Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
Nucks Fan Rebuild & Retool Center - Come For The Banter - Stay For The Disappointment
The end of the 2025-26 season has arrived at long, long last. Exit media and player interviews have been had, an evaluation of - Sorry, what's this?
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/canucks-fire-general-manager-patrik-allvin-after-five-seasons/
Well, then. Suppose we should hold off until the President of Hockey Operations gets his notes together and -
Ah. Yes. That. Jim Rutherford's bit starts two hours and four minutes in, and I guess that's where we'll start.
So far, just the general manager has been fired. The reason, Rutherford says, is because the next general manager should decide how the team will react to a disastrous season. That means Coach Adam Foote is still most likely fired, but hasn't been yet.
That's good news. No, really! Rutherford is making a clear demarcation of responsibilities with that decision. Whether he will continue that self-imposed limit, well, that remains to be seen. In theory, the PoHO (there's gotta be a better acronym out there...) chooses the direction of the team, and the general manager executes that vision. But we all know Rutherford stepped in at a few vital points, possibly at the behest of ownership, to take power away from Allvin.
That can complicate any new search. The favourite is Ryan Johnson, who has run the Abbotsford Canucks to an AHL championship and signed a lucrative contract with the understanding he would get promotion to the big club before its term ended. Whether that's to general manager or an assistant GM position is unknown to us.
Rutherford has talked about expanding the search as widely as possible, but whoever comes here will want assurances. How much power will they actually have, what timeline is the team looking at, and what about the Sword of Damocles working an hour down the road? Not many qualified, veteran people would be thrilled with those working conditions.
This is a pretty good question, too. According to Rutherford, he had been thinking about the firing for several weeks, but didn't reach a decision until last night. That it was leaked by a Swedish magazine moved up the announcement, but was otherwise coincidental. Not sure I entirely believe that bit, but it doesn't change much in the big picture.
The first problem is that it delaying the hiring means other decisions will have to wait. That includes signing on scouting staff (or not), finding a new coaching staff (or not), and the amateur draft coming up. Given that Allvin came from the scouting world, that last was entirely in his hands, and he has the Air Miles to prove it.
Other coaches and general managers have been hired already, so another reason my be because the team really does want to have as many options as possible. The longer they wait, the more names are made unavailable. Or it may just be for show before they bring Johnson in and he calls up Manny Malhotra.
Rutherford reiterated that the team is undergoing a rebuild, and any new general manager will need to agree with that. Not a bad thing, but if anyone said differently that would be reason to end the interview early.
The Canucks need to have a rebuild, obviously. Step One is getting over the fear of saying that out loud. The fans in Vancouver aren't idiots. But they're also not made of money. The number of people willing to piss it away on the hobbled creature that appeared early in the season is diminishing. Losing isn't necessarily the thing that turns off fans: losing expensively can.
Whoever's hired as the next general manager is going to have to gain the trust of the fans. That includes having a plan that lasts longer than a few months. Hearing word of a ten-year plan is a bit silly, given the duration of most sports careers. But having a three-year plan to reach one point, then another from there, and another from there, can work for me.
As the team discovered just this season, times change, and so should goals. Vancouver wanted to be competing for a playoff spot as an eventual step to the Stanley Cup. That plan ended in December, and the stated goals soon followed.
Vern's talked about what they want to see from the team ASAP. The team got one thing off the list so far. The rest could take a bit longer.
The draft lottery is coming up in May. Until then? Smile, smile, smile!
After a Kings game that was the visual equivalent of a slightly squeaky desk fan, the rest of California paid off. Back-to-back wins against San Jose and Anaheim were a shining moment in a gloomy season. Do they mean anything, though?
At the tail end of arguably the worst season in Canucks history, fans can be excused for tuning out the team. After finishing last in the league was assured, what other reason was there to watch? Improvement from the special teams? Yeah, that's happened, but it's not exactly what sells tickets.
One shootout win and one overtime win later, and actually, there's a lot that's fun here! It's just that we need an opposition that is also slightly disastrous in their own end. The Ducks are going to be an interesting watch in the offseason, with three of their veteran, right-side defencemen all becoming unrestricted free agents. The Sharks, on the other hand, seem to regard having right-side defencemen as optional rather than mandatory.
Sure, I mock the defence of teams well ahead of Vancouver in the standings - and in their rebuilds - but it's with love. Those two games were a blast to watch, relative to the dreck we've been fed recently. And it's not really the fault of individual players when the systems are either not applied well (Vancouver's case) or geared toward scoring (also Vancouver's case, but include the other two as well).
But let's focus on the Canucks. Because what happened on the defence is actually pretty interesting.
The top four went unchanged for this road swing. Zeev Buium was with Filip Hronek, and Tom Willander stuck to Marcus Pettersson. As a third pair, Elias Pettersson the Defenceman was matched with Victor Mancini one night, Pierre-Olivier Joseph another, and Kirill Kudreyavtsev on the third.
In theory, Kudreyavstev is the one who shouldn't be here. My "2025-26 season longshot" was him reaching 40 NHL games, so it's not like he's a bad player. He doesn't really stand out, though. He's not particularly fast, certainly not big, and isn't much of a threat to score. Mancini beats him on all three counts, if we want to compare. But he is sharp.
Kudreyavtsev can read plays extremely well. He gets to the right spot at the right time, often stopping plays before they become dangerous. He could easily be Vancouver's 6/7 defender next season, taking Joseph's place. Pretty amazing, given his seventh-round draft lineage.
Getting 14 minutes in a tight game - even lis late in the season - is a show of confidence. For pretty good reason.
Possibly the best moment of the weekend came when the 26-year-old rookie Curtis Douglas scored his first NHL goal. That was genuine excitement, not just from him but from his teammates. His emotion after the game was marvellous to hear, too. That is, not to put too fine a point on it, the sort of thing we need to see around the team. We can forgive a bad team. We can't forgive one that doesn't care.
Seeing Kudreyavtsev celebrating with Douglas gives a nostalgic Tyler Myers - Conor Garland feel, too. And that's nice.
Speaking of our local behemoth, guess who challenged notorious brawler Radko Gudas? That's right, Teddy Blueger! If he had just gotten an assist in Los Angeles before his goal in San Jose, he could have picked up the single-state Gordie Howe hat trick. In a league that is low on free agent centres - and centres in general - whatever decision the team makes on Blueger will have good arguments on both sides. We'll get into that in another week or so.
The quartet out on the ice for an overtime power play was an interesting look, too. The "Minnesota Trio" of Marco Rossi, Liam Öhgren, and Zeev Buium were joined by actual Minnesotan Brock Boeser to finish the 4-on-3, and it worked. Granted, a 4-on-3 usually does, but if you wanted a quick look into Vancouver's future, there are worse moments.
The worst part about watching late games in a failed season is that "but what does this mean for next season" is a constant, intrusive thought. But sometimes, that can be optimistic, too.
Online writing is an interesting thing. The writing remains the same, while the medium - or at least the format - continually changes. Some of us have gone from Notepad cut and paste through Write or Die freeform gibberish over the decades. I have writing that ended up lost and gone forever because I don't have a program that can read it. No great loss, frankly, but it does make comparisons difficult.
If you look to the future, some version of it will be there, sitting in front of you to examine at your leisure. But it won't be an accurate version. Yes, this is about the Vancouver Canucks.
Needless to say, this season has not gone without a hitch. Lots of prognostications had Vancouver making the playoffs, and for good reason. Yes, Quinn Hughes was still on the team - and that helped - but mostly it was all about how weak the Pacific Division was. That part of the predictions still holds true, since in no sane world is Anaheim challenging for first. The playoffs, sure, but first place? Nah.
On paper, the team was easily comparable to others in the Pacific. But there is an important feature inherent with predictions: you can't predict injuries. The Canucks are a paper-thin team, talent-wise, but if they stayed reasonably healthy, they would likely be challenging for a spot right now. But that didn't happen. Hoo, doggies, that didn't happen.
They tumbled, plans changed. And no, nobody believes the team has "been in a rebuild for a couple of years already," Jim. No one. On the other hand, a certain amount of resignation coming from the management team is an oddly refreshing change. It's nice when they acknowledge reality along with the rest of us.
Instead, everyone sees that the team isn't going to hit ten wins at home. We all know the remaining games are going to be filled with mistakes and unequal events. We get it, we really do. Some will complain you're doing it wrong, whatever "it" is, but that's going to happen. This is a city of two million general managers, after all. No one here has a wingsuit they're going to magically pull from their backpack. This team is going downhill and is going to take their lumps doing it.
Then it's time to get up and plan the next route up the mountain.
Funny story: the Canucks' power play has been extremely productive since the team returned from the Olympic break. As in "around 30%" good. The penalty kill, on the other hand, remains bad. Not "worst in the league" bad, but a 75% success rate, which isn't great.
The overall goals stat isn't following the same plan. Just 51 for in 19 games is in the bottom third of the league territory, but not as bad as it could be. Scoring is probably the most forgiving stat for a young team, a place where mistakes aren't as visible as they might be otherwise. Young players are encouraged to "go try stuff" when standings aren't on the line. They were drafted for a reason, now go show it.
Their goals against, on the other hand, is brutal. The 85 given up in those same 19 games doesn't really have an equivalent. Even the Maple Leafs gave up seven fewer, and they have played one more game in that time. Not gonna lie, that one hurts. Now, the Canucks have allowed a team-record 24 empty netters this season, but you have to be behind before that's a risk. And they've been behind a LOT.
The Canucks have missed Derek Forbort as much as any other player this year. As much as we appreciate Pierre-Olivier Joseph, he was supposed to be the seventh man, not an option to keep Tom Willander company. There were games when Vancouver had four defencemen with fewer than 100 NHL games in the lineup. Yes, Kevin Lankinen and Nikita Tolopilo could have been better, but come on. There are plenty of games where opponents scored five or more and the goaltending wasn't the problem.
That makes next year's plan all the more interesting.
The newly-signed Victor Mancini is waiver-eligible next season. He hasn't been great, but he's been good enough that losing him is not only a real possibility, but would do damage. At just $1 million, there is plenty of reason to be patient. The team wants him to use his 6'3", 225 lbs frame more than he has, but that's never really been his game. But his offence hasn't been his NHL ticket, either, and he's going to be on a team with not much size. If he wants to stick, spending Summer taking an MMA course wouldn't hurt.
It's the other three that have the questions. Zeev Buium has the highest upside, but is also the youngest, almost a year younger than Tom Willander. Elias Pettersson the Defenceman has the least pressure to produce points, and is the most physically developed of the three. But his inexperience shows when he's trying to sort out his timing, especially in his end of the ice.
And never mind having a defenceman from this season's draft joining the team next year. Just no. Don't do that. Personally, I don't want to see any player from the 2026 draft on the team in the regular season. Let them avoid the pain of a full 84 games of one-win-in-four level hockey. We don't need them to be good next year in Vancouver. Let them be good right where they are.
Which brings us back to the Three Musketeers. There is, I think, a decent argument to be had for playing them in the AHL next year. Maybe one, maybe two, maybe all three. Next season is going to be hard on everyone, and there are going to be plenty of games where the Canucks are simply outmatched. The available free agents aren't great next year, but they will be veterans who can handle the workload physically and mentally.
On paper, this is a more talented team than the standings indicate. Odds are very good that they will improve considerably on this year's result. But in an ideal world, they will stay in that bottom-five position while individual players gain experience and improve their skills.
We don't know what the future looks like, but we can make educated guesses and act on those. Maybe if I had learned how to save things in different formats sooner, I'd have more of my work available. Maybe if the Canucks had anticipated Hughes leaving, they could have chosen not to rely on injury-prone players. But we are here now, and can always make plans for our future tense then.
The kids are going to play out the year, of course. It's a little unfair to Tolopilo and Lankinen, but them's the breaks. What will be more interesting is seeing what happens next.
Source: National Hockey League @ Elite Prospects
Following the Vancouver Canucks is a challenging thing just now. It doesn't help when marginally more successful teams are making changes either behind the bench or in the front office.
Yes, we're calling the Vegas Golden Knights a "marginally more successful team" than the Canucks. If you saw them play against Vancouver on Monday, you wouldn't be impressed, either. And they're 32 points up the standings.
There are nine games left before the regular season comes to a merciful end. We've mentioned - A LOT - about how to keep any kind of interest in our favourite team. Look for growth in the kids, see the veterans find their voices, maybe just focus on a player you like.
But, lordy, there is a lot you have to ignore. And that's getting harder.
The Canucks have lost six in a row, but that's not the important part. We all know losses are going to come through the end of the year. There is a talent imbalance, an experience deficit, and little motivation for success outside personal embarrassment. So, sure, losses happen.
The loss against Vegas mostly involved the chances given. Adin Hill stopped more than Kevin Lankinen, as a percentage, but it's hard to point to Lankinen's performance as the reason Vegas won. A recurring refrain from Canucks games has been "The pass to [player] coming in alone on net."
That Vancouver played well enough to possibly win is an indictment of the Pacific Division. The Golden Knights are in the playoffs by default, not through any effort of their own. They changed coaches the day before this game, for crying out loud. They're not doing great.
A losing team can still be fun. In fact, if you have watched two different teams sharing the division, you probably had fun doing it. The San Jose Sharks in the past two seasons have lost plenty of games, but they're also been fun to watch. They haven't always been able to hold it together, but when they did it was cause for celebration.
The last fun game the Canucks played was against the Anaheim Ducks, who also shouldn't be in the playoffs, but are in the Pacific Division, so... They also have a bit of a "defence optional" approach to the game. Fortunately for them, their offence has been catching up, and that's an easy way to sell tickets.
What can sell tickets in Vancouver while we wait? It's tough to tell, since we don't know what they're going to do next.
There have been vague implications of "big changes" from Jim Rutherford, and rumours that Patrik Allvin is going to take the fall. There are plenty of reasons for him to do so, of course. Possibly the biggest is every decision made leading into this season, and then being pushed aside for the biggest moment of this management's brief tenure. Rutherford stepping in for the Quinn Hughes trade was the dagger, and Allvin has been bleeding ever since.
One question is how much of the blame for the current disaster can be laid at Allvin's feet. In theory, the direction of any team is dictated by the general manager. In practice, much of that seems to be coming from Rutherford instead. That goes back to the decision to move Bo Horvat and keep J.T. Miller, a trade handled by Allvin, but likely made necessary by Rutherford's direction.
While that trade wasn't bad for the value returned, it and subsequent ones were guided by the "win now" direction. That core misunderstanding of the team is hard to forgive. Is it a a good thing that the tightrope the team chose to walk is now recognized as leading to a brick wall?
The current coach is here because the best defenceman the team has ever had wanted him to be. Adam Foote got a three-year contract out of that wish, though the "search" for a new coach was limited to two names. As a result, they will likely lose the other choice, Abbotsford bench boss Manny Malhotra. It's that or fire Foote and pay him to not coach. And we don't know how effective Malhotra will be in the NHL with what will be a very weak team.
To say Foote has been ineffective is an understatement. After nearly a full season, the players still look lost in their own end. Their control of the puck in the opposing end is minimal. And they seem unsure of themselves everywhere on the ice. For a team that is going young - they had four rookies on the defence at times this year - that's not a great sign. He can absolutely take his share of the blame.
But more has to be reserved for management. Rutherford said that they have known "for a while" that Quinn Hughes wasn't coming back to the team when his contract expired. Thing is, that "a while" was apparently mid-season in 2024-25. Every decision made from that point should have been pointed at a post-Hughes team. And it wasn't.
Everything from keeping Pius Suter past the deadline to re-signing Brock Boeser to hiring Foote was centered around the assumption that Hughes was staying. If they knew otherwise, none of that should have happened. The signings and trades (or lack of them) were bad enough, and that's on the general manager, but they were made to a purpose.
We all know where this is heading. This ship was less run aground by a storm and more by "get a blindfold and hold my beer". We aren't aboard the SS Minnow but the Exxon Valdes. They are going to lose some fans in a rebuild, but it'll be worse if they don't course-correct, and soon. And fair enough - tickets aren't cheap, and the entertainment value has been minimal lately.
There is something to be salvaged yet. The Canucks have started to rebuild their prospect pool. They have picked up younger, capable players. They seem less likely to trade away high draft picks, though the night is still young. All that is positive, though we're going to need to see that through the draft and into next season to check if it's a blip or a habit.
I'm not too worried about the effect of bad coaching on the young players this season because everyone is going to try to forget it. And yes, being unable to communicate your plan or failing to adjust it to the players available is bad coaching. It's not impossible that Foote can improve in the offseason, but seeing improvement before then would be more reassuring.
Leave the Canucks, though? Nah. They're my team, and I've been here longer than damn near anyone drawing a paycheque from them. I don't know if I've seen a worse season, certainly not one with a greater discrepancy between expectations and results.
But I am a very patient fan.
As Vern put it: Hwoof. I may be paraphrasing here, but not by much.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trade Deadline Day has come and gone - as have some players - and the Canucks are well into their latest home stand. Have any questions been answered? Do we have a clear direction? Is there at least one sign of what the management or ownership intends in the long term?
Kinda.
Going into the deadline, we all knew it wasn't going to be the One Weekend that Solved Everything. There was plenty of hope that the obvious moves would be made, plus one of the large contracts shuffled off. That was pretty much an ideal set for the workday.
That didn't happen, but they got a return for Lukas Reichel, which is a frikkin' miracle in itself. So they get a pass on this one. But what's coming up?
Goals would be nice. On-ice goals that home fans could cheer for. Yeah, it's going to be a little chaotic on the back end, so giving up more than we want to is going to happen. But losing 5-4 or 5-3 is a lot more fun than losing 4-1. Are there any signs of the Canucks getting to that point? With 16 games to go, half are at home. Give some entertainment to the folks who are finally able to afford tickets now that the scalpers are quitting the field!
The best thing going right now is that coach Adam Foote may have discovered a line that works.
A line of the finally healthy Marco Rossi centring Liam Öhgren and Brock Boeser has three goals in their last 24 minutes together with just one against. And more than that, they've been fun to watch. While there's a question of whether Boeser should still be with the team next season (he should), they should probably keep together what works. And this line looks like it works. I'd be perfectly happy to have this as the working second line going into next season. Reserving the right to change my mind in another ten games, of course.
On the blue line, Zeev Buium is coming along, too. It helps that he's getting time beside veteran Filip Hronek, but that's what you should do with talented rookies. He's using his speed, showing his creativity, and getting 20 minutes a night. Excellent! Over the past three games, that duo's possession metrics have been through the roof! In all of 23 and a half minutes together, sure, but that counts!
In goal, Nikita Tolopilo has been getting far more time than planned, and he's been...decent. I'm not going to sugarcoat his numbers; they've been rough. But he and Kevin Lankinen are playing behind three and sometimes four rookie defencemen out there. That can't be easy, especially given that Tolopilo is an NHL rookie himself. He still has a tendency to lose his posts, especially when play goes behind the net, but has plenty of skills worth waiting for.
We're going to give a hat-tip to new arrival Curtis Douglas, too. Adding a "nuclear option" to a young, light team that is going to be outmatched on plenty of nights is a relief. He knows what his job is out here, and he's going to get plenty of ice time to show us more. He's a Group 6 unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, so he's playing for a contract.
He's at the league minimum right now, and if he wants NHL ice time, he'll likely sign for that again. But if he shows that he can keep up to the pace, Vancouver probably has a two-year deal in the offering. There is no possible way that Evander Kane is returning, so he won't be interested in flexing his muscle between now and game 82. And while Marcus Pettersson is willing, he really isn't good at the gloves-off portion of the game.
The Canucks are going to be a bad team again next season, and they damn well should be trying to be one. But there is a cost to that, and it's in enduring loss after loss over 84 games.* But at least they have a safety valve on hand. Having someone like Douglas doesn't just stop teams from trying to win by roughing up the kids. His presence can also quell the temptation to run up scores to ridiculous levels, or to try alleviating the embarrassment of actually losing to the Canucks by gooning it up.
This homestand has been pretty mixed after three games. It should - in theory - get better for a simple reason: the team can practice.
There is a difference between the practice without opponents - what they had after the Olympic Break, for instance - and what they get between games. Without needing to travel, the new arrivals, medical ward escapees, and call-ups can get used to each other. With a team this bad, a lot of experiments can happen, and they can try them out the next day. That's good.
The bad news is that not many experiments work. The good news is that the pressure for them to do so is as low as it will ever be. Stick Öhgren in front of the net on the power play? Sure! Stick Rossi on the point with Buium? Why not? Have Tom Willander kill penalties? He'll have to sooner or later, so why not now?
Line combinations, special teams work, communicating with the goalies, breakout plays, all sorts of stuff can be experimented with. That's one argument that can be made.
On the other side, there's something to be said for simplifying everything. Go back to basics and see how the younger players perform. They'd probably get shredded the instant an opposing coach saw what they were doing, but at least everyone would be on the same page. And don't worry about rebuilding anyone's trade value this season. Sixteen games with the pressure off isn't changing anyone's mind.
As far as watching goes, well, it's not going to be pretty. We the Fans have the draft lottery to look forward to, followed eventually by the draft itself. Sure, there could be some action between the end of the season and Draft Day, but that's not for a while yet. Find a player you like, and see how they do. Check out what Foote does in what are possibly his last days as coach. Speculate whether ownership will clean house this offseason or next.
The Canucks season is essentially over, but there's entertainment to be had yet. You just have to look a little harder for it.
*Incredible timing for Vancouver to be the worst team in the league just as the season gets longer.
We all know the Florida Panthers are going to win the draft lottery, right?
Okay, good! Now that you're seeing red, we're going to call that your rose coloured glasses and look at how the Canucks did this deadline. Not great, but not as bad as it could have been. Let's dig in.
Backing up to the big man's absence, here's the total trade movement by Vancouver this week.
Out: Tyler Myers with 50% retained, Conor Garland, David Kampf, Lukas Reichel, Jett Woo
In: 3rd-round pick and two 6th-round picks for 2026; 2nd-round pick for 2027; 2nd-roundpick for 2028; 4th round pick for 2029; Curtis Douglas; Jack Thompson
No disrespect to Thompson or Douglas, but the team essentially brought no players in while moving three NHLers, an AHLer, and a tweener out. That's the right way to do it. But some of these were done more right than others.
None of these deals was a clear, decisive win. And that's fine. The team has a very different objective now. Deals made today had to have a far longer time frame than trying to salvage the season. So with the qualifier that these are less "good" than they are "good enough"...
David Kampf, Lukas Reichel for 2026 6th-round picks
I stand corrected: getting anything at all for Reichel is a clean win. A 6th for Kampf is about expected. Both picks are going to be in the 170-range, but still better than nothing. Yes, Vancouver paid a fourth for Reichel, which was bad. But it was also a desperation move for a team with injured centres and a frustrated superstar. Those conditions aren't going to repeat themselves, and you take the sixth and run.
David Kampf got more ice time with Vancouver than he will in Washington, and his worth to them was lower than with Vancouver. A sixth is fine. Aatu Räty and a returning Marco Rossi can take his faceoffs.
Conor Garland for a 2nd and a 3rd
The picks coming back aren't as high as they might be otherwise. If Vancouver retained at all, this could easily have been a 1st. But again, that's not the point. Having one of their salary retention slots occupied for another six years would have been an albatross. The Canucks didn't bring back a contract, but Columbus had no need to move any money. It was a deal signed with a different goal in mind, and clearing it before his no-move clause kicked in gave this one a time limit.
Tyler Myers for a 2nd and 4th, 50% retained
Speaking of retained salaries, this one is a bit annoying. We don't know what the deal with Detroit actually looked like, but it probably didn't involve retained salary. Still, it's just for the one season, and Ilya Mikheyev is coming off the books this Summer. And it ends up Vancouver didn't use the third slot this deadline anyway, annoyingly enough.
Sigh.
You can not tell me the Vancouver Canucks are going to have a 1,000th game ceremony for Evander Kane. Like, c'mon. This is a mutual termination, right? Right? Pull a David Kampf, free him up to look for another team. Kane's salary is far higher than Kampf's was, but he's been paid most of his $5.125 million this year. Set him free, and with that, set free the expectation we're going to cheer him getting a silver stick at centre ice. They really couldn't keep Vasily Podkolzin instead of bringing in Kane? Really?
And look, we like Teddy Blueger. Most of us wouldn't mind seeing him return next year. A veteran voice, plays hard, does any job asked of him. The guy you want to help the kids. But we'd have preferred it if he came back in six months after bringing a draft pick today. It's hard to picture a world where Kampf brings a return, but Blueger doesn't.
Curtis Douglas is a 25-year-old rookie who has played 29 games with Tampa Bay this season. A winger who can play centre, he has two assists this season while averaging less than six minutes a night. He's here because he's 6'9", 243 pounds, and has 92 minutes in penalties. Right, then. I guess with Myers gone, they wanted to add some size, if nothing else.
As for the Jack Thompson for Jett Woo trade, I've got a soft spot for Woo. Throwback defencemen are a weakness of mine, but while he could still make the league as a part-timer, he hasn't yet, and he's 25 and a group 6 UFA at year's end. Thompson played 31 games in the bigs in 2024-25, scoring three times and getting 10 points. This is the second time he's been traded, so general managers see something there.
Holding unrestricted free agents is bewildering for a team that is, frankly, doomed. How on earth Blueger and Kane are still in Vancouver is a mystery. Still, credit has to be given for shifting Garland and his extended contract out. The team has a decent-looking draft set for the next three seasons, and that should be added to in the offseason.
That Garland was the only big deal to move out isn't a real concern. Money can be tricky, and big deals need to be planned for. If teams are going to make a pitch for someone like Elias Pettersson the Forward or Brock Boeser or another long-term deal, they'll need to arrange for it.
In the meantime, this is an opportunity to see Max Sasson and Aatu Räty and the like out there. Anyone who's curious to see some of the Canucks future can tune in. The team may not be pretty, but maybe individual players will be.
The first hurdle of the rebuild has been cleared, but not by much. Draft Day looms large, and with it the Canucks's future. It will be interesting to see how much of a part Vancouver's current management plays in it.
Working for a retail store that opens a huge new location and closes just a few years later sucks. Especially if you're there long enough to see the collapse happen in real time.
Everyone knows it's sinking, and that's a rough haul. No one wants to be there, but that's who's paying you so off to work you go. Fewer customers, then fewer people working your department, then shorter hours, then you're working two departments...
On the positive side, you probably won't have to do interviews every two days to explain why the store isn't working.
We know what the team needs. The unrestricted free agents need to get a return, and at least one other contracted player has to go. It almost doesn't matter which one, though we went with Garland because his move would be the least complicated. It seems that Tyler Myers is contemplating his future, which is quite a surprise.*
That there's a demand isn't the surprise, but that the team asked him to consider the move is. Of all the players on the team, he is the least likely to want this. And yet, he's the first one we know of since Kiefer Sherwood was sent to San Jose. Myers has close ties to his community, family reasons to stay, and has a full no-move clause. He lives in the province year-round. He obviously doesn't want to go.
It's hard to say Myers counts as a long-term contract. He only has a single year remaining, and it's for a perfectly reasonable $3 million. No, we need to see one of the big boys leaving by March 6. One of those "not expiring until the '30s" deals. Then we'll be convinced.
Until then, the three UFAs will have to do.
It's entirely possible that David Kampf doesn't move along. He's more valuable than Lukas Reichel, but still going to be an extra, in-case-of-emergency player. Not a terrible loss, there. But if this management group can't get some kind of return for Evander Kane and Teddy Blueger, it will be catastrophic.
Not because the team really REALLY needs an extra third-round pick, though that's a good thing to have. It will signal disaster because of how it will show that they can't do what is Step One of a standard NHL season, never mind a rebuild.
They have been very good at keeping potential moves quiet until they happen, but these are simply too obvious to be secrets. The Myers offer needed to be made public because of him not playing games, but his circumstance is the exception here, not the rule. So management can still surprise us all.
Unfortunately, they likely missed their best opportunity back in December. The league was much tighter then, and odds were that at least 20 of them believed they had some shot at making the playoffs. Another half-dozen weren't just locks, but Stanley Cup competitors. That's a huge market with not many buyers.
Before the holiday break and after Quinn Hughes was moved would have been an excellent time to sell. The team was shaken up, anyone could go, make us an offer. Or even better, here's an offer we're making. Have the Ghost of Christmas Future visit a few general managers and remind them that only one can win each year, so they'd better act now!
Alas, here we are in March and the limitations of far more teams are apparent. The Blues are sellers, as are Calgary and Manhattan. Toronto should be selling, though lord knows with that town. And not only are fewer teams buying, the ones who are close a little scared to make a major change for fear of disrupting team chemistry.
It's also possible that none of the long-term players get moved out by the end of the week. That's more acceptable than not being able to move one of the UFAs, but that's almost beside the point. What moving one of those players would do is signal that the team was taking the rebuild seriously.
The Vancouver Canucks aren't going to be a good team next season. Everyone, from the owner to the casual fan, should know this. And that's fine. We can accept that. In a city of 2 million general managers, very few of them are unaware of how a rebuild can happen and what that will mean.
But.
That means the team needs to build trust. We - the ticket-buying public - need to trust that these are the people who can guide the team over the rough stretches. Bad teams we've seen, and plenty of them. Uncoordinated teams, ramshackle teams, desperation teams, all of these have asked us to watch them. And for the most part, we do. Because sports is fun. This ain't life and death, here, and we know it.
But don't frikkin' bore us. Don't trot out a lazy team. Don't saddle us with dead-eyed vets playing out the string of their careers. Yes, a couple painful deals can come back, but have them attached to interesting players, at least. Bring in people interested in being mentors. A Cup ring or two. Players trying to get their stats up for one more deal.
In an ideal world, we won't see whoever the team drafts this year until the second half of 2027. Let the losing build character and cohesion and scrappiness. We LOVE that stuff! This is the team of Trevor Linden and Stan Smyl and Harold Snepsts. Curt Fraser and Gino Odjick and Alexandre Burrows are jerseys you can still see at the arena.
Don't get us wrong: we love Pavel Bure and Markus Naslund and Jyrki Lumme, too. But we know when they aren't here. There's no need to pretend they are. You can trust us.
Now it's your turn.
*As a quick aside, may I say I have absolutely hated the way this management team has treated their players and coaches? Strong-arming Elias Pettersson into signing a deal before he wanted, waving off captain Bo Horvat in his contract year, berating Brock Boeser after his best season ever, publicly hanging Bruce Boudreau out to dry like a duck in a Pender Street window. Unnecessary garbage. Very mild rant over.
Two weeks to the trade deadline, a little less than two months until the end of the 2025-26 season for the Vancouver Canucks. With no chance to make the playoffs, the year is essentially over. It's not just the eleven points, but the eight teams who have something to say about it, too. So, yeah. That's a wrap.
But the idea that there "isn't anything to play for" is just wrong. There is a lot left to decide, and 25 games left to decide it in. Not all the players will be returning to the Canucks, obviously enough. The decisions on those players aren't whether they will be here, but when they will leave.
The first moves will be around the trade deadline. That's where the unrestricteds are brought in by hopefuls around the league. They can be hopeful of winning the Stanley Cup, or it could be just to make the playoffs. Either group is a target for Patrik Allvin - and we don't want to hear any "we're taking calls" nonsense. The GM's phone shouldn't see the inside of his pocket for another eleven days.
As much as fans would like to see an earth-shaking deal sooner rather than later, we probably won't. Odds are, any move that requires reconfiguring a team's salary for the next few seasons won't come until July or August. So the names we all know - Evander Kane, Teddy Blueger, and David Kampf - are the focus. None of them will result in a huge return, although Vancouver having two retention slots could juice the price a little.
The Canucks also have some space to bring back a bad contract from another team. That's a bit more complicated, but if it happens, it'll happen early, so said team can use the space for other targets. Historically speaking, Vancouver likes fishing in the college free agent pool, so they'll want to keep returning contracts to a minimum. Still, if tolerating one fewer long shot means moving from the fourth round to the third, that can be worth it.
Continuing on that last thought, if a team is very interested in moving off a multi-year deal, that should get Vancouver's interest, too. Such a move is much less likely today than it was several years ago in the world of a flat salary cap, but who knows? Those days may be right around the corner once again!
The Canucks can afford to bring in Andrew Mangiapane, for instance. His two-year deal isn't particularly cumbersome, and after a lousy year in Edmonton, he could get plenty of opportunity to rebound with a new team. Lord knows, the Canucks aren't going to be particularly good next year, and the chance to move up in the lineup might be enough to convince him to waive his no-trade clause. Contract seasons are magical things, baby!
What does Edmonton want? Scoring from the bottom six. What does Teddy Blueger do? Well, I'll tell ya: he scored five goals and eight points in his ten games back this season. What can Edmonton pay? Eh... That gets trickier. The recent pushes to reach, then win, the Cup have stripped the team of a lot of its movable assets. But there are picks, there are prospects - or prospect - there are deals that can be made. None of the top teams will be flush with trade chips.
On the other hand, some teams looking to break losing streaks are viable targets, too. Detroit, Columbus, Buffalo, Anaheim, heck, maybe another deal with San Jose can be in the works. The Sharks shouldn't spend heavily for the chance to get in now, but maybe they're interested.
Buffalo looks very interesting as a potential trade partner. They have a lot of players in that early-to-mid-20's set, and maybe they can be talked into moving one. Payton Krebs has been a bit of a disappointment so far. Owen Power gets huge minutes, but $8.35 million is a lot of money for some fairly middling production. Especially on a team with three other defencemen roughly the same age, but putting up a lot more points.
There really is only one big-time asset the Canucks have available before Summer, and that's Conor Garland. If the Sabres want a player who shows zero quit at any time, can play up or down the lineup, and is completely reliable in scoring, he's not a bad choice. Heck, maybe they're interested in Blueger, too, for a veteran voice at centre.
Big money moves aren't likely until the off-season, but that doesn't mean they're impossible. But Garland has proven his reliability and flexibility over the course of his career. It's hard to imagine him not getting between 45 and 50 points in a full season, even as he ages into his new, 6x$6 million deal next year.
If anyone outside "the usual crew" gets moved by the deadline, it should be him.
I owe a lot to Jim Robson, the legendary play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canucks. I never met the man, but he touched my life. Hell, I wouldn't be who I am today were it not for him.
And I never met the man.
When I was a kid growing up in the backwoods of Prince George, B.C., I listened to a lot of Canucks games - and watched the BCTV broadcasts where Robson had the call.
Inspired by Robson, I decided at some point in my young adult life to try to do play-by-play. I managed to wangle my way into a lot of hockey barns, and sat in the stands with a headset and a tape recorder, trying to teach myself the craft.
Here's the thing about professionals: they make the hard stuff look easy. Play by play is not easy. I tried to reach out to radio stations, but ... with no training, no degree, no diploma ... I don't think I even got a rejection. Every radio station ignored my contacts.
So one summer, I discovered that Robson lived on Saltspring Island. And I did something I have only ever done once: I wrote a letter to someone famous. I wrote a letter asking Robson for guidance. I have no clue what I was thinking: seriously, what was a legend like he going to tell me? How could he help?
Here's the stunning part: Robson responded. He had typed out the response, with a few backspace-corrections that suggested he wasn't intimately familiar with the typewriter. There weren't many words, but they were encouraging. Keep trying. Keep knocking on doors. Find ways to get into hockey rinks, baseball diamonds, whatever.
I did just that.
Then one day, I landed in a hockey rink in Saanich, and found a game with free admission. I discovered the games were free, every Sunday. Well, heck. So I packed my tape recorder, packed my headgear and went. Junior B hockey on Vancouver Island was a rough-and-tumble thing back then, but it was fast, it was free, and it helped me get better.
Back in those days, there was a fledgling digital communications system, Fidonet. It interconnected bulletin boards with each other. One day, I sat down and wrote about the game. Did the same next week, too. And in response, someone said "your stuff should be in the newspaper."
Again, I have no idea what made me think of it, but I went down to the newspaper offices with my printouts and some freelance writing copy, looking for .... well, whatcha got?
That led to a gig writing a once-per-week column for - if I recall, $15per. 600 word cap. Go.
I went.
That once-a-week column became well-read. I started capturing pictures (poorly). I ended up doing some work for a short-lived enterprise called Island Sports Fan, which was overseen by a sports-passionate dude who was also a football coach. He recruited me into officiating football. At the same time, I ended up writing for the local Black Press papers, freelancing to BC Hockey Now, and whatever else would take my copy. Then I landed a gig as a reporter for the Saanich News. I got a side-gig promoting a junior B hockey club, at a time when the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League started becoming a proving ground for high-end talent. I've watched the names you might still recognize play as kids. In time, I became an editor - first the Esquimalt News, then that and the Oak Bay News, then a central desker, all the while officiating football at higher levels. Went east, managed a daily, kept putting food on the table writing about all sorts of things, but always writing about sports.
I've done some play-by-play, too. Never got good at it - good enough for cable TV, maybe, but not much more. (I still remember listening to a recording where I totally muddled "Powell River Paper Kings power play...") If you need some indication of how much I treasured Robson's influence, I would always pause in the middle of a broadcast to honour the volunteers of sports, mirroring Robson's ritual of thanking shut-ins and the blind.
The journalism career lasted 20-odd years. If you care, you'll see my name connected to regional and national awards. Turns out I was good at the print side of things.... and I would never have discovered that if I hadn't been sitting in hockey rinks trying to follow Robson's footsteps.
I mention the football gig because that's led to my current career as a building official: turns out having a brain trained for rules and able to manage conflict is good in the current gig too.
And it all traces back to one man, writing one letter, encouraging one young totally lost kid to keep trying. The path wasn't one that I thought I'd take, but I took the first step due to Jim Robson.
Thanks Jim.
