Patrik Allvin answers questions about potential Vancouver Canucks rebuild
Could the Vancouver Canucks be on the verge of another rebuild?
Two years removed from winning the Pacific Division and taking the Edmonton Oilers to seven games in the second round, things aren’t looking as rosy in Vancouver. The team missed the playoffs in a controversy-plagued season last year, and now they are off to a mediocre 8-8-0 start this time around.
For many, it feels like Canucks have been spinning their wheels a bit, and concern is growing about whether or not superstar Quinn Hughes will be extended to a long-term deal.
It’s led portions of the fanbase to wonder if the Canucks should just cut their losses and fully commit to rebuilding the team from the ground up, selling off as many high-value assets as they can to recoup future pieces.
For now, it doesn’t appear to be the direction of the team, but the noise has gotten so loud that Canucks GM Patrik Allvin was asked about a potential rebuild on After Hours with Scott Oake and Iain MacIntyre.
Oake mentioned that the majority of questions posed to Allvin contained the word “rebuild” in some way, signalling some unease among the Canucks faithful.
“What happened last year wasn’t in the plan with [trading] J.T. Miller,” Allvin started. “We had to reverse our plan and get into a more transitional mood. That being said, we wanted to draft well, we wanted to have young players in the pipeline, and develop them down in Abbotsford.
“I don’t think you can [completely tear it down] when you have good players in Quinn Hughes, Demko, Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and then the next wave of young players in Willander, Pettersson, Mancini, Lekkerimäki.”
From the sounds of it, Allvin and the rest of the Canucks management team don’t seem to be keen on the idea of throwing in the towel just yet. Allvin appears to believe that the core group of this team, alongside the emergence of some young talent, will be enough to push this team in the right direction.
After all, outside of Hughes, most of those core players in Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, and Thatcher Demko are locked down to long-term deals. The only real question is if the Canucks captain will join those players with an extension of his own. If he doesn’t, then the decision to rebuild may not be up to the Canucks.
Still, Allvin was confident in what he’s seen from the team’s young talent thus far.
“I think we’re prepared well for [the future],” Allvin said. “You don’t want to put young players in a position to fail in the National Hockey League, but I do see a lot of growth.”
Allvin admitted that the master plan needed to be changed with the J.T. Miller fiasco last season. While the mood of the team right now is to stay on course, only time will tell if the Canucks will be able to avoid the dreaded rebuild.