Canucks having worst start since Messier's first year, when they blew up the team
It’s been a long time since the Vancouver Canucks were this bad this late into a season.
The Canucks lost their third game in a row in Boston on Sunday. Vancouver has won just four times in 16 games this season.
With a woeful 4-9-3 record, the Canucks are the third-worst team in the NHL by points percentage (.344). They’re even looking up at the Arizona Coyotes, a team that was seemingly trying to lose heading into this season.
Canucks players said in training camp that they expected to make the playoffs. Bruce Boudreau added that it would be a “big disaster” if they missed them.
Well, so far this season has been a big disaster.
The Canucks are actually behind the putrid pace they set after 16 games under Travis Green last season (5-9-2).
This is the worst 16-game start to a season by the Canucks since perhaps the most infamous year in franchise history.
It was 25 years ago, during Mark Messier’s first season in Vancouver in 1997-98, that the Canucks last started worse than this. The Canucks began the season 3-11-2 that year.
When you consider that in 1997-98 the NHL still had games ending in ties, and had not yet implemented the loser point for overtime losses, that start by the Messier-era Canucks was arguably on par with this one.
The Canucks blew the team up in 1997-98, which is something many fans are calling for the present-day team to do right now.
After game #16 in 1997, the Canucks fired Pat Quinn as president and general manager. After game #19, they fired Tom Renney as head coach. Ownership then hired their new head coach, Mike Keenan, prior to hiring a GM replacement for Quinn.
Ironically, the present-day Canucks ownership did those three things last season, firing their GM and coach, with owner Francesco Aquilini replacing the coach prior to securing a replacement for Jim Benning.
What happened next in 1997-98 has yet to happen this season, however.
The Canucks traded multiple long-tenured players, shipping Kirk McLean and Martin Gelinas to the Carolina Hurricanes on January 3, and former captain Trevor Linden to the New York Islanders on February 6.
They then sent two more longtime fan favourites out prior to the trade deadline, dealing Gino Odjick to the Islanders on March 23, and Dave Babych to the Philadelphia Flyers on March 24.
Will the present-day Canucks follow suit?
It’s been nearly one year since Jim Rutherford was hired as president of hockey operations, and thus far his regime has refused to deal a core piece. GM Patrik Allvin has traded the likes of Travis Hamonic, Tyler Motte, Jason Dickinson, as well as draft picks and prospects, since he was hired 10 months ago.
Bo Horvat, Andrei Kuzmenko, Luke Schenn, and Kyle Burroughs are all pending unrestricted free agents. J.T. Miller’s no-movement clause kicks in after this season. Underperforming players like Brock Boeser and Conor Garland don’t have no-trade or no-move clauses in their contracts.
What present-day Canucks management has to deal with that Keenan didn’t back in 1997-98, is a salary cap. It’s harder to make trades now because of it, but it’ll become easier as we approach the trade deadline on March 3.
Yes, we’re already talking about the trade deadline. It’s been that bad.
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