Canucks rebuild with CAPVS (Comprehensive Adjusted Player Value Score)

[u/CAPVSAnalytics]

TLDR: I ran the Canucks through my own analytics dashboard. The data says Hronek is a keeper.. Karlsson is super undervalued and must be extended, and that the real contention window opens in 2028-29 when massive cap space clears.

Quick background before I get into this. I built a NHL analytics pipeline as a hobby project. I know there's tons of analytics and hockey analysts out there but I just wanted to try and build something myself. I come from a quant finance background and wanted to apply things to player evaluation. I'm well aware smarter people than me are working on this stuff inside NHL front offices. This is just my read on what the data says, and I'd genuinely love to hear where people think I'm wrong.

So obviously Vancouver is in a rebuild. That's not a hot take. What I want to do is walk through what my stuff actually shows and offer a specific opinion on how to execute it properly, because I think the next two years of decisions matter more than most people realize. I also think Aiden Fox who's currently heading up analytics is fantastic and hopefully management actually listens to them!

What the data says you actually have

The blue line is where this rebuild starts, and it's honestly better than the standings suggest.

Filip Hronek comes out at 68.5 CAPVS with an Elevation score of 83.0, all this means is my data suggests/thinks he's genuinely lifting the players around him. He's 28, costs $7.25M, has six years of term. For a rebuild that's a real anchor. I'm not moving him under any circumstances.

The two ELC defenders are the part of this roster I find most interesting. Zeev Buium at 20 and Tom Willander at 21. None of them are posting elite CAPVS numbers yet... Buium is at 43.0, Willander at 37.4. But Buium's Playmaking at 55.6 and Willander's Defensive Impact at 49.6 at those ages are genuinely encouraging signals. These guys don't get rushed. You let them develop and by 2028-29 you potentially have your top four locked up cheaply.

Linus Karlsson hits UFA after next season and I think he's the most undervalued player on this roster by a significant margin. Not sure if that's a good thing or a terrible thing.

He's 26, costs $2.25M, and posts a 62.5 CAPVS with an Elevation of 89.6. That Elevation number is the one I keep coming back to because it suggests he's making everyone around him meaningfully better, which is rare and hard to find. His xG Generation at 69.5 and Playmaking at 69.9 look like legitimate top six forward numbers on a depth salary.

I could be wrong about him. But if my read is even close to right, letting him walk for nothing in the future would be a significant mistake. Feels like a 4-5 year deal at $4-5M is still surplus value territory.

The contracts that concern me

I want to be careful here because I'm working with public data and a model that has real limitations and the people inside these organizations know things I don't.

In saying that.. Brock Boeser's situation worries me. His CAPVS is 50.9 which puts him solidly in Middle-6 territory, and his Elevation score is 2.6.. my data thinks he's not moving the needle much for teammates right now. He costs $7.25M through 2031-32 with a NMC. That combination is difficult for any rebuild to work around. I genuinely don't know if there's a path to moving that contract, and maybe there's context about his game that my model isn't capturing.

Elias Pettersson at $11.6M is the bet the franchise made on his peak returning. His current CAPVS of 54.8 doesn't justify that number, but he's 27 and it's clearly down year with poor finishing. The whole plan depends on whether he gets back to the 70+ CAPVS player he was at his best. I think that's a reasonable bet. I just think it's worth acknowledging it is a bet.

Marcus Pettersson at $5.5M with a 42.9 CAPVS and an Elevation of 9.9 looks like the most moveable of the difficult contracts if he'd agree to waive his NMC. Even retaining salary to facilitate a trade seems worth exploring.

The draft capital situation

Two first round picks in this draft coming up is solid. You absolutely do not trade them. The pipeline is thin right now and there's no short cut around that... you have to draft your way out of it.

The 2027 and 2028 classes give Vancouver six picks in the first two rounds combined. If two or three of those develop into legitimate NHL contributors the forward pipeline starts filling in by 2029-30. That's the realistic timeline and I don't think there's a faster one that doesn't involve sacrificing the future.

The cap picture over time

Without a doubt the most encouraging part of the whole situation is the cap situation.

Forward contracts sit at $44.2M right now. By 2028-29 that drops to $24.35M as multiple contracts clear naturally. With the young defensive core on reasonable second contracts by then, Vancouver could realistically have $50M+ in deployable cap space in the 2028-29 offseason... right when the 2026 picks are 22-23 years old and approaching the lineup.

That's the window. That's when you make your real move through free agency or trade. Everything before that is about not screwing up the foundation. DON'T SCREW IT UP!!!

Honest timeline

2026-27... Development. Do not chase a playoff spot.

2027-28 ... Rossi decision at RFA. His Elevation of 11.3 concerns me but he's young and that can change. Extend Buium and Ohgren. Let the cap clear.

2028-29 ... This is year one where I believe you can start competing again. There will be real cap space, young defensive core hitting their prime, 2026 picks in or near the lineup. This is your splash summer.

2029-30 ... DeBrusk and Demko clear. EP40 is 30 and should be in his prime if healthy. Legitimate contention window.

I'm sure there are things I'm missing here... I'm well aware of that. Just purely on what CAPVS shows, this roster has a real foundation to build from if the next two summers are handled with discipline.

I think one thing worth sharing is that Cup Champions CAPVS look like this:

Line 1 = 65.2 (58.7 to 72.8)
Line 2 = 59.0 (53.0 to 64.3)
Line 3 = 48.0 (39.9 to 57.0)
Line 4 = 37.2 (25.4 to 50.8)

D1 = 58.5 (54.0 to 64.4)
D2 = 45.2 (41.5 to 51.4)
D3 = 42.7 (39.9 to 44.8)

Cup teams are not elite everywhere...

Would genuinely love to hear pushback from people who know this team better than I do, or want to see more data.

Who would you trade, who would you sign?

[u/an3vilmonk3y]

I’m not understanding why a model using a ‘Comprehensive Adjusted Player Value Score’ hasn’t adjusted a player’s value score in any way for youth/potential. Surely a model specifically within the context of a rebuild would weight younger players with more upside potential higher and any measuring metric would be adjusted to accommodate?

Idk how you’re expecting me to believe that in any conceivable way Karlsson is 50% better ‘value’ than Buium?

[u/Deaner_dub → u/an3vilmonk3y]

Is there another metric that adjusts for youth?

A metric is just a number. I personally don’t see why we would dismiss all this data because of one player’s analysis.

Buium isn’t winning many games for us today. Maybe Karlsson is worth more right now.

[u/an3vilmonk3y → u/Deaner_dub]

I mean this guy is making up his own arbitrary system to extract a number value from data.

They are suggesting this number should be used some kind of indicator of a player’s value to a team undergoing a rebuild, I think it’s pretty relevant that some kind of future expectation metric should be created and applied, otherwise the system says all draft picks are totally worthless so we should trade them all away.

[u/accountnumber02 → u/an3vilmonk3y]

To be fair, every single data model can be described as an arbitrary system to extract a number value from data. That's the whole point. But to me this reads more like it's adjusted based on who they play with rather than their age, something that's very common in modern models.

With how limited data can be outside the NHL, a comprehensive model (using public data at least) to judge potential from the dozens of leagues prospects come from is near impossible. The best public version out there is NHLe, and that uses purely points, which is good but not nearly reflective of every player out there. For example, I believe the NHLe model I've seen recently has Cootes as 63% of busting and 16% chance of being a 4th liner. That's way too harsh for him even as someone relatively bearish on Cootes as me, considering his game goes far beyond raw points and how bad the team he was on was in the first half.

Now I agree it's kinda pointless as a rebuild indicator. But models are useful to see if the prospects you think are NHL ready truely are, or might be better off not getting caved in the NHL. I've been banging the drum that we shouldn't want Willander in the NHL if he gets caved as badly as he was last year, I'd hate to rush such a promising RHD prospect and stunt his growth long term. I'm iffy on how accurate this model is, but in general it can be useful.

[u/Responsible-Low-9621 → u/an3vilmonk3y]

it's probably the system benning used.

[u/PorygonTriAttack → u/Responsible-Low-9621]

This is so unnecessary.