Canucks and Flames Ready for 2010/11
At least two of Canada’s teams are ready for the puck to drop on the 2010-11 season. The Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames seem to have their rosters ready to go for next year, and are hoping that the changes they have made are good enough to get them into the playoffs.
Vancouver Canucks
The Canucks look set to go on what general manager Mike Gillis hope will be a successful 2010-11 campaign. The Canucks made big moves on defence, but have not really touched what many believe are a strong group of forwards.
The Canucks struggled in the playoffs last season, unable to make the push to the conference finals mostly due to the lack of defensive depth. They lost several defenceman to injury at the end of last season and were left thin heading into the first round against the Los Angeles Kings. They managed to outplay a young Kings team, but were not so lucky when they came up against the Blackhawks. The speed and sheer talent of the Hawks front line was too much for the depleted Vancouver blue line to handle, and they were bumped from the post-season.
The likelihood of coming up against a team with similar strength up front next season is high and Gillis needed to address that this off-season. He managed to make his first splash at the draft, acquiring Keith Ballard from the Florida Panthers. Ballard is a reliable puck moving defenceman and should help to take some of the pressure off Christan Ehrhoff. Gillis continued bolstering his defence by adding much sought after Dan Hamhuis. With Hamhuis, Gillis gets an incredibly reliable underrated defender who should team well with either Kevin Bieksa or Sami Salo on the team’s shutdown unit.
Upfront, Gillis did not change much of anything. He elected not to bring back perennial underperformers Kyle Wellwood, and Pavol Demitra, as well as heart and soul player Ryan Johnson. These were tough decisions for Gillis, but frankly, were the right ones. Vancouver owns an impressive top two lines and their bottom-six seemed to fare well last year. Now Gillis just has to hope for an improved season from Roberto Luongo.
Calgary Flames
The Flames currently sit $650,000 below the salary cap, and GM Darryl Sutter appears to have accomplished all of his off-season goals.
The Flames are a team in need of a re-build trying to live off of average prime aged players and washed up veterans. Although the defence is still strong with Jay Bouwmeester and Robyn Regehr leading the way, like much of the Flames squad, it starts to tail off towards the third line.
It is unclear whether or not Sutter really had a plan when putting together his forward unit for next season. Spattered with former Toronto Maples Leafs Matt Stajan and Niklas Hagman, Sutter has taken players that were never able to achieve in Toronto and placed them on a team that desperately needs to win a playoff round. Jarome Iginla is once again far-and-away the best player on the squad, but who is going to centre him? Stajan could, but has never been considered a first line centre, while Olli Jokinen is coming off a terrible year, and never seemed to mesh with the sniper.
The Flames are a rag-tag bunch right down to the core. With what appears to be very little planning up front, and a collection of average talent on the backend, it is unlikely this team will be able to do any damage in one of the NHL’s toughest divisions. After this season the writing may be on the wall for Darryl Sutter, and Flames brass are going to have to decide whether or not they want Sutter around for the inevitable rebuild.
Tags: