Perhaps there was a misunderstanding. The last time we talked about accepting failure, it was about how fans can continue enjoying the game and the team we all love, for better or worse. It was NOT supposed to be permission for management to stop working on the team.

So, Patrik? Jim? Heck, Francisco, too, if you're spending time here. This one is for you guys.

When You're Falling

Many, many years ago, I bought a CD. I saw the video, liked the song, and thought that's what the music would be like. Ends up what I liked about it was the one song featuring Peter Gabriel, and the rest wasn't my thing.

The Vancouver Canucks have made exactly one trade since announcing to the league that they were open to trading "veteran players". To be fair, Quinn Hughes is a veteran player, so I suppose that qualifies. So fans took a look at PuckPedia and saw who was there and for how long - and how much - and made assumptions. All the upcoming UFAs, of course, but also older players were looked upon with an appraising eye.

What we didn't expect was nothing. As the team tumbled, and tumbled, and tumbled, fans have been waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And now they are alone in 32nd place in the league, and the one player moved was the best. It was for a decent return, given the circumstances, but more is needed. Hearing that the high-value, 30-year-old, unrestricted free agent was presented with a contract offer hasn't helped.

Or rather, it has. It's helped opinion shift from reluctant admiration that management was willing to move Hughes to outright rage that they're desperately trying to keep their players. The confidence of fans that this management group would finally - FINALLY! - understand what was needed collapsed instantly.

Hybrid, Byebrid! Get On With It!

The funniest things happened soon after the fan outrage hit the internet.

The first, and perhaps most predictable, was management being surprised that the fans were angry. Now, some of that is going to be performative and, frankly, boilerplate messaging by now. Canucks fans are eternally online, and fans of every opinion are there and LOUD. Saying "Gosh, why are they so angry?" is a macro on any press release.

The reason is pretty obvious, even if they don't want to say it out loud. Jim Rutherford has gone from saying they "can turn it around in a couple of years" to describing a "hybrid rebuild" to just calling it a rebuild. And it's a rebuild. Just a rebuild. That's all he really had to say - except that he still needs to act to back that up.

So far, other than the one trade the team was forced into, there is no evidence that a rebuild, hybrid rebuild, or any kind of turnaround is happening. None. No doubt there are conversations going on, and one thing this group is very good at is keeping secrets. But when the one thing we hear is that Kiefer Sherwood is offered a new deal, that's not promising.*

Look, we aren't stupid. No team is going to win with a bunch of 23-year-olds. You want to have a few veterans around to take the brunt of the damage that repeated losing seasons can cause. And rebuilding makes for many losing seasons, alas. But we're also smart enough to know what "selling high" means - and it's hard to imagine Sherwood's value getting much higher.

The team can say whatever they want. Until we see a serious move, not just a UFA being dealt, we're just not going to believe your words.

Accepting Failure, Part II

Fans are going to be mad about it, and that's fine. As noted, some fans are going to be mad about any move Canucks management makes. That happens. But we can also see what's in front of us, and what hasn't worked.

I see my job here as trying to understand the moves the team makes. I can't influence those moves, and I don't interview team management, but I can put pieces together. We can see what the plan was, whether we agreed with it or not. Later revelations make that plan look even worse, but we can still see what it was.

Here's the news: it failed.

It was always a long shot, walking a tightrope that relied on the health of fragile players keeping a thin veneer of skill over a workmanlike team. And the tightrope broke almost immediately. That plan's gone and dust, which you can see with the desperate scrambling for Lukas Reichel and David Kämpf. Those guys are neither wings nor safety net. The plan is gone.

What we need to hear management say is simple: that the plan failed. The plan was to scrape into the playoffs this year and hope it would be enough to convince the best player the Canucks have ever had to stick around. They won't; he didn't; it's over.

A plan can fail, that's fine. Well, it sucks, but it's also fine. Plans fail sometimes, we know that. Lord knows we've seen enough of them to recognize when it happens. Hell, the former general manager had at least six, none of which worked. We know what failure looks like, even the new arrivals to our fandom.

We're going to have plenty of ideas about what you should do. That's the source of plenty of articles between now and the trade deadline, then again before the start of the 2026-27 season. That's what we're going to do to keep involved with a team that's heading for some rocky years ahead.

But the first thing you need to do is tell us.

*Missing two games because of a "mystery injury" IS promising, though.