Well, here we are. The Canucks are at the bottom of the standings. After an off-season where so much attention and pressure was put on the organization in relationship to keeping Quinn Hughes, it's been nothing but an unmitigated disaster.
Injuries have definitely played their part, but the team is just not good. The top players aren't playing badly (when they're playing): they might not be hitting their ceiling, but Hughes, Petey, Garland, and Hronek are playing well. It's just the team... not so good right now. The coaching has dropped off a cliff – in what was supposed to be their largest area of strength (their defense), the team is a disaster in their own end. Foote led the defense last year, so it's a bit strange to see how much they've fallen off. Right now the team is tied for third last in the NHL with a -18 goal differential. They've won just three in regulation in their last 21 games. They haven’t won back-to-back games since their first mid-October road trip.
With the team circling the drain so fast, the attention has shifted from "Will Hughes re-sign?" to "Where will they trade Hughes?" And that's a shitty position for Canucks fans to be in. Management hasn't done nearly well enough in building this team, and while they have made some good trades, it seems something of this magnitude is going to make or break the next cycle of the team... especially with the rumors abound that they're looking at players instead of picks, so a re-tool instead of a full rebuild.
But, as we all know, a full rebuild has never really been in the cards. Drance had a good piece about it over at the Athletic the other day, and basically confirmed what everyone knows: Aqua is not going to green-light a rebuild, and has actively worked against it. A couple paragraphs that I found interesting:
"The big picture direction of any franchise is set at the top. And in two instances over the past 15 years, in 2014 and 2017, respectively, the club effectively dismissed a pair of top hockey operations executives who were actively advocating internally for the Canucks to take a more patient overall direction.
[...]
Nonetheless, the influence of ownership’s preferences and outlook can be felt in a myriad of different ways. For example, based on accounts from sources within Canucks hockey operations over the past decade and a half, I’ve long understood that ownership has often prioritized finishing the regular season on a strong, winning note.
For whatever reason, winning late in the year has mattered significantly to Vancouver ownership, to the point that it was explicitly communicated as an important benchmark to previous Canucks head coaches. Winning down the stretch has even been a priority for the club in seasons when Vancouver’s hopes of making the playoffs are dim or nonexistent. The notion that the club’s long-term best interests would obviously be best served by losing meaningless games down the stretch to enhance its draft position isn’t one that the organization has granted any quarter during the Aquilini era."
It will be an interested few months to see which players get moved out, and how far down the rabbit hole the Canucks will tumble. Hopefully this year they can take this opportunity to tank properly.
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