Will the Vancouver Canucks draft a Vancouver Giant?

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      Coming off finishing third-last in the league during the 2015-16 season, the Canucks will get a chance to deepen their prospect cupboard with Friday’s NHL Entry Draft.

      The Canucks will have six chances at the draft table to unearth some future players, as they have a pick in the first round, third, fifth, sixth and two in the seventh. Their second and fourth rounders were traded to Florida as part of the Erik Gudbranson trade.

      The Canucks will get a talented prospect at number five overall. What they do with the rest of their picks could prove essential to building the franchise back up, however. Many of the prospects in the draft are unknowns, but let’s talk about a couple out there who may be known commodities to hockey fans in Vancouver.

      The Vancouver Giants have at least three players who stand a good chance of being drafted tomorrow. Will the Canucks be able to snag one of them?

      Only one Giant has ever been drafted by the Canucks. Well, kind of. In 2005, the ‘Nucks took a flier on Mario Bliznak in the seventh round. He was playing in Slovakia at the time but ended up having a fruitful career for the Giants. He played six games in the NHL.

      Tyler Benson, LW, 6-0, 201 pounds

      Benson has been a highly touted prospect since he was a tween. The Giants took him with the number-one overall pick in the bantam draft and expected big things. For the most part, he delivered, scoring 45 points in 62 games during a tough 2014-15 season for the Giants.

      Last year, after being named captain, Benson was dogged by injuries, including a tailbone cyst that had to be removed surgically. He was only able to play 30 games, putting up 28 points.

      The Edmonton-born winger is still slated to go at the end of the first round or beginning of the second, right where the Canucks would be with the 33rd overall pick had they not dealt it.

      Ty Ronning, RW, 5-9, 165 pounds

      The last name will be familiar to Vancouver hockey fans. Ty’s dad, Cliff, played six seasons for the Canucks and was a major part of their 1994 run to the Cup finals.

      Like father, like son: Ty’s game is built on speed. The diminutive winger scored 59 points in 67 games this year and was, by many accounts, the team’s best player.

      There always has been and always will be a size bias in the NHL, and that is one of the reasons why Ronning isn’t projected to go very high. Well, that and the fact that he had a down year the season before last, battling injury and only scoring two points.

      Can the Canucks be convinced to take a flyer on the little guy? Some would argue one of the team’s greatest mistakes was not taking the Giants’ all-time leading scorer, Brendan Gallagher, in 2010 before he went to the Montreal Canadiens in the fifth round. The. Fifth. Round.

      Matt Barberis, D, 5-11, 179 pounds

      “The Barber”, as he shall now be nicknamed, had a great year, scoring 26 points in 49 games in his first draft-eligible year, good for second on the team in defenceman points.

      The problem is that he’s an offence-first defenceman. Well, that wouldn’t usually be a problem, but it does seem to be directly opposed to the vision that GM Jim Benning has for the team.

      The trade for Gudbranson had repercussions that will ripple through the roster for years to come, as the precedent for the kinds of defencemen the Canucks desire, as well as the trading away of a skilled forward like Jared McCann, means there is little chance a player like Barberis will be chosen by the Canucks.

      Canucks fans may be in for another year of watching beautiful trees grow in their backyard only to see them uprooted and moved south or east. 

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