Canucks in NO MAN'S LAND

The Vancouver Canucks have ended up in the worst possible position in its franchise history - No Man's Land.

A 22 regulation win team picking anywhere from 11th to 15th. Now sure, they could cash in on a 2% chance of winning the draft lottery but common sense says they're done the rebuild in terms of the draft.

Most likely they'll be picking 11th. Not good enough to get help. Not good enough to make the playoffs next year... they're in No Man's Land. They are cannon fodder. They are exactly where they shouldn't be.

As Bo Horvat has aged out of this rebuilding process all eyes are now focused on the only legitimate NHL hockey player they have in Brock Boeser. Boeser is 22 years old.

Boeser carried Elias Pettersson and took the heat off Horvat to allow each of those players to have a decent season. But without Boeser in the lineup ... oh boy, they were bad. Really bad.

Boeser is pretty much the entire team.
The other player they have is Jake Virtanen. It is a miracle that Virtanen has 15 goals this year despite missing a month and being used on the 3rd and 4th lines with non-NHL players such as Sutter and Beagle and Grandlund and ... I don't want to go on. How Virtanen got 15 goals is the greatest story in the NHL this year.

Boeser and Virtanen.

So now what?

Elias Pettersson dropped off the face of the planet about 25 games ago and has points thanks to Boeser but just 1 goal. He has AHL written all over him for next year. I don't think there's a choice there. NHL teams have a book on Pettersson - he hasn't overcome the book - now he has to go the AHL and learn how to play hockey. It was too much too soon and a massive mistake to have him anywhere near the NHL this year. You hope he can recover but he may not.

And I don't think he'll win the Calder Trophy this year. I think he finishes 3rd behind stud D man in Buffalo Rasmus Dahlen and winner goalie Jordan Binnington of St. Lous who has been nothing short of spectacular. My vote goes to Binnington but I'd understand Dahlen. Pettersson will get an honorary mention. His first 2 months were incredible but it's not how you start - it's how you finish. Sorry Canucks fans but he fell way, way short of a Trophy.

And Quinton Hughes made his Canucks debut and he's as advertised - a 7th overall pick that can skate side to side well but lacks straight ahead speed (5'8" means small little strides) and he's a defensive nightmare. Hughes is a manufactured hockey player with daddy and mommy being in the hockey business for years and you can tell. He skates well. He does some things that show he's been trained repeatedly. But his shot is a muffin. And there's no conceivable way he can overcome the size. I suspect he'll end up in the AHL sooner rather than later as Canucks management comes to grips with this. He's so porous defensively it's hard to conceive of him as a defenseman in the NHL. I could be wrong. But if you look at the top 30 D men in the NHL right now or the last 30 Norris Trophy winners none were under 6' or under 190 pounds including Erik Karlsson (who shouldn't have won the trophy once let alone twice).

I never understood the concept of drafting Quinton Hughes - you have Troy Stecher. Stecher's size and points in NCAA were identical to Hughes. Stecher is even a little bigger. If you wanted to see what Hughes would look like in the NHL - there was Stecher on the same damned roster. Hell, you could even look at Alex Biega and say, "That's top-end for Hughes if he can fight." Don't knock Biega - he has goals in the NHL and has been decent for a 7th defenseman. Adam Boqvist, taken one spot behind Hughes by Chicago, has 20 goals, 60 points as a defenseman for the London Knights and he's 5'11" and 185 pounds... Noah Dobson, taken behind Hughes, has 15 goals 62 points in junior and is 6'4" and 200 pounds and still growing. How you'd pass on those two is beyond me. It was there on a plate. But I digress.

So now the Canucks are drafting 11th or 13th or 14th. And that means they get the kitchen knives. The leftovers. The scraps. There's nothing there of value that will help the Canucks by the time Boeser ages out.

Do you see the pattern here?

Horvat has aged out because they didn't draft well enough to fill around him. Now you have to trade him.

Boeser's on the clock.
In 2 years Virtanen's on the clock.
In 3 years Pettersson's on the clock.

Do you see how that works?

You need a critical mass of young players around good drafted high-end players to make a Stanley Cup team.

They have Boeser. I'm not sold on Pettersson.

And they're not drafting help.

So the rebuild begins again when they figure out this isn't working. We don't have enough. Somewhere around Boeser being 26 they're going to realize uh oh... we didn't get in the draft enough.
This was the year they needed a piece. They need a Top 4 piece to grab a stud blueliner.

And they blew it.

They played Alex Edler 30 minutes/night. They started Jakob Markstrom too much. They played Bo Horvat. They played Brock Boeser. They dropped from picking 4-7 to picking 11-15. No help. They put themselves in the No Man's Land.

Not going forward. Not going back. Just drifting around in Crapsville.

The only thing they can hope for now is moving up in the lottery to the Top 4. That would salvage this rebuild.

But if they don't - it's another 5 year process that needs to begin right away. They'll need to start jettisoning players like Horvat ASAP.

I think most Canucks fans had hoped this ownership would not make the mistake of half-rebuilding. But almost every franchise goes through this. It can end up being anywhere from 10-20 years now before they're a team worth watching. It takes failure for ownership to realize we have to do it right. They're not there right now in Vancouver. They're not there yet.