Canucks: There's a glimmer of prospects hope on the blueline

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The Vancouver Canucks had to fill roster holes on their blueline this summer again via free agency — which tells a big story about the poor state of the team’s prospect pool.

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The lack of defencemen coming through the Canucks’ development system is not a new tale.

Since picking Alex Edler in the seventh round 20 years ago, just four defencemen picked by Vancouver have become true NHLers. The list is led by Quinn Hughes, a can’t-miss pick in the first round in 2018, and 2014’s fifth-rounder Gustav Forsling in a solid second place. Journeymen Kevin Connauton and Ben Hutton fill the list.

Of course, it’s important to note that both Connauton and Forsling made it while playing for teams other than the Canucks.

So this means that Hughes and Hutton are the only drafted-by-the-Canucks defencemen to become full-time NHLers with the team.

Making the NHL is hard — just ask Jack Rathbone, Olli Juolevi, Nikita Tryamkin, Frankie Corrado or Guillaume Brisebois.

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All five have played NHL games for Vancouver, but all five came up short of truly making it.

They say that there’s just a two per cent difference in quality separating NHLers from AHLers. If just one or two of this handful had found two per cent more in their game, the story of the current Canucks’ blueline corps over the past half-decade or so would likely have been different. That’s why you draft, to find cheap depth for your roster

And the Canucks haven’t done that. And it’s why they find themselves rolling the dice on Vincent Derharnais and Derek Forbort, two veteran blueliners who are capable, but for long-term planning are simply short-term stop gaps.

The key for Vancouver will be to get away from short-term stop gaps, which became a baked-in approach under previous general manager Jim Benning, who was hired to fix the Canucks’ long tradition of abysmal drafting. But he didn’t.

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And the Canucks struggled to develop any defensive depth on their own, as detailed above.

But a trio of defence prospects may alter this narrative. Kirill Kudryavtsev, Sawyer Mynio and Elias Pettersson have all been singled out at some point by the Canucks’ brain trust as showing promise.

Of course, every prospect is painted with the promise brush by those who picked them: it’s in a GM’s interest to hype the play of youngsters acquired on their watch.

When the coach makes note of a prospect in training camp, that’s different.

Pettersson — the defence prospect, to be clear — is a known commodity in this organization. He plays with a hard edge and has progressed well as a pro in Sweden. He still needs polishing in the AHL, but he’s clearly on a good course.

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Mynio and Kudryavtsev have some climbing to do, but both drew the attention of Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet this week.

“He’s poised out there,” Tocchet said of Mynio Friday night following the Canucks 3-1 exhibition loss to the Seattle Kraken. He praised the 19-year-old blueliner after the Young Stars Classic in Penticton earlier this month as well.

The young defenceman was reassigned to Seattle’s WHL team on Saturday, where he’ll play his fourth season of major junior hockey for the Thunderbirds.

Here’s a great example of how the NHL-CHL agreement, which requires NHL teams to send prospects back to junior if they don’t make the NHL before they’re 20, rather than be assigned to a more challenging level of hockey. Mynio clearly would benefit from playing in the AHL. Of course, the Canucks don’t have a lot of holes in the AHL.

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But there’s no doubt: he’s doing the right things and could be pressing for a spot in the NHL within a couple seasons.

And Kudryavtsev is a name to watch. He’s bound for Abbotsford this season. He drew the coach’s attention as well. On Friday he was paired with veteran Tyler Myers, and he looked solid with him.

As a junior with the Soo Greyhounds he did everything well. As a pro, he’ll have to show he can do what most prospects fail — making all parts of his game five per cent better.

And that comes back to the well-beaten path of getting close to the NHL, but it’s a whole other thing to make it.

The Canucks hope that they’re set to change this course, finally.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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