The response to Jim Benning’s moves at the trade deadline should tell you just how ready the Canucks fanbase is for a rebuild. He traded away two heart-and-soul Canucks, players who had been with the team for their entire 10+ year careers, and he was universally praised for it.
The truth is that many, if not most, fans have been ready for this for at least two years, maybe more. When Benning talked about being patient with the Canucks veterans that were part of the 2011 Cup run, it rang hollow to me. Many fans that I know, myself included, have been ready to move on since the John Tortorella debacle.
Benning did an excellent job with moving Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen, acquiring two promising young prospects and a draft pick, but it’s baffling to me how quickly some fans have moved to acquit Benning of his bad moves in the past.
Some have blamed the owners, assuming that Benning has been unable to instigate a rebuild with their desire to make the playoffs every season. But that doesn’t excuse the bad moves Benning has made along the way.
That’s not to say that Benning hasn’t made good moves as well. Of course he has. Getting a second round pick for Kevin Bieksa was impressive, the Sven Baertschi trade is a feather in his cap and, as much as I’m still leery of Markus Granlund, that trade is looking like a good one as well.
But I still look at a lineup that includes Luca Sbisa, Brandon Sutter, and (when healthy) Erik Gudbranson and worry. Sbisa, despite improved play this season, isn’t worth anywhere near his current contract. Sutter can score some goals, but is massively overrated as a defensive centre and overpaid for his third-line status. Erik Gudbranson is exactly the black hole of puck possession that we were told he would be and I shudder at the contract he'll get this summer.
I consider last year’s trade deadline, where no assets were gained from the expiring contracts of Dan Hamhuis and Radim Vrbata, assets that would have kickstarted the rebuild a year earlier.
I think about the draft picks that have slowly been chipped away in deal after deal. A second and fourth round pick in the Gudbranson trade. *chip* A fifth round pick in the Philip Larsen trade. *chip* A sixth round pick in the Emerson Etem trade. *chip* A second round pick in the Sutter trade. *chip* A fifth round pick in the Zack Kassian trade. *chip* A third round pick in the Andrey Pedan trade. *chip*
You could defend each of those trades on their individual merits — I’m pretty sure I have defended some of them — but all those lost picks add up, especially for a team that is rebuilding and should have been rebuilding for a couple years now.
It’s nice having blue chip prospects in every position: Brock Boeser, Olli Juolevi, and Thatcher Demko. It’s great to have other exciting prospects supplementing them, like Adam Gaudette and the newly-added Nikolay Goldobin and Jonathan Dahlen. But some of those prospects won’t pan out and that’s where having a deep and wide prospect pool created by a wealth of draft picks, even late round picks.
If you look at the Leafs this season, their resurgence has been driven by not just Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander (a trio of forward prospects likely better than any in the Canucks system save Boeser), but also rookies Connor Brown, Zach Hyman, and Nikita Zaitsev. Brown was a sixth round pick, Hyman a fifth round pick, and Zaitsev was undrafted.
That’s not to mention Connor Carrick and Martin Marincin contributing on defence and guys like Kasperi Kapanen, Jeremy Bracco, and Dmytro Timashov who aren’t yet in the NHL. The Leafs blue chip prospects have been effectively supported by a deep pool of prospects drafted in later rounds or acquired in trades, a pool deep enough that not every prospect has to pan out.
My point is that the Canucks have a long road ahead of themselves and prior to finally taking the right steps down that road this season, they shot themselves in the foot. While it’s encouraging to see them walking the right way, I have to wonder if they’ll ever reach their destination.
You can call me pessimistic — because I am — but I think the past couple years have given me good reason to be skeptical.
