don’t say, “Look at the Cleveland Browns, high picks didn’t work for them. It’s a cautionary tale.”

No. They say, “Look at the Cleveland Browns. They were dumb. Don’t be dumb.”

As someone said to me about this Sabres take:

“This is literally the anti-vaccination argument.

“Don’t need to vaccinate our kids because there’s some kid out there who still got sick.”

The answer to any rebuilding question can’t be “high picks don’t work.”

Decades of evidence that show definitively in all sports better players are taken earlier in drafts.

There’s just no getting around this fact.

So instead of looking at where the Sabres picked, why not look at their scouting?

Why not focus on why they missed and why they whiffed?

Maybe get better scouts? A better tracking and data system? Stop using Stathletes? (OK, that last one is only a joke, Meghan.)

I find all of it troubling in Vancouver because where the Canucks sit now and how they look going forward has been re-shaped by one Elias Pettersson.

He is an elite player. Full stop. The Canucks got him by tanking. Full stop.

In the 2017 season, the Canucks traded veterans and they shut down veterans who would have played if the team was any good. They added kids. They let Willie Desjardins do whatever he wanted, including playing the poop out of Chaput and Megna, and he did that when they needed goals and no one cared.

The team tanked. There was literally nothing more they could have done to be worse. They were the worst team in hockey. They went 4-14-2 after the deadline and finished the season with eight consecutive losses.

They finished with 69 points. Two teams ahead of them had 70. There was also Vegas in the mix. One more win and they could have dropped two spots.

They had the second-worst record in hockey.

What do people say?

You need high picks, and you need luck, too.

It’s well known by now the Canucks would not have taken the so-called big two at the 2017 draft because the Canucks admitted it.


Linden said canucks wouldn't have picked Hischier or Patrick 1st OA had they won the lottery #wow

— RD (@BuckFoston_) August 25, 2017



There is one player who they may have taken ahead of Pettersson, and it’s Makar.

But the draft fell their way. They lost the lottery and still had a top-five pick.

Everyone says you need to bad and lucky. They were both. It was a tanker’s dream come true.

Without Pettersson, the rebuild is dead in the water, over before it really started.

He is that kind of difference-maker.

Without him, I could easily see the Canucks getting to the point where they’d have to consider trading Horvat to re-start things.

Interestingly, Blashill was asked yesterday about the stage the Wings are in during this rebuild cycle and he said this:

“I think the biggest thing is, to be a team that’s in the playoffs, you have to have elite players.

“Can some of our young guys become elite?

“The quicker they can become elite, the quicker we’re back in the mix.

“I think a guy like Dylan Larkin on a night-by-night basis is an elite player.

“I think on the Canucks, Boeser and Pettersson, I would say the same thing.

“You probably have to get to three (elite players) to be a playoff team.

“You probably have to get to four or five to be a real Stanley Cup contender.”

I’m not going to go through every team, but look at the one at the top.

Tampa has Stamkos, Point, Kucherov and Hedman as elite players and then maybe five or six players at the Horvat level.

I’m not sure where Boeser would slot in on that team, but you can debate whether he’d be included as elite or not.

The Canucks do have Quinn Hughes, and he has the potential to be elite.
- LeftCoaster

HEY I'm posting Moby Richard.

HEY I'm posting Moby Richard.
- A_SteamingLombardi

Which everyone thoroughly enjoys, keep up the good work

Point and Kucherov were high 2nd and 3rd picks that are key to the team, so no tanking was required for 2 of their top players, drafting properly matters more then high picks.

The math... lol. Everyone understands this... everyone. It seems weird that you keep pointing out though.


If you stated that 2+2=4 and no one said anything and looked at you in all puzzled... would you assume no one but you knows?
- boonerbuck

Man, I think you need to turn off the engine, the carbon monoxide is starting to back into the cab and effect your comprehension.

Why do you keep disputing the math? The formula is not complicated. Do I need to post benefit of draft position relative to odds of NHL games played?

HEY I'm posting Moby Richard.
- A_SteamingLombardi

I got like half way through that and never finished. It’s about a fish or something right?

EP gets hurt again and marky’s hot streak ends ?
- Redmile247

Ring-a-ding-ding. Give this man a prize.

History and circumstance favour this outcome.