I was expecting the Canucks to make a move at the trade deadline. It didn't have to be a blockbuster trade but the team isn't perfect. There are 4-6 players that would be getting more playing time on other teams, there are a few blooming prospects in Abbotsford that Vancouver for understandable reasons don't want to give up on.
I would call the Canucks a hybrid of All-in with the understanding that the Canucks only have to win a Cup in the next nine years. I think they wanted to pull the trigger on a couple of moves but they lacked what other teams wanted.
There are a few reasons why the Canucks are in this conundrum. In 2019, Jim Benning had to get aggressive in 2019 to try and save his job. He traded for J.T. Miller and he was already down a 2020 1st round pick.
So Vancouver has no 1st round pick in 2020 and in 2021 Benning again makes a blockbuster trade to get Connor Garland. (Who I thought had requested to be traded) On the day of the 2021 draft the Canucks trade their 1st round pick and others.
At the time, I thought this was a bipolar trade. If you make the playoffs in 2022 its a great trade but if you miss the 2022 playoffs this trade comes back to hunt you. Connor Garland isn't making the Canucks better right now. The three picks they lost that day could have been traded yesterday.
The next thing that happens is that Canucks trade more picks to get out of cap problems again.
The 2024 2nd is another asset that I wish was moved today and not two years ago. To add to the other trades that they made earlier this year the Canucks were traded out without wanting to give up their untouchables.
At this point, I wish we could have signed Kessel as last resort but the fact that it didn't happen leads me couldn't pass the conditioning test or something. I doubt they ran out of time.
If it were me, I would try to trade Miller for a draft pick. Even if it's a 5th rounder. The reasoning is I would rather have Lindholm because he is younger and might be able to do less term. I don't think that would happen but something to consider because the Canucks farm system isn't going to just jump to #1 at this time next year. The three untouchables aren't going to magically be easy to give up next year.
My expectations for the Petterson contract is 6 playoff appearances, 4 second round, 2 Conference Finals and 1 Stanley Cup win.
With a 9 year window, I expect management to get busy replenishing the prospects. It will take a outside the box approach as the Canucks only have three picks in 2024, 6 in 2025 and 5 in 2026.
If they make the playoffs in all three years than that's fine but if they don't, how can Vancouver reverse the trend and ask these prices that buyers were overpaying for this year to add more under 24 players.
The other thought is that management wants to see how the players play in the playoffs before doing anything to crazy.
The disappointments today go back to Bennings failures that made today impossible for new management.
The Canucks have already shown signs that they are serious cup contenders this year when they acquired Elias Lindholm from the Calgary Flames. They have traded most of their high end assets except for the untouchables' and are smart not to give away their first round pick next year.
The Canucks are in a inciting place. Edmonton, Toronto, New Jersey are underachieving. Chicago is two years away from being two years away and Las Vegas is having a typical Stanley Cup Champion hangover type season. All these signs point to this could be Vancouver's year.
The way I see it, the teams that I mentioned above will likely who Vancouver will have to go through to win a Cup in the next 2-4 years. The math says to go all in this year.
In Jim Rutherford's tenure of working as a GM, he has had two different types of teams he has taken over. In Carolina, it was a team that recently relocated to a new city and had some wiggle room with how he wanted to construct the team.
In Pittsburgh, he inherited an All-Star team that desperate to become a dynasty. In both instances he was successful however, the paths were completely different.
In Carolina, the team only made the playoffs five times in 17 years and only went through one medium sized rebuild.
With the Penguins, they made the playoffs every year and winning the Cup twice. The Vancouver job seems to be somewhere in the middle. He took over a team with a decent amount of talent in a Cup starved city where the passionate fans are just asking for one cup before they die.
He stood pat for the first year on the job. The team in 2022 recovered well under Bruce There it is until it all fell apart in the fall of 2022. He slowly started to put his handprint on the team until the last six months where he has gotten impulsive.
Being Impulsive, is not always a bad thing. A lot of the moves he has made have worked out. They had to givee up some draft capital to get out of cap problems but for now he has pressed the right buttons.
There is two ways I think I could see this team going. For one, they re-sign Petterson and have him long term with the expectation that as long as you have Petterson, Hughes, Demko, Miller, and your three stud prospects for the next 10 years that you expect to be a playoff team. The goal is to have the chips fall where they may in the playoffs but the hope is Demko can steal you one Cup in the next 10 years.
Option two:
Petterson refuses to sign and you go all in this year. Providing the right opportunity to give yourself a juggernaut team to take down Edmonton in the second round and hopefully the Cup. In this situation you would have to unload on Petterson getting a huge return to get younger. This would require signing Lindholm in hoping you can still put a respectable team on the ice.
If they can't then I would unload on Hughes before his contract is up to get even more assets and make a major play on Connor Bedard when the time comes.
Rutherford I think has the skills to navigate both cases efficiently. Failed rebuild attempts generally end up working in the teams favor. Look at Edmonton's and Colorado's failed rebuilds have resulted in generational rosters. I would look for Ottawa and Buffalo's failed rebuilds to catapult both fanbases into great rosters the next 3-5 years.
Canucks are in a good position. As long as they don't let both Lindholm and Petterson walk for nothing.
I sit here in the last few days of 2023 content with where my life is. My calculations have me working seven days a week for the next year and then I'll make the plunge into a new career path and give myself one more year with my current pattern.
The leader in the clubhouse seems to be a Community Inclusion Degree or Elementary Education. I don't believe I will pass my practicum so I need to be creative of how my life looks moving forward. I plan on being in Europe from late January to mid April 2025 and after that, I'm going to settle down Calgary by late April.
This will give me the chance to be unemployed and start my life from scratch while keeping the important things in my life.
So many jobs that I would be good at that I don't get hired for because I don't have a car or have a disability. Then, I had to find a second job isn't enough to scrape by during the months I don't get disability.
I just need a few things to fall my way. I have weathered a huge storm of fear over the last two years and now I can confidently feel that I'm on my way to becoming a badass.
Christmas was good this year, I was able to get OOTP 24. A baseball game that plays out a Major League baseball season through probabilities and dice. I started a 2023 Mets season and the goal is to be better than the real life Mets. I have already made one trade which was David Peterson to the Reds for Johnathon India.
My offense still seems like its missing something so we will see how things go. Injuries are pilling up as well with Kodai Senga out for the year already. I'm 5-4 right now which was the same record after nine games last year so can't say I'm doing any better or worse yet.
Very good time of the year. College Basketball gets under the way this afternoon as the dream of 300 something teams of winning the National Title is alive.
The college basketball landscape will be drastically affected with the monumental conference changes for football. There seems to be more questions to answer in the other sports than football. We need to enjoy this year because after it's over we will never get the old thing back.
Click here for Joe Lunardi's bracketology. Without any games being played, this is all speculation. As the season goes on, it will become more of what would happen if the season ended today.
With the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer, it was really refreshing to see San Diego State reach the final last year. I was kinda socked to see San Diego State and Utah State not get invites to the Pac 12 to prevent Oregon and Washington from scampering to the Big 10 but it didn't materialize.
Let the fun begin! Here is the schedule for today.