Talk about Canucks tanking for Bedard is way premature

Vancouver Canucks fans have to stop it with the tank for Connor Bedard talk.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the hashtags are amusing — #FailHardForBedard, #ShitTheBedard—but we’re seven games into the season and even if the Canucks finish dead last in the NHL, it’s only a 25.5% chance of landing the North Van prodigy.

And they won’t finish last. Why? Because the Arizona Coyotes. The Coyotes are generationally bad.

A next-to-last finish would have a 13.5 per cent chance of the first overall selection, third-worst has an 11.5 per cent chance, then it becomes a less than 10 per cent chance.

In other words, it’s entirely based on luck, and that’s no way to run a franchise, particularly when it means breaking a covenant with your paying public.

It’s also just flawed logic.

You don’t tank for one player, you tank if there are a number of blue-chip prospects in a given draft, and that’s where the 2023 NHL draft may be worth tanking for, or at least giving up on this season and the playoffs sooner than you would in a different year.

Because it’s not just Connor Bedard, the Regina Pats forward who has 21 points in 12 games, headlining this crop of prospects. University of Michigan centre Adam Fantilli, Russian winger Matvei Michkov, Western Hockey League forwards Brayden Yager and Zach Benson, Swedish centreman Leo Carlsson…this class is loaded with quality and quantity.

Look, everybody recognizes what it would mean to the Canucks if maybe the best British Columbia hockey prospect ever plays his home games at Rogers Arena. Bedard is a Canucks fan and a franchise-changer, but we’re getting way ahead of ourselves asking for a tank job in October when there are 75 games left.

Dare to dream, folks, but from this seat, it’s a load of nonsense.

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