Opinion: All Canucks fans want for Christmas is a plan. Is that too much to ask?
It might be freezing outside, but the temperature is warming up inside Rogers Arena.
And, after their two most recent home ice performances, the thermostat might be broken.
The Vancouver Canucks put forth one of their worst efforts of the season Saturday in a 5-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets â a team that was in a very similar situation as the Canucks entering the 2022-23 season.
Winnipeg is challenging for top spot in the Central Division, while the Canucks are (yet again) flailing around outside of the Western Conference playoff picture.
The Canucks then followed up that flat performance with another 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Monday night.
A Canucks jersey was tossed on the ice by a fed up fan on Saturday. Monday, fans chanted “sell the team.”
Those two losses â and the entire season, for that matter â wouldn’t be as painful to watch if Canucks fans truly believed that this management group had a plan.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin had a chance to clarify his team’s plan, but he failed to make matters better after giving a plethora of uninspiring answers on Hockey Night in Canada’s After Hours.
Canucks fans have seen this before…
Not many things about this Canucks team are abundantly clear, but here’s one thing that is.
This team does not want to take a step back in order to get better.
âI think as a team in todayâs world, youâre always building,” Allvin said on After Hours. “Youâre never satisfied, you always go brick by brick and when youâre actually winning, you start building again. So I guess we will just continue to build.
“When Jim [Rutherford] and I came in there, there were a lot of good young pieces here on the team and we want to continue to add younger players, preferably 25 and younger. I think weâve been able to do so at this point, and it takes time.â
Does this sound familiar? Because it should.
When Jim Benning took over the Canucks back in 2014, he said the same things about acquiring players who were 25 and younger.
Jim Benning (2014):
"This is a team we can turn around in a hurry"Jim Benning (2021):
"By year 9 I think we're going to be real competitive"#Canucks https://t.co/omv3FGCIJ6— BoestMode (@BoestMode) March 5, 2021
During his first three years on the job, Benning traded away draft picks for players like Sven Baertschi, Linden Vey, Emerson Etem, Philip Larsen, and Derrick Pouliot.
While the Canucks were good during Year 1 of the Benning regime, they were the second-worst team in the NHL for the next two seasons.
Hey, at least he had one good season, which is more than Allvin and President Jim Rutherford can say.
Do the Canucks actually have a plan?
It’s a fair question.
Allvin and Rutherford have both said that they “continue to build.”
In reality, that feels like PR speak for “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.”
Throwing spaghetti at the wall can be messy, which might explain why the Canucks as a whole have been pretty messy to watch this season.
Sure, there have been some minor wins for Allvin and his team. Andrei Kuzmenko has been a great find. Dakota Joshua, Nils Aman, and Ethan Bear have all performed above expectations so far.
However, the short-sighted decisions by this management group are overshadowing those victories.
The Canucks should have traded J.T. Miller at last year’s trade deadline, when his value was at an all-time high. Instead, they chased a meaningless playoff berth, failed to make the playoffs, and doubled down on the player with a mammoth contract that’s looking like a mistake.
And, the deal hasn’t even kicked in yet.
Brock Boeser was another offseason trade chip. Allvin doubled down on him as well by locking him up for another three years.
Trading Jason Dickinson and a second-round pick for Riley Stillman, who’s been a disaster all season long, was shortsighted. Not to mention, they paid a far-too-steep premium in order to create an additional $1.3 million in cap space.
The Canucks could have saved $1.175 million in space for free by stashing Dickinson in the minors.
Much like the Benning regime, this management team appears allergic to taking a step back in order to get better. They’ve also shied away from making a bold move, even though the current product on the ice is nowhere near good enough.
It appears as though this current regime’s plan is to tinker around the edges while hoping that the team magically improves to the point where they make the playoffs.
Would you consider that living “day to day?”
Because if that’s the case, then things need to change.
While multiple management teams have taken over without much of a concrete plan, fans in this market have watched a crappy product for a full decade.
As of writing, the Canucks have the 26th-best points percentage in the NHL.
If that feels familiar, that’s because it is.
The Canucks have the 26th-best winning percentage since the beginning of the 2013-14 season… meaning that only six teams have been worse than the Canucks over the last decade.
One of those teams is the Seattle Kraken, who are only in their second NHL season. Two others, the New Jersey Devils and Detroit Red Wings, won multiple Stanley Cups in prior years to help soften the blow of mediocrity.
And wouldn’t you know, both the Devils and Red Wings have seemingly rebuilt faster than the floundering Canucks… who appear to have mastered the art of floundering under multiple management teams.
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