Canucks Central
Mailbag Friday: Hronek Draft Day Trade, Unexpected Point Jumps, and Conf. Finals Predictions
22 May 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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And keep getting your thoughts in to our Dunbar Lumbertex inbox, 650-650. Any last minute Mailbag Friday questions, get those in. We'll do some overflow in the next segment as well. We have producers Eddie and Elon. Let's get to Mailbag Friday. What's going on, fellas? It's been a while. Yeah, man. Good to have you on the show, Elon. You feeling good about your Knicks?
Yeah, we'll get to that in the end.
Don't worry. Save some time for that.
I saw some. I've seen the Ben Stiller tweets of the videos he took courtside. Well done.
Yeah, he's a good director. Yeah. Directed Tropic Thunder. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Knicks Championship 2026 movie coming up. I wouldn't put it past that. All right, first one up from Trucker James. If not Manny, who's the best available coach that will fit the current Canucks needs?
It's a real... That would actually fit? Would they actually come here? What's the question?
I think you and I have the same take on the ideal guy, but would he even come to Vancouver? Carl? Yeah, I just don't think he would. No, I mean, he coaches in the NCAA at Denver. One of the best up-and-coming coaches. which is very well thought of, very sought after. And he's very strategic about who he talks to and who he doesn't talk to.
And it seems like he's going to really pick a spot before he goes to the National Hockey League. I'm not sure a rebuild that's in the embryonic stages like the Canucks one is his cup of tea necessarily. But I would say he is with a bullet, number one.
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Chapter 2: What coaching options are best for the Canucks?
And mind you, is Heronic going to waive to go to Winnipeg? Yeah, probably not. Okay. Let's just keep moving on up. Seattle.
Are you going to trade to Seattle? I mean, I think you would do it, but are they trading? They're starving for offensive talent. Yes. Are they going to be trading their top first round pick for a defenseman?
When they've given big money to Montour. Yeah. Larson's locked up. You have Vince Dunn. Vince Dunn. He's two years left, but they gave money to him. That doesn't feel like a destination. Calgary, I don't think they're doing that at all to move for a Filipona because it just doesn't fit the timeline for them. The Rangers, like, they got Adam Fox to run Power Play 1.
Now, there are some questions about his future, but are they going to go for a more veteran guy or just use and try to get young while they can? Because they're going through a bit of a retool now all of a sudden.
Yeah, okay, that might fit. to some regard, but are they going to give up a fifth overall pick for it? Chicago, maybe if they just want more veteran presence, but also it's like... I can't, it's that high? If you're giving up fourth overall, are you not shopping for like the entire league?
Would they go after Nemech? Yeah, Nemech package, perhaps, to some extent, something along those lines. So like, there you go. So that's top eight. Yeah. Somebody texted in and said Florida would add number nine, but is that what Florida needs? No, they have Ekblad and Jones. Yeah, they're big contracts. They're signed long term.
If they're going to do something aggressive, I suspect it would be in the forward ranks. Yeah, because Ekblad is signed for what, like seven more years? Yeah. Seth Jones is signed for four more years, and they're making a combined $13 million. Are they going to be spending over $20 million on the right side of their defense? Their top three D are sorted. Yeah. Jones, Ekblad, Forsling.
Okay, maybe they could get a true number one, but Hronik's not that.
I like Hronik a lot. He's younger than those players, but I'm not sure that's what Florida would spend the ninth overall pick on. I would do it, of course. I'm not saying I wouldn't, but illustrating the point. From a valuation standpoint, you can come up with an argument that it could. But from a practical, will these teams do it? I have a hard time seeing it.
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Chapter 3: Can Hronek be traded for a top draft pick?
Well, see, the thing is... Yeah, the thing is you have no building blocks.
Yeah. It's like Booyah is nice, right? But you don't really know where that's going. Beelander is nice, but you don't really know. We haven't even seen Brayden Coots have more than four games, right? Like you kind of need to see where this is going. So I actually really agree with the thought. Like why be a... It mastered everything when you can be a very specific team with an identity.
But we don't know what the identity of this team is going to be. There's platitudes. You can be like, oh, hardworking. Sure. But yeah, you want like, are we the defense team? Are we the speed team? Are we the checking team? They don't know yet.
Did Colorado have their plan before McKinnon and McCarr fell into the lap? Yeah. Right. And now we know what they are.
Yeah. If it's Caleb, a whole term becomes like a selkie guy. It's like, OK, so you have Caleb. You have Kootz.
maybe Patterson it's like hey you're deep down the middle at defensive centers and you can kind of play to that style this one's from Carl why isn't there more of a buzz around retaining on PD to maximize his value you'd think even just a 50 to 60 point two-way center at 7-8 mil would have significant trade value because that's 28 million dollars that you're holding on to that's why
It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money to play against you. If you're holding it against the financial parameters there were $7 to $8 million. Yeah, so just play that out. That's six more years of $3 to $4 million. That's a lot of money to say, hey, we're doing this for this reason. It's just...
You're basically swapping out the OEL money under the current cap projections.
Yeah, it's a lot of money. It's worth it to just wait two years and say the financial... The way the contract is structured, it's $11 million next year, $14.45 the year after. This is total money, not cap hit. $12.25, and then the final three years, it's $8.7. So if you're in Vancouver, you may as well just wait three years and pay out...
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Chapter 4: Which Canucks player might see a big point jump?
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