Safe to say most of us have been pretty critical of the recent moves the Canucks have made and the newest one really hit a nerve. Jim Benning moved (what we believed was) budding forward Hunter Shinkaruk for butt of all current jokes and former Calgary Flames forward Markus Granlund. Its been a few days and the pain is still fresh but the mobs have gone home.
One has to wonder, ok so far it’s just me, but what was Canucks nation like when 7th overall pick Alek Stojanov was traded for Markus Naslund? Obviously, no twitter, no internet and no Benning but thankfully talk radio would have had it’s say in the CKNW days. Were fans mad, were they overly critical? I had to know.
The 1991 NHL Draft included both Alek Stojanov AND Markus Naslund going 7th and 16th respectively in the 1st round and it’s no revelation that one of these players went on to be one of the better players the NHL has ever seen, while the other, well….I’m sure he’s doing something productive. Fast forward to 2016 and a guy the Canucks had high hopes on (Shinkaruk) gets moved to Calgary for Markus Granlund who the Flames basically had also given up on.
Both the Canucks and Penguins were fed up with their players and they drafted and flipped the switch, which goes down in NHL history as one of the worst trades ever.
These types of trades happen a lot. Two teams are frustrated with a player that they just can’t get any more out of and hope they can flip that player and end their misery.
Not knowing a whole lot about Granlund, I decided to play a little game of NASLUND or GRANLUND – two players with similar situations, similar sounding names and a fan base that critiques the prizes given away, or lack thereof, from Safeway Score and Win. So let’s see how we all do:
- One started the season with 31 games on the big club before getting traded, scoring 4 goals and 3 assists, while the other played 66 games potting 19 goals and 33 assists before being shipped away.
- In his first full season he had 4 goals and 7 assists, the other participant had 8 goals and 10 assists.
- One of these players might have a pair of Nike shoes, the other….was in a Nike commercial
- Ok last one, there weren’t very many were there? This player often had his name mispronounced for someone who is not his father, while the other is just not the one we wanted.
Hopefully now we have all learned so much more about new Canuck Markus Granlund and how he compares to a player who we really weren’t sure on at first but became one of the greatest Canucks of all time.
Never discount the potential. For all we know Granlund plays with Boeser in 3 years and we have the next dynamic duo. I’m reaching, but maybe not as much as you’d think.
ANSWERS in order: 1) Granlund/Naslund 2) Naslund/Granlund 3) Serious? 4) Naslund/Granlund