Last fall, as the Tampa Bay Lightning were crowned the 2019-2020 NHL Champions, the national consensus among people north of the border was that the Vancouver Canucks were the best hockey team in Canada. As we sit here in February, I am not sure the same can be said today. What a difference six months can make!
Coming into this season, hockey analysts exclaimed their concerns with the Canucks as their roster had clearly declined in the offseason. However, many people still firmly believed that Vancouver would be among the top four teams in the North Division. While we were skeptical at the start of the season, I’m not sure many people predicted their team to be this discombobulated and disarrayed. This offseason, general manager Jim Benning exclaimed that he was attempting to save money to improve his defensive core and consequently was unfortunately unable to resign many of his players last fall. In the span of less than a week, the Canucks lost their MVP from last season in Jacob Markstrom, Chris Tanev, Troy Stecher, Josh Leivo, and Tyler Toffoli who all went to Canadian rival teams this season, with the exception of Stecher. After the loss of such significant players in the offseason, general manager Jim Benning attempted to alleviate the internal pressure when he traded for Nate Schmidt, formerly of the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Schmidt, a twenty-nine-year-old defenseman with a 5.95 million dollar cap hit until the 2024-25 season, was brought in to neutralize the loss of these aforementioned players. Schmidt has come as advertised and has somewhat played up to par as he has remained an underrated defenseman with elite skating ability, physicality, and possesses very sneaky offensive upside. However, he has not accounted for the holes in the Canucks’ lineup. Additionally, Benning attempted to replace the team’s MVP in Jakob Markstrom when he decided to sign a former Vezina and Stanley Cup-winning goaltender in Braden Holtby. With the new additions this offseason, the Canucks have not lived up to the hype. While we would not consider their recent playoff success a mirage, this team is clearly inept on multiple levels and already seems as if they will not be making the playoffs this year.
Due to the fact that there were salary cap restrictions last fall, it would be remiss of us to place all of the blame on their general manager Jim Benning. However, Benning has been far from perfect in his tenure with the Canucks as this team has way too many overpaid and underperforming players. For instance, all of Louie Eriksson (who probably has the worst contract in the NHL after Jeff Skinner), Adam Gaudette, Jake Virtanen, and even Tyler Myers are underperforming. More specifically, Myers is clearly overpaid and has not done enough to back up his 6 million dollar salary until the 23-24 season. The Vancouver Canucks have been surprising this year as this team still has a viable core of players that should be expected to be a top-four team in Canada this year. Throughout this shortened season, the biggest positive of this team would have to be the American-born goalie Thatcher Demko. Unfortunately, his numbers might not be reflecting his play, but under the circumstances of the constant defensive mishaps of the Canucks, in our eyes, Demko has proven that he can be a number one goaltender in this league. One must also take into account that the Scotia Bank North Division is filled with ample offensively gifted players and clearly represents the worst defensive division in the league. One of our biggest takeaways of this year has also been the play of both Quinn Hughes and J.T Miller. While Brock Boeser has had a fantastic start to the season and has probably been their most consistent player, both Miller and Hughes have struggled in their own ways. Merely looking at the point totals for Quinn Hughes would not fully be an accurate representation of his play this year, specifically on the defensive side of the puck. Hughes, a clearly exceptionally gifted skater, and offensive defenseman has struggled to maintain defensive consistency this year as the team's number one defensemen. He has undoubtedly contributed to their defensive struggles this year. On the same level, J.T miller also seems to be struggling this year. Maybe Jim Benning’s best move as a general manager, bringing over Tampa Bay’s J.T Miller was a brilliant move. To this day, we still believe that Miller is one of the most underrated players in this league and last year proved his worth as one of the team’s most important players last year. To start the year, we understood his initial struggles, as he was on the COVID-19 protocol list for the first few weeks of the season. However, this season Miller has only scored 4 goals and is a -6 this season. All of these aforementioned players need to be better. Similarly, the Canuck’s captain Bo Horvat got off to a tremendous start to the season but has slowed down of late. He is clearly the team’s leader and needs to find more consistency in his game to rally this team back into the playoff race. He needs to justify his leadership qualities both on and off the ice. The Canucks best player in Elias Petterson has had a completely opposite trajectory of Horvat, as he is finally seeming to produce in recent weeks. As we saw with another Canadian team this week, coaching changes are not completely out of the realm during this pandemic shortening season. While the change behind the bench would most likely have to be “in office”, we believe that Travis Greene is on a short leash right now. Is his message getting through to the team? We all know that he preaches the Canucks to be a fast skating, physical team. Either way, it is clear that this team needs to change. If this year has proven anything for the Canucks, it is that their offseason losses (most importantly their goaltender in Jacob Markstrom) were extremely pivotal to their team success in the past few years. Markstrom’s play on the ice clearly alleviated their defensive and overall deficiencies as a team. While Holtby is only signed to a two-year contract and can be exposed in the Seattle expansion draft this summer, he has undoubtedly helped prove Markstrom’s worth. As we mentioned before, the team's lack of success is not fully on Jim Benning, but how can he not be blamed after seeing Tyler Toffoli rank as the third leading goal scorer in the NHL this season?
My point is that in Vancouver there needs to be change. They have many overpaid players and maybe the best outcome of their situation might be to fail miserably this year. This might help management and ownership realize that this team is in need of much help. It will be interesting to see how they fare the rest of the season, as it currently seems to be that they are already out of the playoff race 24 games into their season.
Comments