As Vern put it: Hwoof. I may be paraphrasing here, but not by much.

Unfinished Epilogue

Our Long March continues through this long March, with the Canucks scoring just three wins since returning from the Olympic break. That's 3-7-2 in the past month, and 13 games to go before the season's end. If the dismal effort at home against the St. Louis Blues is any marker, the team's best move may have been changing the seat colours to make the empties harder to spot.

They weren't officially eliminated on Saturday night, but boy, it felt like it. Kevin Lankinen only faced 20 shots, which sounds like a good defensive effort until you see Jordan Binnington faced five fewer. Check the tape: are we sure these guys played sixty minutes?

Vancouver isn't just the worst team in the league by a huge margin, but they managed the feat in what is a shockingly bad division. So that's possibly a blessing in disguise: if the narrow beam they trod held up, they might have thought they were good. The top team might not have enough points to qualify for the playoffs if they went East.

A comment of mine from the Smythe Pacific Division preview, lo these many moons ago:

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.

Guess what? A whoooole lot more than "one or two things" went wrong, and they included all three of those players. The rest of the division has been as shaky as expected, but Vancouver sure didn't take advantage. Their farm club in Abbotsford has likewise been eliminated from playoff contention. That's a more dramatic fall from their championship season, but when things go wrong on the parent club, it shakes all the way down.

Survivor Bias

There is plenty of time to talk about offseason moves and team goals. The Draft Lottery is coming up on May 5th, already marked on many Canucks fans' calendars. We can console ourselves with dropping down to third for almost two months (June 26) before the draft itself.

We'll also have to figure out what to do with the folks who remain.

The season started with the stupidest plan going: Win for Quinn. I try to figure out what the team management is thinking before I write about them, and that usually forces me into an optimistic mindset. Not going to relitigate all the moves I've disagreed with here, but even for me this was frikkin' weird. If your decisions are being dictated by a player, then skip the middleman and give him the hat. You'll save money that way.

If they were pushing to keep him, there was one route: tell him we're rebuilding, and he's going to be the guy at the core. Yes, he'd be in his early 30s by the time the team was contending, but he'd be the stake the tent is erected around. Apparently, that wasn't the approach they took, and we ended up with this circus.

So, some of the players the team should keep are pretty obvious: the folks that came back in the Quinn Hughes deal, the young defencemen, Drew O'Connor... Some folks are going to remain simply because the demand for them isn't high. Getting a return for Brock Boeser could be a challenge right now, for instance, but his value could improve next season. Same story for pretty much all the veterans. Keep them and see if their value improves, or cut bait, take the loss, and move on if offered anything reasonable.

The trickier question is who will be running the rebuild.

A Matter of Trust

Ownership has already decided to let the current management make one of the biggest deals in team history. But that was forced by the player - an exceptional situation that a changing of the guard wouldn't help. But the question of whether Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin are the right people for the job. Rebuilds weren't exactly the Pittsburgh Penguins modus operandi while Rutherford was there. He does have three Stanley Cup rings, two with the Penguins and Carolina's only victory. So it's not like he hasn't done the job.

The question is, what job is he doing?

Allvin is a bit of a wild card in this circumstance. Yes, he's the actual general manager of the Canucks by title, but Rutherford stepped in to manage Hughes' trade. If he wasn't trusted by the guy who hired him, then why should the owners? And why should we? In theory, he is here to replace Rutherford when he retires. It's a bit odd when a team only intermittently has a president. Is there an actual definition of duties between the two? Who knows?

The other question is whether coach Adam Foote survives until September. He was, the story goes, hired on Hughes' endorsement. Without Hughes, does he have a reason to remain in place? The Canucks lack talent, certainly, but is that the entire problem here?

I rather like the plan Foote has. He wants to make the defence an active part of the offence, apply pressure on puck carriers, and maintain a presence in the attacking zone. It, uh, hasn't worked. The style has a lot of each player reading the play and deciding in the moment what their best play is. While every player needs to make decisions, there are levels of freedom they have. The more familiar the players are with each other and their coaches, the more freedom they usually get.

The coaches obviously bring their own preferences with them. Rick Tocchet was far more strict in how much leeway the players had. Bruce Boudreau was somewhat more relaxed. Each of them had some success in Vancouver. Certainly, more than Foote's system has managed. The current version of the Canucks doesn't seem to be getting it, in any case. Management needs to decide whether the fault lies in the players not understanding their roles, the coach not communicating them, or the general manager not supplying the talent to perform them.

Let's Watch!

While that last isn't entirely on the players - a LOT has happened this season - they have to know they're playing for their jobs. The results they have on the ice might well mean they're playing for Adam Foote's as well. Vancouver does have an in-house replacement ready and waiting in Abbotsford, even with their disappointing results.

So what can be done to save, well, everyone? Not much, truth be told. A dozen games shouldn't change anyone's mind after watching the previous 70. But perhaps some grace will be given, considering the changing objectives. In October, the goal was to convince one player to stay. In December, it was to re-energize the team (and fans) after a disastrous start in a push for the playoffs.

Now, the objectives are quite different, depending on who's watching.

For coaches: see what the new arrivals are capable of; mix defensive pairs and forward lines to see whose skills complement each other; and discover which veteran players want to be here for a rebuild.

For management: decide which players are worth keeping for at least one more trade deadline; see if the coach can effectively communicate his system to the players; and see if that system is one that will interest fans, even in a brutal season coming up.

For the owner: trust the management knows what they are doing, or replace them. Outside of that, hands off.

For the fans: It's been years since the team has been deliberately bad, and the Aquilinis are just going to have to suck it up. We get to find out if they have the patience for a rebuild. It's the worst job of all the ones here - and the one we're stuck with. And it starts now.