As a lockout project, the Globe & Mail’s Eric Duhatschek and James Mirtle set up a hypothetical 12-team National Hockey League, imagining that all player contracts were suddenly wiped and there was a fantasy draft.
They allowed me to select for the hypothetical Vancouver Canucks franchise, along with Globe writers David Shoalts (Ottawa), Darren Yourk (Pittsburgh), Sean Gordon (Montreal), and fellow bloggers Kent Wilson (Boston) Eric T. and Derek Zona (Philadelphia), PPP (Toronto), Neil Greenberg (New York Rangers), mc79hockey (Edmonton), Matt Fenwick (Calgary) and Dirk Hoag (Detroit).
Mirtle and Duhatschek held control of the hypothetical Chicago franchise. The hypothetical Vancouver’s first order of business was to revert to the old Flying-V jerseys. The second order of business was to select #9 overall. With Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos, Evgeni Malkin, Claude Giroux, John Tavares, Daniel Sedin, Shea Weber and Pekka Rinne off the board, the Vancouvers took…
COREY PERRY
Corey Perry is an odd specimen, a player I’d only stay away from in a normal NHL because of his age. He’s a rare breed of winger who can dominate puck-possession and score 30 goals. Not to explain my rationale for every pick, but here is how the Vancouvers look going forward, with our hypothetical roster:
Forwards:
Kris Versteeg — Jonathan Toews — Corey Perry
David Backes — Nicklas Backstrom — Ryan O’Reilly
Carl Hagelin — Mikhail Grabovski — Wayne Simmonds
Ray Whitney — Antoine Vermette — Sergei Kostitsyn
Defencemen:
Victor Hedman — P.K. Subban
Dennis Wideman — Brian Campbell
Fedor Tyutin — Stephane Robidas
Extras:
Scott Gomez
Brandan Saad
Chris Tanev
Chris Tanev had to be taken, and I built the team around strong centremen, getting three of the elite two-way Cs in the NHL in Toews, Backstrom and Grabovski, while also concentrating on rare right-side defencemen in Brian Campbell and the under-appreciated Stephane Robidas. P.K. Subban and Victor Hedman are developing young defencemen who can do it all.
The only thing that shies me away from Gomez currently is his contract, but since it’s wiped, he’d be a very good pickup as a checker-playmaker who isn’t breaking bank. My lone prospects are NY Ranger stat-geek favourite Carl Hagelin and Brandan Saad, who tore up the OHL last season.
In goal, the plan was to take a backup with my last pick, and end up with the last goaltender available:
Goalies:
Roberto Luongo
Devan Dubnyk
Yes, Luongo was taken after several other goalies were off the board. He was #2 on my big board, and went just ahead of Nik Backstrom (who went a few picks later) who was #3, but went after several worse goalies.
So Luongo returns to Vancouver, along with his new protégé Devan Dubnyk, a young goaltender who played his junior in BC, up the road in Kamloops.
The full list of picks is here. Start complaining about the direction of this team now:
