I hate this. I mistrust productive preseasons and don't care for kids being dropped into the NHL in their draft years. Vancouver's previous first-round draft picks likely won't make the team this year. This year's pick just happened to be exactly what the Canucks need, positionally speaking, which brings the Devil's Candy to mind. Desperation makes it easy to overlook flaws.

So what's going on with Braeden Cootes?

Keeper League

Braeden Cootes has earned his spot; let's not pretend otherwise, here. He's had some protected time on the ice in his three games so far, which is reasonable for an 18-year-old. But you can't protect a player when you're on the road and have few other options. It was a typical pre-season road game with just a few NHL veterans as the home team dressed two of the best in the world.

His line in Edmonton was with Kiefer Sherwood and Drew O'Connor. If you saw that during the season, it would be a fourth line. Here, it was their second most frequent combination. Cootes himself pulled almost 17 minutes in the 3-4 loss, a two-minute increase over his previous two games. The key may be why other players haven't managed to stick: he's not playing scared.

His second goal of the preseason was a lucky bounce off a defender, but his first was a lucky bounce off him. Is that better or worse? Answer: they all count. Cootes is getting wither the puck or himself into the right spots to score, and that's not even his best feature. Seeing him step right up to angle Leon Draisaitl away from the net, or going to the boards to fight for the puck is a delight.

Compared to Who

It's not completely fair to use a first-round pick as a comparison to players who were drafted much later, or even not at all. But where Cootes is now is so much farther along than where Danila Klimovich or Nils Åman or Arshdeep Bains were in their first training camps. He isn't bothering to think about not making mistakes because he's doing what he needs to do.

That AHL championship win has helped so many of Vancouver's prospects, no doubt. There is a lot of pressure coming up the ranks right now, and that's fantastic to see. The confidence that Bains, Linus Karlsson, and Max Sasson played with last game is what they needed. Any of them could start with the NHL club this season, with Bains probably having an edge there.

Cootes didn't need that. His Seattle Thunderbirds have not been good, with several veterans graduating in his second year. That's the same year he was named captain of the team as a 17-year-old. That in itself speaks volumes about what he's bringing alongside his skills. His skill set gives him a subtle advantage over, say, Jonathan Lekkerimäki. He's ten pounds heavier, and what he does with it matters.

Bringing It (A Bit)

Braeden Cootes has been put on a simple regimen. Play well enough in this game, get to play in the next one. That's fine for the preseason and all, but when the season starts, the consequences of not being able to keep up are far higher. The pressure that Vancouver has put upon itself to not just make the playoffs this year but to "show promise" for the future is through the roof.

Can they afford to have a player who hasn't played a single professional game on the team? It's a tougher call than you might think.

On one hand, there is a lot of depth in that bottom six right now. The Canucks have loads of players who can fill those spaces, many of whom have NHL experience. It could easily be argued that they are better than Cootes right now - or will be better by season's start. But will they be better in two or three months?

Two Ways

As we've said before, Cootes can start on a fourth line. He has appropriate skills for the position. If the team wants him to ba a "two-way player" then there's little harm in it. He'll not only play against the best in the world, he'll also practice with them and be coached by them. Even if he only plays ten or twelve minutes a night, everything around him being at this level is still there.

Now, the tough part is accepting that if he is used this way, he might only get 20 points or so in his first year. In this season, that just might be how he helps the team the most. If he has low point totals _and_ he's a healthy scratch, they can still send him down to Seattle at any time. This ain't a mysterious yellow wood, here. We can switch trails whenever we want.

On the other hand, Cootes is looked upon as the leader of a rebuilding Thunderbirds squad. He could absolutely gain experience as The Man relied on to score every night. In the WHL he'll be relied on to do everything for his team, including being a physical presence. He could get twice the ice time in Seattle that he would in Vancouver.

But if he did that, it would be against WHL players on a WHL team. His top priority wouldn't be learning how to angle Leon Draisaitl away from the net, that's for sure. It would be to rack up points for a team that's probably going to have difficulty scoring, and let the rest sort itself.

This is why sports is the ultimate Reality TV. Any plan the team comes up with might work, but we're not going to know until it resolves.

Repeating Elephants

"We need to convince Hughes to stay with Vancouver!" Yeah, okay. I'll do this quickly.

As amazing as his vision, his skating, and his passing are, Quinn Hughes' single best feature is his brain. He thinks the game incredibly well, which is what was so disturbing last season. Watching him realize the best play he had was shooting from the point because of his disfunctional forwards was just ugly.

The best way to keep Quinn Hughes in Vancouver is not treating him like an idiot.

Want to make a trade to improve the team this season? He's perfectly aware of what you're giving up to do it. Losing draft picks is one thing; losing players, another. If you're bringing in a UFA at the expense of a potential future scorer, you better be ready to re-sign him. And they had better contribute. Don't rush a bad deal and think he'll be happy about it.