Name: Phase 3 Canucks training camp: The traveling party and the Brock Boeser thing
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Phase 3 Canucks training camp: The traveling party and the Brock Boeser thing

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Jul 13, 2020In a full, formal team setting the will take the ice at Rogers Arena on Monday for the first time since March 10th.It’s mid-July, we’re three weeks out from the Canucks’ first scheduled game of their qualifying round series against the and hockey is back in Vancouver.Getting to this point has taken a herculean effort of planning, testing, quarantining and logistical administration. And it’s only just getting started.This is going to be a training camp like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Never before have video meetings been conducted by a coach in a mask. Never before has every training camp participant been tested by a nasopharyngeal swab on an every-other-day basis. Certainly, we’ve never seen NHL teams have three weeks in a training camp environment to prepare for a single opponent.And yet, expect the specific training camp regimen to feel relatively familiar.Functionally, this will be the Canucks’ fourth training camp in the era. Even as the novel coronavirus has turned the world upside, there are a few sacred things. For the Canucks organization in the Green era, that includes a difficult first couple of days of training camp, with a lot of hard skating.The Canucks will not be live streaming their training camp sessions, but your Athletic Vancouver writers will be on-site, adhering to strict physical distancing and safety guidelines implemented by the club.It’s going to be surreal. It will also be absolutely fascinating.Here’s what you need to know ahead of Phase 3.By Monday at the latest, the Canucks will be required to submit their list of the 52 people to be included in their “traveling party” for Phase 4.In addition to the coaches, trainers, equipment managers, medical personnel, executives and support staff included in the Canucks’ traveling party, this list will include specific player names.Training camp is often a time for internal competition. Players compete against their teammates for jobs, for minutes and opportunities.In Phase 3 though, the Canucks will have made a preliminary decision on the 31 players they will send to participate in Phase 4 before or shortly after the players hit the ice for their first Phase 3 training camp session.Here’s the thing though: the specificity the league is asking their member clubs for – in terms of traveling party names – isn’t set in stone. Allowances will be made to alter the list in the event of injuries or illness and we could still possibly see the pandemic version of a “Black Ace” working their way into the mix.Still, this is a training camp where the emphasis is going to be on preparation for a playoff series. There will be competition for minutes certainly, but we have a pretty good idea of what the Canucks lineup will look like going into Phase 4.Welcome to the “third day following ratification.”It’s an important milestone day for the Canucks organization because, as of today, young superstars and are officially eligible to sign their second contracts.The importance of these deals can’t be overstated. These are contracts that will lock up two young players that have a real chance to be Canucks of historic importance.These are also contracts that will determine the flexibility the Vancouver front office will have going forward to upgrade their roster and build a contender for the immediate future.Considering the economic uncertainty that’s rocked the entire live sports entertainment business model, it would be a shock if these deals were finalized in short order. Not to mention how difficult it is to gauge market value for player contracts on the other side of the pandemic and in a multi-year flat cap environment.Because Hughes and Pettersson have put in such spectacular performances at a young age, they have a chance to fundamentally reshape the market for second contract players at their positions. That probably in a post-pandemic hockey business climate.It’s important not to lose sight of this one. In the big picture, it’s the most important Canucks story there is.And one suspects we’ll have plenty of time to chew over the details.Since today is the third day following the ratification of the MOU, the Canucks will also be able to sign Harvard Crimson defender after 9 a.m. local time to an entry-level contract that burns the 2019-20 season off of his deal.This opportunity has been created by a unique mechanism in the MOU that opens a window for teams to agree to terms with “unsigned draft selections” like Rathbone. The window will remain open until the end of the hockey business day on Wednesday, or at 2 p.m. PT.The cards have fallen favourably for the Canucks on the Rathbone front, particularly with the Ivy League cancelling all sports through the remainder of the 2020 calendar year (at least).In contrast with the hockey situation at Harvard, the Canucks can offer Rathbone certainty, in a world with very little of it. Deals signed during this unique window also permit the Canucks to offer Rathbone an opportunity to burn the first year of his entry-level deal, which will get him that much closer to his second contract — a contract that tends to be much more lucrative than the third year of an entry-level deal.As we’ve previously noted, , there’s some cause for skepticism about whether Rathbone will ultimately decide to sign in Vancouver.Our understanding is that the Canucks are optimistic though. They’re going to await his decision and they’re confident in the relationship they’ve built with Rathbone since his draft year.The Vancouver organization has built : , , Quinn Hughes and among them. They have earned the benefit of the doubt on this file.We’ll see how this plays out over the next three days. For all of our skepticism, it should be noted that the circumstances have unfolded in a way that overwhelmingly favours Vancouver.The Canucks also know how to get these players signed. They’ve done it repeatedly. And one can safely assume they’ll make an aggressive offer – to get Demko signed in 2016, the club gave him a massive entry-level contract that included max Schedule B bonuses in the last year of his ELC – to get a deal done.If Canucks Twitter wasn’t ready for the NHL’s return to play on Friday morning, TSN 1040’s Matt Sekeres made sure to wake everybody up.The shockwaves from Sekeres’ Friday afternoon were felt all weekend long.The Canucks, as you might expect, weren’t too pleased. They’ve got a lot on their plate with the return to play. And from the perspective of the Vancouver front office, this type of consideration couldn’t be further from the front burner at the moment.As the market reacted incredulously to Sekeres’ report, criticism on social media really centred on the club’s precarious salary cap situation.The fact is, there are without trading a core piece. The Canucks know this too.Then there’s the other part of this: the variety of reasons why a Boeser trade makes no sense. Especially not now.Boeser’s counting stats have fallen in consecutive years and he’s not a franchise player like Pettersson and Hughes are, still, it’s amazing how quickly the Vancouver market has started to sleep on a core-quality player with star-level upside.Even in what was considered a down year by many, Boeser produced at a 65-point (over 82 games) clip and was the club’s fourth most valuable skater by Dom Luszczyszyn’s GSVA model.Canucks’ Wins Added Leaders (GSVA)Player&nbsp;&nbsp;GSVA (Wins Added)&nbsp;&nbsp;Boeser actually added more value according to Luszczyszyn’s model this year than he did during the 2018-19 season. The dip in his offensive output was largely offset by the notable strides he made as an all-around two-way piece and as a playmaker.Simply put, Boeser makes his teammates better. Of the seven skaters that spent at least 200 minutes with Boeser at 5-on-5, all seven fared better at controlling shot attempts sharing the ice with him than without him and all but one saw the same boost in expected goal differential.The dip in Boeser’s offensive production is also likely to prove ephemeral. The odds are that he’s going to rebound offensively. And if you’re a player likely to “rebound offensively” from a season in which you produced 16 goals and 45 points in 57 games, you’re really, really good.While some in the Vancouver market obsesses over the perceived loss in the velocity of Boeser’s shot, we’re still talking about a player that’s able to beat NHL goaltenders cleanly when they’re squared up. It’s an extraordinarily rare skill, even at the NHL level.Boeser is a career 12.9 percent shooter who converted on 9.5 percent of his shots this past season despite owning shot and expected goal rates consistent with his previous seasons. He was generating just as many quality looks as he has in years past, the puck just wasn’t going in.Even if Boeser’s power-play scoring doesn’t rebound to the levels we saw in his dominant rookie year, Boeser is the rare type of player capable of scoring 25-30 goals without the benefit of the bounces.A team really shouldn’t trade a player with that sort of profile. Period. A team definitely shouldn’t trade that sort of player at a low ebb in their perceived value.If the Canucks could dangle Boeser to land a similarly aged right-handed, top-four defenceman with top-pairing upside, that’s an option worth thinking about. There aren’t too many of those around the league though.Not to mention that, as upset as Canucks fans were on Friday about the prospect of the team trading a player like Boeser, there’s a certain first-line Canucks centreman that would be absolutely furious if the organization made such a move.Internally at least, the organization has come to rate more highly than Boeser. When the Canucks take the ice in early August against the Wild in the qualifying round, it’s probable that Boeser will be on the second line at evens and on the second power-play unit too.That doesn’t matter here though. All that matters is that it’s near impossible to win a Boeser trade this offseason, trading him would clearly damage the club’s chemistry, particularly among their younger core group and, most importantly, Boeser makes this team better.There’s no need to overthink this one: Just stick with The Flow.In three weeks the Canucks will have an opportunity to qualify for the playoffs by defeating the Wild three times in five chances.When Canucks management talked about playing meaningful games late into the season way back in September, they probably weren’t thinking “early August,” but here we are.It’s impossible to handicap the NHL’s 24-team Stanley Cup tournament in our customary way. There are too many variables and factors that have never mattered previously in the sport, that will shape the outcomes of games and playoff series.Assuming things go off without a hitch – and you can expect some dicey moments as players report for Phase 3 in a variety of NHL cities, some of which are dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks of mind-bending scale – there’s surely going to be a weird team or two that outperforms their talent level during this tournament.Why couldn’t the Canucks be one of those teams? They certainly have some positives going for them.They’re relatively young. They’re well-coached and have a long history of strong starts in the Green era. . is the type of goaltender that can steal a series on his own. And every Canucks skater – except , who joined the group over the weekend as a fill-in after exercised his right to withdraw from the NHL’s return to play experiment – has been in town since at least mid-way through last week.We’ve been told that the Phase 2 group skates at Rogers Arena over the past 10 days were pretty high paced. During these small group sessions in Phase 2, Canucks players weren’t typically just taking a twirl and working out kinks. There was a real purpose.And all 34 Canucks skaters poised to take the ice on Monday have already undergone their pre-participation medical examination (PPME).The team is ready, the opportunity is there.If things unfold safely in Vancouver’s Phase 3 facility and the 23 other Phase 3 facilities opening across North America on Monday, this will be exciting.Unfortunately, it’s 2020, so that remains one hell of an “if.”(Photo: Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)

Jul 13, 2020In a full, formal team setting the will take the ice at Rogers Arena on Monday for the first time since March 10th.It’s mid-July, we’re three weeks out from the Canucks’ first scheduled game of their qualifying round series against the and hockey is back in Vancouver.Getting to this point has taken a herculean effort of planning, testing, quarantining and logistical administration. And it’s only just getting started.This is going to be a training camp like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Never before have video meetings been conducted by a coach in a mask. Never before has every...

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Phase 3 Canucks training camp: The traveling party and the Brock Boeser thing

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