What are the Canucks going to do?
What even is this team at this point?
There’s a truly generational talent on the blue line … and that’s it.
The guy who was supposed to be the goalie is broken. The guy who was supposed to be the No. 1 centre is broken. The rest is just window dressing.
This team is cooked.
And the trade deadline is in one week.
The overarching story of the season will be the Miller-Pettersson debacle, but there’s a lot of reasons why things went badly on top of the rift that developed between the two star centres. The two centres themselves were awful — and Pettersson’s play remains unacceptable — but the team tried to integrate a stack of new players and that process, overall, was a misfire. The defence corps was a huge step back from last year’s group. The team as built wasn’t fast enough, which is evident every time Filip Chytil or Drew O’Connor hit the accelerator. They stand out so much in relative terms: that just shouldn’t be.
And maybe this is just how it was always going to be. The core of this team has been together for six years. The way they developed together is an important story. They got satisfied too quick. Now, that 2020 run happened in the strangest of circumstances so perhaps we can allow them some slack there — and then the way 2020/21 rolled out was so awful in so many respects, maybe the knock-on effects can be excused.
The main point is that for all the fun they may have had in moments here and there the team still didn’t get the big picture results and that just can’t be ignored.
The inventory
Even if you’re in a playoff push you need to seriously consider what the team you are looking to build is aiming for. Sure you’d like to see some playoff games but really you need to talk about building your squad for next season.
The deadline
So what now? How do you approach the deadline.
You look at what parts you have who could bring value back that you could use to truly re-set your roster. Off the top you do have a first-round pick and you have cap space to exploit.
This team must look different going forward.