As the 2013-14 NHL season came to a close for the Vancouver Canucks, one word could be used to describe how the fans were feeling about their organization: despair.
Despair that the club, who quite recently won two consecutive President’s Trophies, who had won their division for five straight years, who had came within a game of a Stanley Cup championship just three short seasons ago, missed the playoffs.
Despair that their new coach John Tortorella, brought in to push this veteran roster back to lofty heights, pushed all the wrong buttons instead.
Despair that their once mighty offense, including the likes of Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin, and Alex Burrows, had fallen off the face of the earth.
Despair in the fact that a team which once boasted two of the finest starting goalies in the league, Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider, suddenly had none and was relying on two rookies in net.
And finally, despair when it became obvious to all that the infamous window was finally shut for this core.
That’s where Trevor Linden comes in. With things looking their bleakest and season ticket renewals going at an alarmingly low rate, the franchise icon (his #16 hangs in the rafters at Rogers Arena) was brought in as the team’s new President of Hockey Operations. It was a move to satiate a restless fan base, a move to increase public relations, and a move intended to show a radical change in direction for the franchise, hopefully to a better future. Despite the fact that Linden had never held an NHL front office position in his life, already Canucks fans were fawning over the decision.
In case you missed it, the new Canucks slogan for the 2014-15 season is, “Change is Coming”. Linden held to that slogan quite quickly, firing the aforementioned Totorella and hiring the coveted Jim Benning, former assistant general manager of the Boston Bruins, to fill the vacant General Manager position left behind when Mike Gillis was fired. Benning, a one-time Canuck back in his playing days, was considered one of the top names available to run an NHL club. Linden targeted him early in the process, and ultimately got his man.
Already, change was in the air.
Next up for Linden was hiring a coach, and he made another lauded move when he was able to snatch Willie Desjardins, most recently of the AHL champion Texas Stars. Despite the fact that Desjardins has never held an NHL coaching position, he too was coveted around the league for his experience, his success at every level, and his ability to work well with young players. Assistant coach Glen Gulutzan, who has a previous relationship with Desjardins, was retained, while the club also added Doug Lidster, another former Canucks defenseman and Desjardins assistant with Texas, to round out the coaching staff.
Now, a braintrust was in place. Unlike the autocracy of the Gillis era, a group headed by Linden which includes Benning, Desjardins, assistant general managers Laurence Gilman and Lorne Henning, and Director of Player Development Stan Smyl (the latter three of which carry-over from the Gillis era) will be responsible for making personnel decisions moving forward.
For Canucks fans, it’s a pleasant change. Gillis ruled the team with an iron fist, which was welcomed after the comparatively demure Dave Nonis left the organization, but the Gillis act eventually wore thin. In hockey as in all things, these situations become cyclical, and it was time to move back to a more fan-friendly, welcoming, and respected group of individuals. Despite the fact that three rookies are now installed in the three most important management positions in the franchise, Canucks fans are starting to feel hope again.
Which brings us to, naturally, the roster. Gillis left a trail of no-movement contracts and a relatively empty prospect pool in his wake, and it was up to Linden and Benning to pick up the pieces.
It became clear quite quickly that it was Benning, with his stellar scouting background and a great eye for talent, who would be calling the shots on most player personnel decisions, while still taking input from the other members of the management team. He led the Canucks to their second consecutive solid draft, picking up sniper Jake Virtanen, solid two-way center Jared McCann, the top-rated goalie in the draft Thatcher Demko, and hulking Russian defenseman Nikita Tryamkin. All will look to play roles on the Canucks sooner rather than later (with the exception of Demko, who will percolate in the NCAA for a few years), but none address the current needs of the Vancouver roster. However, those picks along with prospects already in the organization, including Bo Horvat, Hunter Shinkaruk, Nicklas Jensen, Brendan Gaunce and Frankie Corrado, give the Canucks more coffers in the cupboard than they’ve ever had.
Now it was time to address the NHL roster, and the trading began. First out the door was 10-year veteran Ryan Kesler, the former Selke trophy winner that had become disgruntled and wanted out of Vancouver. It was quite the heel turn for Kesler, a fan favorite who decided to jump ship and tied Benning’s hands in the process by limiting potential trade partners. Eventually he was jettisoned to Anaheim, for Nick Bonino, Luca Sbisa, a first round pick (which would become McCann) and a third round pick, which was swapped to the Rangers for Derek Dorsett. Not a bad return under the circumstances, but a clear indication that yet more change was coming.
Next on the block was defenseman Jason Garrison, who the team signed two years ago as a power play ace from the blueline, but turned out to be anything but. His trade to Tampa Bay for a second round pick was essentially a salary dump, but Benning managed to spin that dump into gold by flipping the pick to the Kings for 22-year-old Linden Vey, a scoring whiz in junior who was pushed out by the numbers game in Los Angeles. All in all, it was an excellent first draft for Benning, and the feeling of hope became a bit stronger.
When free agency hit, Benning showed no hesitation to get his feet wet, jumping right in on Ryan Miller, a veteran goaltender that he actually drafted while he was with Buffalo, signing him to a 3-year, $18 million contract. Miller will address the team’s concerns in net for the present, while also helping groom incumbent Eddie Lack to take over the starter’s role full-time by the end of the deal.
Benning wasn’t done yet though, as he went after underrated scoring winger Radim Vrbata to add some punch to the top six. Vrbata will help out the offense, as well as the power play and the shootout (all three of which were points of soreness for the club in 2013-14). Additionally, the deal is only for two years and $10 million, meaning the team gets great value while also buying some time for prospects like Shinkaruk and Jensen to develop before having to take over a full-time role.
He finished-up free agency by re-signing key restricted free agents Zack Kassian and Chris Tanev to very reasonable bridge contracts.
As it stands now, the team looks set for next season (with the exception of third string goalie Jacob Markstrom, who was part of the return in the Luongo deal last year and now looks like he’ll have to be moved at some point before October) and still has a couple of million to play with underneath the cap, a luxury rarely seen during the Gillis era. While Linden and Benning have had a solid, if not spectacular, first off-season at the helm, have they done enough?
Linden has said from the start that the team wants to be competitive next season, that the team wants to make the playoffs. With many Canucks fans vocalizing their preference for a rebuild, have Canucks management don’t enough to satisfy an intelligent hockey market-place?
It’s a question that can be looked at a few different ways. On one hand, it’s difficult to argue that this roster is any better than the one that missed the playoffs last season. Bonino is hardly a replacement for Kesler, and the second line center role could be a sore point. On the other hand, the team now has six centers, including Sedin, Bonino, Vey, Horvat, Brad Richardson, and Shawn Matthias all fighting to fill only four spots. In a conference and a division dominated by depth up the middle, the Canucks finally have some.
Some have argued that Linden and Benning haven’t done enough to alter the core, but does it really need it? Yes, Burrows struggled last season, but it’s very unlikely that the winger, assured of a top-six role, will record a paltry 5 goals for a second consecutive season. Yes, Alex Edler was an abomination on the back-end last year, but he’s far better than the 4 power play goals and the shocking, infamous, league-worst -39 he had last season. It’s just as unlikely that team scoring leaders, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, have fallen off the cliff so quickly that they’ll post numbers as bad as 47 and 50 points, respectively, next season. Nearly every Canucks veteran struggled last year (one could call it the “Tortorella Effect”), and an ascension to the mean seems assured.
So it appears with the veterans in a position to bounce back, a large pool of prospects getting ready to push for jobs very soon, the goaltending stabilized, and a management group sharing a common philosophy and vision, the Canucks have indeed done a good job of building hope.
Change is coming in Vancouver, and it looks like the fruit of that change may ripen long before anyone could have suspected, as the despair felt when the dire 2013-14 campaign came to a close has quickly been replaced with hope.
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