Nils Höglander has become exactly the player the Canucks’ scouts though he’d be when he was drafted in 2019
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It’s been noted before but now must be underlined: Former Canucks director of scouting Judd Brackett was positively vibrating in his seat at the 2019 NHL draft in Vancouver when he sat down in front of the assembled reporters to discuss his team’s draft results.
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He was vibrating, mostly, about nabbing Nils Höglander in the second round.
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He loved the player’s hands and “motor,” as he called it.
The season Höglander is having will be no surprise to Brackett, who now runs the Minnesota Wild’s scouting department.
Höglander was a fantastic collaborative effort by Brackett and the scouting staff, a team that president Trevor Linden had first started empowering in the 2016-17 season. They had a standardized assessment model, with an expectation that scouts would file coherent, comparable reports.
The late Patrik Jonsson, who was one of the Canucks’ Sweden-based scouts, had first put Höglander on the Canucks’ scouting radar. The powerfully built Höglander was a player Jonsson knew well from skills development camps he’d run.
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Further viewings at games in Sweden by Brackett, right-hand man Dan Palango, cross-checkers Derek Richard and Ron Delorme — and also when the Canucks’ top brass attended some exhibition games the Sweden U20s played ahead World Juniors here in Vancouver — cemented Höglander’s name on the Canucks’ list.
There have been suggestions to the contrary over the years, but Brackett once told Postmedia there was never any doubt in the scouts’ minds that he was the guy to take when the Canucks’ turn to pick came up at No. 40 at the 2019 draft. Höglander was still available and he was the top guy on their board.
Five years later, Höglander is a 20-goal scorer, a ferocious forechecker and a true pain in the butt to opponents.
The schedule
As remarkable as the Oilers’ resurgence has been since their disastrous start, the team is yet another reminder as to how hard it is to make up ground in the NHL.
The Canucks’ stumbles in February have given some ground back to the Oilers, but Edmonton’s hole is just so deep, the idea they can possibly catch the Canucks is pretty far-fetched at this point.
As pointed out by JPat, the Canucks don’t even have to play that well over the rest of the season to lock up the Pacific Division:
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Given how strong the Canucks looked last week, beating some top opponents in the process, it’s hard to imagine them playing anything less than .500 hockey the rest of the way.
If the Canucks keep playing at the pace they’ve set this season, they’ll finish with around 112 points.
To win the division, the Canucks have got some real leeway to work with, while Edmonton has next to none.
Who gets called up?
The Canucks are taking Sunday and Monday off — deserved rest for a group of players who have been grinding hard this season, especially over the past month.
Rest is a weapon at this time of year.
Of course, checking in on Thatcher Demko’s status will be the main focus of the next two days as well.
With just one game this week, will the Canucks take the cautious approach and rest Demko on Wednesday, handing Casey DeSmith a start and bringing in Arturs Silovs to back up on an emergency basis?
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If it were an opponent with less firepower than Colorado, you do wonder if Ian Clark would considered bringing up Nikita Tolopilo.
Tolopilo has passed Silovs in the organization’s long-term view; his first season in North America has been excellent, his growth has been impressive.
Silovs, on the other hand, has stalled out a little bit. His year in Abbotsford hasn’t been great.
But he does have the advantage of having played NHL games and shown he has the mental makeup to fill in a pinch, as he did last year.
In the long term, though, Tolopilo seems a more likely option.
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