Each day in our comment section, Marwood reiterates his demand that John Tortorella be fired.

In today's papers, both Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun and Ed Willes over at The Province are thinking along the same lines, though with different timeframes involved.

As MacIntyre points out, we've now hit the two-week mark since Trevor Linden's splashy hiring announcement. Things have grown mighty quiet since that extensive first round of media appearances.

MacIntyre makes an interesting point when contrasting the current situation with last year's firing of Alain Vigneault:

Naturally, (Linden) doesn’t want to appear hasty or pre-disposed to firing Tortorella. And there is no pressing deadline to make a decision on who will be coaching the team in September.

But Linden’s fairness may start to look like indecision or, worse, indifference to Tortorella’s right to know his future, if we make it to May without an announcement one way or another on the coaching staff.

Remember, Gillis was accused by some of dithering needlessly when it took him 15 days from the Canucks’ last playoff elimination — oh, how we long for the good old days when the Canucks were eliminated during the Stanley Cup tournament — to do what everyone expected and fire head coach Alain Vigneault.

Willes' view is a bit more long-term. He sees the resolution of the coaching situation as being just one piece of this summer's rebuild, but also doesn't think Torts can survive long-term.

There’s a fairly distinct bottom line to this Canucks’ season, and, whatever else he was responsible for, Tortorella took over a team that averaged 107 points over the previous five seasons and lead them to an 83-point campaign. Individually it was the same story. Henrik Sedin led the Canucks with — yeesh — 50 points. He’d averaged 90 over the previous five seasons. Daniel Sedin finished with 47 after averaging 80 over the previous five seasons. Alex Burrows averaged 27 goals a season over that same span. He had five this season.

True, not all of that can be pinned on Torts, but there is a certain inescapability to this Canucks’ season. As such, it would be almost impossible to sell the dawning of a new era with Tortorella back, and make no mistake, this upcoming season is about selling a new vision for this team.

As I've said before, I think they'll try to install the GM before dealing with the coaching situation—unless an irresistible candidate comes up. Dan Bylsma's job security in Pittsburgh got a little shakier after the Penguins blew a 3-0 lead to Columbus last night, and LA's John Stevens could be starting his summer vacation as early as midnight tonight. Good reasons to keep watching the playoffs—as well as some pretty terrific games.

What's Up With Lack?

The Canucks did issue a terse tweet yesterday, announcing that Eddie Lack would not be attending the upcoming World Championships after all:

Per Team Sweden, Eddie Lack will not be attending the Worlds. He will be tended to in Vancouver for maintenance before off-season training.

— Vancouver Canucks (@VanCanucks) April 23, 2014

It's definitely a change of course. Greg Balloch from Sportstalk is well-connected with the goalie situation in town:

Eddie Lack told me specifically he was not flying back to Sweden because he still had hopes of making the Swedish World Championships team.

— Greg Balloch (@GregBallochST) April 23, 2014

I asked Eddie Lack about his physical health after playing 19 straight games. Told me he felt fine, it was more of a mental strain. #Canucks

— Greg Balloch (@GregBallochST) April 23, 2014

But Balloch follows up:

Sounding more and more like the #Canucks are just taking extra precautions with Lack, asking him to stay home for more treatment.

— Greg Balloch (@GregBallochST) April 23, 2014

This all seems very strange to me, especially for a guy who was clearly itching to go. I wonder what's up here.

To keep things even more interesting, now that Sweden needs a replacement for Lack:

Swedish gm Tommy Boustedt tells me they have asked for #Canucks goalie Joacim Eriksson to play for them at the World Hockey Championships.

— News1130 Sports (@News1130Sports) April 24, 2014

Will he be allowed to attend?

To review, the Canucks who are confirmed to be participating at this time are Alex Burrows, Jason Garrison and Kevin Bieksa for Canada, Yannick Weber for Switzerland, and Jannik Hansen and Nicklas Jensen for Denmark.

As for Ryan Kesler:

USA gm Jim Johannson says #Canucks forward Ryan Kesler said no for the World Hockey Championships.

— News1130 Sports (@News1130Sports) April 24, 2014

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