Second-guessing is in the nature of any ardent sports fan. We are all better general managers than the fool that the foolish owners hired! Every draft pick was an obvious miss (or too-easy hit) that we would have avoided/made, every signing for far more than we would have done, etc.
You get the idea.
Starting the season with Braeden Cootes in the lineup wasn't a mistake. There was plenty of doubt around the move, to be sure, and for good reason. The Canucks are a fairly light, young team, and adding the 18-year-old Cootes only exacerbated that. Thing is, he absolutely earned his spot in the starting lineup, especially with Nils Höglander and Teddy Blueger out.
Cootes wouldn't be taking either of their spots, obviously. But if he could help the team through their absence as others moved up into the newly available slots, it would work as a test run. And who knows? He might just stick! His maturity showed in both discussing his role in Vancouver and his play on the ice. Let's go for it.
What would be really fun is if he and Jonathan Lekkerimäki worked as a tandem right from his start. That would be just perfect: NHL history is loaded with tandems that helped teams reach the heights. Just imagine having ten years of that!
With Cootes headed back to Seattle, you can guess what the results were. He and Lekkerimäki are both at the bottom of the team in Corsi rankings, with their most frequent linemate, Drew O'Connor, not far behind. They were massively outshot in their games together and had real difficulty retrieving the puck once they lost it.
The kicker is that while Cootes was the worst Canucks skater on the ice statistically, he didn't play that badly. He had a couple turnovers, but found the right place to be quickly when that happened. He didn't get a shot on net himself, but his linemates did. He could see plays happening, but couldn't quite execute them because - and this may surprise you - there was another team on the ice trying to stop it.
In short, the mind is up to the task, but the flesh is just not there yet. Fortunately for him, and for the Canucks, and for us, that is self-correcting. The coaches and players all seem to feel that Cootes is self-motivated enough that adding some muscle won't be a problem. It might be a year away, but that's fine. They have time.
The bigger problem isn't with Cootes, of course. It's with a team that is thin on talent, whose best players haven't been. Losing Höglander and Blueger shouldn't be devastating, but their experience shows in its absence. The one line that is rolling right now is the erstwhile third line of Aatu Räty, Arshdeep Bains, and leading scorer Kiefer Sherwood.
Conor Garland has been his usual whirling dervish self out there, but it's hard to be impressed by anyone else in the top six. Filip Chytil is great at puck entries, and his talent is on show early. The longer he stays healthy, the better. But he does run hot and cold, following his two-goal game against Calgary with two pointless ones after. And Evander Kane still looks like he's finding his legs.
Fortunately, those three have some signs of life in them as the second line. That's more than can be said of Elias Pettersson between Brock Boeser and Jake DeBrusk. The trio has been... okay, but no more than that. And okay isn't what Vancouver needs from their top line. They need teams to fear them when they come over the boards.
Three games in is hardly time to panic, but the worst sign that the Canucks are flailing is Quinn Hughes. Not him playing badly, but trying to do it all. If play is breaking down, he will just hang on to the puck rather than distributing it. See what plays he's looking for, and hope they're passes rather than circling back or a desperate shot from the point.
With Cootes out of the lineup, speedster Max Sasson has been called up from Abbotsford. That doesn't mean he'll be starting right away, but the team wants him handy for the road. It's as likely that Linus Karlsson gets first crack at it, though the team seems to view Karlsson as a winger rather than a centre. O'Connor can take draws with reasonable proficiency, while Karlsson becomes the line's defensive conscience.
On the other hand, a line of O'Connor, Sasson, and Lekkerimäki would bring a silly amount of speed that low in the lineup. That could be fun to watch, so long as you're not tending the net behind them. That may well happen at some point, out of exhaustion of options, if not deliberate planning. There is no word when Blueger will be back, though he's only listed as day-to-day, so it should be sometime on this trip. Höglander, on the other hand, will be another month or more.
We're leaving the defence and goaltending alone this time because they're not the points of concern. Yes, Kevin Lankinen let in four goals, but he was pretty much left out to dry against St. Louis. "He's not as good as Thatcher Demko" isn't a reasonable criticism. Victor Mancini was brought up to try getting a little more offence going, but he's not the saviour. Just one point from the defence is a surprise, but that's a whole-team thing rather than a flaw in the blue line.
This five-game trip is a good excuse to focus on their play after a chilly wake-up call. The good vibes surrounding training camp were nice, but they are left at home for the next ten days.
