Opinion: Canucks have "good players" but they don't have a good team
The 2022-23 season has been cruel and unusual punishment for the Vancouver Canucks, and their fans.
Seven games, seven losses.
They’re still the only team in the league without a win. Their 0-5-2 record is the worst in the NHL.
The good news is, there’s still time to right the ship.
“There’s [75] games left,” Bruce Boudreau said after Monday’s loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. “As bad as it is, it’s only four points out of a playoff spot right now… We’re going to get better and once we find the way, we’ll be fine.
“We’ll be a good team. We’ve got good players.”
That last line is the part that’s so puzzling for observers of this team.
The Canucks do have good players. Lots of them.
What’s becoming clear now is, that doesn’t mean they have a good team.
The Canucks are less than the sum of their parts.
They have excellent forward depth, with skilled players up and down their lineup. Quinn Hughes is an elite defenceman. Thatcher Demko is an elite goaltender.
But do they have enough speed? Enough toughness? Enough two-way dynamos?
Do they have anyone that can kill a penalty?
The Canucks aren’t a good team and won’t become one until they change the mix.
They seemingly have great depth at centre with Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, and until recently, J.T. Miller. But are any of those centres well suited for a matchup role? Will any of them enter the Selke Trophy conversation during their careers?
Perhaps Pettersson is that guy one day, but that’s an element they’ve been missing.
On the back end, they’re spending $6 million on Tyler Myers, who is a high-risk, offensive-minded defenceman at his core. What they need is a shutdown defenceman that is also a great penalty killer and can move the puck out of the zone quickly and efficiently. Chris Tanev, basically.
They have six defencemen that could be suitable for a bottom-pairing role, but are at least one blueliner short of having four top-four guys.
This is mostly Jim Benning’s mess, but it is the new regime’s job is to clean it up.
President of hockey operations Jim Rutherford has been on the job for 320 days. Patrik Allvin has been the GM for 272 days.
Not only have they traded zero core players, they haven’t even traded anyone on the fringe of the core.
Instead of making moves to change the mix, they doubled down. They threw money at Ilya Mikheyev to help bolster the group. They gave up a second-round pick to help rid themselves of Jason Dickinson’s contract.
Instead of trading J.T. Miller, they signed him to a seven-year extension — a high-risk move given it pays him until age 37.
Clearing cap space was difficult and costly last summer, and so was getting the defenceman they so clearly needed.
Canucks management wasn’t willing to take a step back this offseason in order to take two steps forward in the future. And that’s probably what it’s going to take to turn this team into a contender while Pettersson and Hughes are still in the prime of their careers. Because there are no prospects in the pipeline coming to save the day.
There’s new management, a new coaching staff, and new depth players. But we’re seeing the same troubling trends that we saw at the start of the last two seasons under Travis Green.
When Canucks fans booed the team off the ice during Saturday’s home opener, they weren’t demanding anyone to get fired. They weren’t specifically picking on any one player.
They had just seen enough.
And so have I.
The Canucks have good players, but they don’t have a good team.
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