Canucks Mailbag: How will Nils Hoglander fit into Vancouver’s lineup?

Newly signed Vancouver Canucks forward Nils Hoglander discusses joining an organization with many successful Swedish players and whether he'll need to spend some time in the AHL to develop.

My old employer, The Vancouver Sun, once promoted itself on T-shirts that urged “Question Everything.”

I always loved that. Seems their readers are now on Twitter. Here is MacIntyre Mailbag 1. (I’m going to number them like UFC events).

Money isn’t going to keep Nils Hoglander off the Canucks if he’s good enough to play. It should actually help him make the team because the Canucks, in danger of suffocating under the cap, are going to need players who can contribute on entry-level contracts. If need be, Vancouver would move a more expensive player to make room for Hoglander on the NHL roster.

No, if the season ends or goes straight into the playoffs, the Canucks are a playoff team on winning percentage and the first-round pick they surrendered for J.T. Miller goes to New Jersey via Tampa. After the last four years, making the playoffs trumps anything else for the Canucks.

Is this Gary Bettman? We all miss hockey, and I’m sure many fans would pay to see it back on television, but a Go Fund Me campaign for millionaire players and billionaire owners is an unlikely prospect.

Oddly, the Canucks do want Tryamkin here and, given his age and experience, will have to offer him a one-way contract. Do I think Tryamkin is going to build a long, NHL career? No, I do not.

Back in the good, old days when the salary cap was projected to be $84-88 million US next season, the Canucks’ top priorities were to re-sign UFAs Jacob Markstrom and Tyler Toffoli. Everything else was going to be dictated by the success or failure of that. Benning and his staff are going to have hard choices to make, and an in-season draft hurts the Canucks because they won’t be able to leverage any of their free agents (or others) for picks.

It would be nice to think players can restrain themselves, but they’ll continue to spit like camels. As long as they don’t go Garnet Hathaway and spit on each other, it will be fine. The real worry is that some will go to sunflower seeds.

I like to think of most others as just short. I’m 6-4. My university son is 6-5 and high-school son 6-3 — and closing. Together, we’re like a family of giraffes ambling across the Serengeti. Or a really bad Division 3 front court in basketball.

Because I eat with utensils — and typically later than the broadcasters dine — I’m going to phone a friend for this one. John Shorthouse: “On healthy days, Cheech goes to Subway. Ham and cheese on white, extra cheese, extra mayo, mustard. Nothing else. Two chocolate chip cookies and a coke.” Garrett also dips pizza in ketchup.

Yes (Because I’ve never known Canucks Twitter not to be in a tizzy. Uh-oh, think I may have started it again).

Everyone would love Alex Pietrangelo on their team. And the Canucks have no chance of signing him.

Your labyrinthine query is transfixing but lamentably enigmatical. Oh, Sweet Fanny Adam, I have no idea.

Going to Scotland has been my Olympics — once every four years or so since birth. One of the happiest weeks of my life was my second solo trip as a (mostly) grown-up when, somehow, I was able to rent a car and drive all over Scotland playing golf.

My mum is from the Mt. Florida area of Glasgow (near Hampden Park), and my dad from Campbeltown in Argyll, so I mostly know the West Coast. With bias, I say the Kintyre Peninsula — literally at the end of a long road — is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Miles of deserted sandy beaches, the Atlantic, mountains and meadows, Machrihanish Golf Club and pretty towns. Paul McCartney had a farm outside Campbeltown and wrote a song about the Mull of Kintyre. There was a mouse hole at the base of one wall in his house, so Sir Paul had a door built for it. Thanks for asking. Freedom!

The Canucks do not have an option. If the season is scrubbed, they’re a top-16 team based on winning percentage, and New Jersey ends up with their first pick.

I hadn’t thought of it like that but in practise, yes, they may not be able to afford UFA Chris Tanev after adding Tyler Myers, among others, in the last year. Tanev may agree to a slight discount and term-friendly contract (like Alex Edler’s) to stay. It astonishes me that in a couple of recent fan polls, retaining Tanev was an extremely low priority. He remains valuable to the Canucks on the ice and in the dressing room. Just ask Quinn Hughes.

I’m just trying not to putt my toe. I trust nothing I do on the golf course. But if in doubt, aim at the hole.

The Canucks give up a lot through the neutral zone, often out-numbered because their offence is based largely on a half-court cycle game and forwards get caught. In their own zone, it’s more about one-on-one defending than gap control, and at times they get overmatched. Everyone, including coach Travis Green and GM Jim Benning, knows the defensive game has to be better.

Shouldn’t you be changing a diaper? I would defer to the global authority on Star Wars, Thomas Drance, on this, although he’s still hungover and wearing his Wookiee suit from May the Fourth. But let me ask you this: Is our moon called Earth?

No comment.

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