Fittingly, the Blackhawks were the team in the Canucks way when the Sedins were in their prime from 2009-2015. In that timeframe the two teams met three times in the postseason and are responsible for three Presidents Trophies.
It ended in bittersweet style for Vancouver, they weren't able to land hockey's top prize but the two left a bigger footprint off the ice than ever thought imaginable.
Truthfully, I didn’t realize how special the
Sedin twins were until about 2012. The fact of the matter is that I am a twin
and I think growing up I just assumed that that Brian Burke did at the 1999 NHL
Entry Draft was just normal. What makes the Sedins story so mindboggling amazing is that there is no one remotely close in any redrafts.
What made Vancouver such a good fit for the Sedins was the core that Brian Burke has put together the previous year. In the 1998-99 year, they had a 25-year-old Naslund, 23-year-old Bertuzzi and a 22-year-old Ed Jovanoski. With this core, adding two twins at 2nd and 3rd overall was a really good idea.
Teams that pick second overall don’t usually have that good of young players to work with. The reason that the Canucks had that young core was because of the Linden and Bure trades respectfully.
This led to Vancouver being a team to be reckoned with from 2001-2006. The Sedins were role players from 2001-2004 until after the 2005 lockout they became Top 6 forwards.
That turning point put the Canucks in good position to have another 6-7 years of great success.
They played the game the right way, they had great mentors on the team when they were rookies and I’m so glad they wanted to be Canucks their entire career.
They didn’t win a Cup but I think the fact that the 1999 draft was historically weak softens the blow a bit. Without the trades that Burke pulled off to get the Sedins the rebuild might have started in 2007 instead of 2016.
Soak it in Canucks fans; unless we win the Stanley Cup their will never be a night like Wednesday that we will ever experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment