The bad news is Quinn Hughes scored. The boxcar stats from Sunday's game against the Flames are bad enough, but the instant you look at the scoresheet, you know. Hughes rushing in to score late in a 5-1 game isn't a good sign. That he does it end-to-end with an assist from Kevin Lankinen is as bad as it gets.
I've mentioned before that one of the worst signs for the Canucks is when Hughes tries to do it all himself. He doesn't do that accidentally; he does it because he doesn't think he has a choice. And since we're talking about one of the highest hockey-IQ players in the league, that's worth paying attention to.
Beautiful goal. Terrible indicator.
Back when we did a preview of the season, we noted that the other teams in the division had shored themselves up. Vancouver's margins to succeed were smaller than ever, but certainly not impossible. The biggest danger was the thinness of talent at the top.
Vancouver has more top-end talent than enough of these teams to make the playoffs. But the game requires more than talent. The Canucks can have one or two things go wrong and still make it, so long as those things going wrong aren't one of three players. So we're ending up with Schrödinger's Playoffs, either making it or not, and we won't know which until we look.
So how did that go?
Okay, that wasn't exactly a difficult prediction. And even as easy as it was, I still got some of it wrong. The three players were, of course, Thatcher Demko, Quinn Hughes, and Elias Pettersson the Forward(tm). There have been mixed results, but that hasn't been where the most damage has been done.
Demko's injury is what it is, and no point going over that again. Hughes has missed substantial time - five complete games, parts of others - but that hasn't stopped him from leading the team in scoring again. Pettersson took a bit to get going, but he's been fine, even after being told he not only has to be a superstar scorer but also the only checking centre the Canucks have.
That third one's the indicator. Filip Chytil doesn't want to retire, but good grief, he should. We know you get paid a LOT, but there's a life after hockey, Filip. Another shock was Teddy Blueger playing in just two games, never to be seen again. The same can be said of Derek Forbort, but at least we only expected 60-ish games from him. But his absence is felt on the league's worst penalty kill.
One thing we aren't going to do is blame Pius Suter for getting paid. His two-year, $4.125 million per is an awful lot for a 40-point, middle-six centre. But boy, wouldn't that have been a better use of the money than signing winger Evander Kane?
Instead, what we get is the Jim Benning Era packed into two months, with increased desperation leading to increasingly desperate moves. Giving a younger player a shot is the kind of thing a team on the way up does, not one trying to stay afloat. Bringing in a guy who was cut from the frikkin' Maple Leafs to play as the second-line centre is pure desperation.
The pressure of keeping the best player in Vancouver Canucks history happy doesn't help, of course. But they haven't performed well under that pressure, either. Hack-comic-talking-about-airline-food levels of flopsweat, here.
Winning teams take risks, sure. But those risks are closer to betting on red at the roulette table, not praying #35 will somehow come through for you.
There was a risk in promoting Adam Foote to head coach. I think he'll be fine, but this is a team with so little margin for error that everything they did was a risk. The other option was Manny Malhotra, who is also untested at the NHL level, so it's not like they were playing it safe either way. I also don't think the fault lies with Foote, and really hope the team doesn't make him the fall guy.
This is about team construction. That goes right to Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin, with plenty of blame left over for team owner Francesco Aquilini.
Personally, I hate how this management team seems to negotiate. Obviously, I'm not in the room, and I haven't talked to either players or staff. My judgment is entirely based on what we all can see in public, and to me, that doesn't look good.
Right from the treatment of Bruce Boudreau to taking their players for granted, there has been an arrogance and recklessness at the top. I don't blame J.T. Miller for not getting along with Pettersson - nor do I blame Pettersson - but choosing him and completely ignoring Bo Horvat was alarming. Publicly insulting Brock Boeser after his 40-goal season, then leaving him to hang in negotiations, was bizarre.
When they kept Kevin Lankinen waiting, and waiting, and waiting, before finally signing him in late September to his first deal with the Canucks is typical of how they work, apparently. If you want to play in Vancouver, hey, great! We'll get back to you on that! We're going to play the field a little more before we get married, okay, sweetie?
The end result has been a team that feels like it's been forced on management instead of built by them. Rutherford seems frustrated that he can't simply offer to bury a player in the AHL if they don't sign. He and Allvin were surprised that the rising cap let teams keep their players, but forgot they could do that, too.
It was quite the weekend for Vancouver sports. The Goldeneyes kicked off their existence with an overtime win against their expansion rivals on Friday. The Whitecaps played one of the greatest games in Vancouver sports history, with an absolute rollercoaster of a game to stay alive in the MLS playoffs on Saturday.
The Canucks played a solid game against a good Dallas Stars squad, even though they lost. Then got stomped by one of the worst teams in the league, who had played in another city the night before. It, uh, it was a comedown.
The Canucks players have put in a lot of hard work. They really have. But on Sunday, they were outworked by what is now a higher-skilled team. Lankinen had an off night, and that wasn't nearly enough to cover for the mistakes made in front of him.
The return dates for Vancouver's missing players have been pushed back, with Nils Höglander looking like he'll be on the outside edge of ten weeks, Forbort being a complete mystery, and Blueger and Demko both strangely being here-then-gone. Chytil, of course, is anyone's guess, given how concussions play out.
So what's left for Vancouver? Will there be an effort to salvage the season, which in this case means asking some players to please waive their no-move clauses? Will there be a change in management or coaching? Will Aquilini - the owner who has openly defied every opportunity to rebuild - finally talk about rebuilding? At this point, who frikkin' knows?
Looking forward to the next Goldeneyes game, though. And can't wait for the MLS Conference Final!
