Let’s face it: this isn’t how Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis envisioned the 2013-14 season going for his Vancouver hockey club. Currently 10th in the Western Conference with a less than stellar 70 points thanks to a 30-28-10 record, Vancouver’s very slim playoff hopes are slipping through their fingers faster with each passing day.
Which is why it’s more apparent than ever that the Canucks should be much more focused on getting the highest draft pick possible this summer, than trying to sneak into the post-season.
Of course, I would never suggest that a team should tank for its own betterment. Certainly the players aren’t behaving as such. Winger Chris Higgins, the team’s de facto sniper with Ryan Kesler (announced today to miss a few weeks with a sprained knee) and Daniel Sedin both out with injuries, backed up this claim when he said recently, “We still feel like we’re in it. We know we have to put together a pretty good record but we want to play. We don’t want to be done. We want to extend the season. We want to give ourselves a chance.”
That doesn’t sound like a team willing to give less than 100% effort, which is exactly what you would hope to hear from a professional. Unfortunately for the Canucks, it’s also the worst possible thing they could be doing right now.
Let’s look at the facts. The Canucks have just four regulation wins in 2014. They’re missing two of their top players in Kesler and Daniel Sedin. Their top center and captain Henrik Sedin is playing like a shadow of his former self while battling injuries all season long, and they just traded away their franchise goaltender, thereby giving the reigns to two guys with 74 games of NHL experience.
The offense is anemic, sitting at 26th with just 156 goals scored, and only a few goals ahead of the team in 29th place (thankfully the Sabres have been making sure nobody takes that 30th spot away from them) and the power play is even worse, tied at 28th with the aforementioned Buffalo squad at 14.3%. Does this sound like a team that has any business earning a playoff spot, let alone the ability to win a round?
Of course not, but this is already common knowledge. As it stands now, they have about a 3% chance of making the playoffs, and that record Higgins spoke of would have to be about 12-1-1 over their remaining 14 games to do so, while hoping for massive collapses by at least two of the teams in front of them. They’re four points behind Dallas for the last wild card spot in the West, but the Stars have three games in hand. In short: it’s not going to happen.
So, all of that adds up to the obvious, which is that it’s time to “retool” this Canucks roster now, in hopes that they can come back stronger and quicker than an average franchise rebuild would. This is common knowledge as well, and has been bandied about in Vancouver since before the trade deadline, when Kesler was seen as a prime target to be moved in order to jump start that retooling.
However, moving Kesler or anybody else on the roster not named Roberto Luongo (in a rather surprising turn) proved far more difficult than Gillis expected last week. While the Canucks do have the assets and the willingness to part with them, the fact of the matter remains that drafting is always essential to a team’s long-term success. It’s also the reason the Canucks are in their current quagmire.
Which is exactly why the Canucks should hope to gain as few points as possible over the remaining 14 games of the season.
As it stands now, the Sabres with the worst record in the league (and that isn’t likely to change) have the highest chance of winning the draft lottery (25%) and would take the first overall selection. The Canucks are currently in the 10th position, only 4 points ahead of the Nashville Predators, who are in 6th.
If the Canucks can somehow move further down the standings, and also win the draft lottery (6th place would give them a 6.2% chance to do so, better than their current playoff chances) they could potentially find themselves choosing in the top five at this year’s draft in Phildelphia. Vancouver hasn’t found themselves drafting so highly since they took the Sedins 2nd and 3rd in 1999, and they could potentially snag a top-flight prospect along the lines of Leon Draisaitl or Michael Dal Colle with that pick.
For a team in a transition phase as Vancouver is, the potential to add a top prospect to their system at this point in time is crucial. With the hit-and-miss draft record that the Canucks have had, a top six pick becomes even more so, especially given the relative weakness of this year’s draft beyond that position. There is depth to be sure, but the potential franchise-changing players available are few and far between.
Despite not having the same prospect depth as most other teams around the league, there is some talent in Vancouver’s coffers in the form of Bo Horvat, Hunter Shinkaruk, Brendan Gaunce and OHL over-ager Dane Fox, who was signed by the Canucks in December and has a startling 62 goals in 65 games for Erie this year. Adding a Draisaitl to the mix just makes the future look that much brighter.
All that being said, there’s still a long row for this Canucks team to hoe before we even get to that point. First, they have to finish these remaining 14 games starting tonight against the Capitals in Washington and see where they end up. After that, some hard decisions are going to have to be made about whether Gillis will be the man to guide the Canucks through this transition. Same for coach John Tortorella who, despite a lighter persona, has to be considered a failure in his first season behind the bench in Vancouver.
Finally, whoever is in charge is going to have to explore their options carefully this off-season when it comes to disassembling this current core of the Canucks in such a way as to ensure the long-term viability of the next. Vancouver’s fate for the next decade hangs in the balance and, in that context, missing the playoffs isn’t such a bad proposition after all.
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Featured image via: Clyde, Photopin.com
