We’re halfway through determining the greatest Canucks of all-time through a thoroughly scientific, exhaustingly considered process: a fantasy draft.
Myself and a collection of fellow Canucks writers are selecting a team of three forwards, two defencemen, a goaltender, a coach, and a wild card: a grinder, enforcer, heart-and-soul type. We’ve each selected four players so far.
Rob “The Hockey Guy” Williams added Alain Vigneault and Jyrki Lumme to Pavel Bure and Trevor Linden; Ryan Biech continued to create his 2011-era power play unit with Ryan Kesler and Sami Salo added to Henrik Sedin and Christian Ehrhoff.
Jeremy Davis went a bit off-the-board with Brendan Morrison and Raffi Torres to go with his previous selections of Daniel Sedin and Cory Schneider; I grabbed Pat Quinn and Thomas Gradin to go with Markus Naslund and Kirk McLean.
Wyatt Arndt’s team now consists of Mike Keenan, Nathan Lafayette, Mark Messier, and Dan Cloutier; someone needs to stage an intervention, I think. Meanwhile, Omarcanuck retained his sanity and selected Todd Bertuzzi and Ed Jovanovski to go with Alexander Mogilny and Roberto Luongo.
On to day three!
Rob: Last round I got the best offensive defenceman in history with Jyrki Lumme. This round, I’m taking the best defensive defenceman in team history: Dan Hamhuis. Hip checks for days.
Ryan: I’m ecstatic to grab Alexandre Burrows in the 5th round. Not an elite player, but he represents everything that made that 2011 team. After grinding his way to an NHL job, Burrows was a staple for the Canucks for almost a decade. His placement on the Sedin twins line was the first step in the Canucks taking those next steps.
My goal of getting as much of the 2010-11 team is shaping up nicely.
Daniel: *whistles nonchalantly, while taking notice that both Luongo and Schneider are off the board*
Jeremy: Time to grab my first defenceman and it's outrageous that Mattias Ohlund is still available. Ohlund has a highly legitimate argument for being the best Canucks defenceman ever, especially if we use the ambiguous label "all-around defenceman". Ohlund could play any style, being both one of the toughest Canucks defencemen of his era, and one of the most productive: he’s still first all-time among Canucks defencemen in goals and points.
Daniel: Damn it all. I was desperately hoping that Ohlund would survive to my pick. Instead, I’ll take the second-best Swedish defenceman in Canucks history: Alex Edler. Poor Edler has been a target of more than his fair share of criticism, but he’s legitimately, for better or worse, one of the best defencemen in franchise history. And he’s just 25 points back from Ohlund; he could pass him this season!
Jeremy: But he probably won’t.
Daniel: But he probably won’t.
Wyatt: For my fifth round pick, I’m taking Cody Hodgson. Two words: bar down.
Daniel: Whoa, what a shot.
Jeremy: EVERYBODY STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND WATCH GAME 8 HIGHLIGHTS.
Wyatt: When you need someone to come up huge in game 8, Cody has you covered. Also, has the business savvy needed to start churning out merchandise lines for the rest of the team. Nothing is a better ice breaker on a first date than explaining the origin story of your sweet CoHo apparel hoodie.
Omar: I’m focussed on offence and bad-ass-ness, so my coach has to be Marc Crawford. Plus, you’ve gotta reunite Bert with his favorite coach, no? And for my round six pick, I’ll take Adrian Aucoin. Guys, he scored 23 goals one year. They hadn't even discovered regression yet in 1999, so forget that argument.
Daniel: Pickings are getting slim among coaches.
Ryan: Newell Brown. You didn’t say head coaches.
Daniel: Loophole!
Wyatt: I don’t have any defencemen yet. I’m going with Jim Benning. This is where this unit excels. Not only can Benning provide defense, but he also has the scouting experience to help build a future super team and the management chops to make the hard decisions that need to be made. He's also very good in scrums.
Daniel: Jim Benning: legitimately a Canucks defenceman. A real meat-and-potatoes pick.
As for me, my sixth round pick has to be my favourite player when I was ten years old: Cliff Ronning. I was tempted to take Patrik Sundstrom as my third forward to continue my somewhat-Swedish theme, but how can I resist Ronning, who taught my younger, height-challenged self that nothing is impossible. After Bure, Gradin, and Courtnall, Ronning has the highest points-per-game in the playoffs of any Canucks forward.
Jeremy: I need a coach. My pick? Mike Sullivan. That's right, he of six games as interim head coach of the Canucks. After he was let go in 2014, he went on to win back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins. So, this is an unconventional choice, but he has more Cups than any other coach selected here.
Ryan: I had my eye on Cody Hodgson for my wildcard spot, but Wyatt took him. I have too much respect for Manny Malhotra to make him my wildcard, so I’m thinking outside of the box. Who is more outside of the box than Victor Oreskovich?
Acquired with Keith Ballard before the season, Oreskovich appeared in 19 playoff games during the 2011 run, seeing limited action on the fourth line with Hodgson. He appeared in one more game for the Canucks in 2011-12, 28 games for the Chicago Wolves and then called it a career. He now works in the Financial sector.
Daniel: Your team is going off the rails, Ryan.
Rob: My pick? GREG ADAMS! GREG ADAMS!
Daniel: Is that two picks?
Wyatt: You just drafted the fake Greg Adams as well.
Rob: Greg Adams — the real one — was a heart and soul player with size, scoring touch, and grit. He also is the third member (along with Linden and Bure, who I already picked) of the Canucks' top line during the 1994 playoffs. CHEMISTRY, PEOPLE!
Wyatt: Me and Daniel rocking the Greg Adams jokes. Teamwork.
Just one more day of picks to go on Thursday, then we’ll put up everyone’s teams (including Patrick Johnston’s team picked from the leftovers) on Friday for people to vote on who selected the best team.
