The Start of a New Era in Vancouver

The Vancouver Canucks are down 3-0 in the best of 7 series against the San Jose Sharks. After game 1 I felt the series was being played to a familiar tune and that tune has continued to haunt us much like Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah being covered over and over and over and over and over and over again for all eternity.

I will not dwell on what has happened. To quote that classic Bertuzzi refrain “it is what it is”. It is unlikely that the Canucks will come back from this deficit given that the Sharks are playing extremely well and there appears to be about as many good vibes in the Vancouver room as you’d find in Afghanistan right now. I also won’t give much thought to game 4. Thanks to injuries the Canucks have limited options when it comes to shaking the roster up. Vigneault isn’t about to change his game plan or systems. Whatever happens, happens, and could ultimately be nebulous.

Amidst all the “end of an era in Vancouver” talk instead I will go down the “start of a new era” road. The Canucks will be eliminated in the 1st round of the Western Conference Playoffs. Ok. Changes will occur in the Canucks organisation because of that. Ok. Fine.

But what should those changes be? The focus is on coach Alain Vigneault but there’s also assistant coaches, vice presidents, directors, assistant general managers and the general manager himself, Mike Gillis. Then there are the players. There are lots of options to shake things up and to kick off the new era of Vancouver Canucks hockey.

Coaching Staff

Alain Vigneault is the obvious “escape goat” but some questions must be raised about his assistants as well. The Canucks D has appeared unorganised for much of the season and the pairings have chopped and changed with the winds. Assistant Coach Rick Bowness runs the D and for mine he’s run it into the ground. Assistant Coach Newell Brown runs special teams and appears to have used up his bag of tricks because the Canucks finished this regular season with the 22nd ranked powerplay in the NHL. A PP that for much of the year inexplicably failed to use it’s biggest weapon from the point – Jason Garrison.

Whatever the assistants get up to has to go by the Head Coach and this is why Alain Vigneault is in trouble. Ultimately the coaching buck stops with him. Still, he can only work with the tools given to him. This is where the General Manager comes in.

The General Manager

I can see Mike Gillis falling on his sword this off season. It’s easy to fling dung on Vigneault but if you drop the cowpat and take a proper look at what has happened over the past few years with the Canucks it becomes a little more obvious that the dung should be hitting the fan in Mike Gillis’ office.

Going back to the end of the 2011 season where the Canucks were outscored and out-muscled in the Stanley Cup Final against the Boston Bruins, these are the highlights of GM MG’s transactions:

- Failed to re-sign Christian Ehrhoff, traded his rights for a 4th round pick. FAIL. Edler and the Sedins haven’t quite been the same since Ehrhoff left. Gillis has yet to find a suitable replacement to play the right side with Edler and for me this is a crucial weakness for the Canucks.

- Released Raffi Torres. FAIL. Since leaving the Canucks Torres has gained further infamy with his Jay-Z halloween costume and terrible hit on Marian Hossa, but his on ice value was obvious in Phoenix and now he’s playing extremely well for the San Jose Sharks.

- The Cody Hodgson situation. In hindsight it’s hard to look at this and think it was handled well by the Canucks. For me, the short term result of the trade is FAIL. Hodgson finished 2nd in scoring for the Buffalo Sabres this year and would have looked quite nice on the 2nd line for the Canucks while Kesler decided to keep hurting himself. Having him in the lineup would have negated the need to trade for Derek Roy (in itself a fail). Long term is another thing as Zach Kassian could still become a great player. But the Canucks are trying to win the Stanley Cup now. Kassian isn’t helping now. Hodgson could have. Arguments could be made that Hodgson’s lack of defensive instinct would never fit in the Canucks system but if a world class coach like Alain Vigneault isn’t able to adjust his lines, his game plan, to best utilise the team’s star 1st round pick and potential future captain, then there’s bigger problems.

- The David Booth trade. FAIL. This was a bet that Mike Gillis lost. In theory it was a great acquisition but the reality is that Booth was not a proven, regular, goal scorer and his inconsistency has continued in Vancouver.

- Signed Jason Garrison. FAIL. Oooo controversy. The Canucks desperately needed a right side specialist to play alongside Alex Edler. They still do because instead of getting one Gillis invested $4.6mill in cap space to Jason Garrison, who as good, not great, as good as he is, is not a right side specialist. For me it came down to having to get that right side guy to play with Edler (ala Ehrhoff), or they had to trade Edler. Instead they have Garrison forever plus Edler forever and no one to play alongside him.

- Which brings me to the bag full of no-trade and no-movement clauses Gillis has happily thrown into player contracts. Luongo, the Sedins, Kesler, Burrows, Higgins, Bieksa, Hamhuis, Garrison, Edler. All have a clause preventing them from being traded and/or waived. That’s over $45 million against next season’s $64.3 million cap committed to 10 players on a 23 player roster. If you’re lucky enough to get a player to agree to a trade then their big contract becomes a road block to said trade (Luongo’d).

- The Luongo situation. The less said about that the better, but still FAIL.

- There’s also a plethora of other little moves Gillis has executed over the years that haven’t quite worked out. The Volpatti waive, releasing Rick Rypien, extending Mason Raymond, the Sturm signing, the Pahlsson trade, the Malhotra situation (questionable), letting Sami Salo go, burning a year of Frank Corrado’s entry level deal…

Things don’t look so rosy for Michael D. Gillis. He’s made a tonne of moves and had some success (not complaining about those Presidents’ Trophies) but if you focus on the moves that have hindered this team you discover there are a lot of them. The GM should be a victim of some finger pointing.

The Players

No matter what the coaches and GM do it ultimately comes down to how the players execute on the ice. The Canucks have not been executing. Goals have dried up. Soft goals have been let in. Defense has let everyone down. There will be changes to the roster before next season, not just because of performance but also because of the salary cap squeeze that will affect the Canucks more than most teams.

For me the following current roster players are untouchable:

- Daniel Sedin

- Henrik Sedin

- Alex Burrows

- Jannik Hansen

- Dan Hamhuis

- Kevin Bieksa

- Alex Edler

- Cory Schneider

I would also not be trading Nicklas Jensen or Brendan Gaunce.

Beyond these guys I would be willing and happy to trade every single other player on the roster. Yes, that includes Ryan Kesler. I’m not a Kesler fan. As good as he can be he’s also fickle. His chirping and diving are an embarrassment and have acted as motivation for the opposition rather than for his own team (just ask the Blackhawks and the Bruins, who I would bet said something along the lines of “we are NOT losing to THESE GUYS. Anyone but THESE GUYS” at some point during the playoffs). Also, he would draw a massive return in any trade. Trade Kesler.

Ultimately whatever happens this off season it will be a different Vancouver Canucks team taking to the ice at the beginning of the next NHL season.

If it was up to me, I’d retain Alain Vigneault, I’d jettison his assistants, I’d jettison Mike Gillis and I’d give AV and the core mentioned above a new group of guys to play with. Trust in some rookies. Look to get some heart, soul and guts back into the team. It’s time for an identity change.