Vancouver’s season hangs in balance
Canucks could be dealers at trade deadline if they fold like Falcons on upcoming road trip
In honour of the Super Bowl, here’s something else that promises a lot and delivers little, the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports:
In the aftermath of a loss which said so much about his team, Jannik (The Truth) Hansen was asked about the importance of the Canucks’ upcoming six-game road trip.
“We’re going to be in the hunt (by the end of it) or we’re going to be out of it,” said the Canucks’ winger. “It’s that simple.”
But so is the position the Canucks figure to be in by the March 1 National Hockey League trade deadline.
While the faithful have clung to the hope their team could stay relevant in the Western Conference, the home-ice losses to San Jose on Thursday and Minnesota on Saturday confirmed their worst fears.
The Canucks battle most nights. Their goaltending keeps them in a lot of games. But, over 82 games, they’re simply not good enough and haven’t been for the better part of two seasons.
As of this writing, they’re one of four teams sitting with 52 points which placed them 26th in the NHL. Given this road trip and their remaining schedule, it isn’t exactly a leap to see them sitting in 28th and out of the playoff picture in three more weeks.
Which brings us to the trade deadline.
This is a crossroads for the Trevor Linden-Jim Benning administration. The plan has been to stay competitive while moving younger players into the lineup, which is a commendable philosophy. But it only works if the team is winning its share and playing meaningful games.
Last year the Canucks finished 28th in the league. This year they could end up in the same spot. Sorry, it’s difficult to see the growth there.
It also raises questions about the veteran core which was supposed to mentor the younger players. Again, it’s a fine idea in theory. But what exactly are the young players learning these days except how to lose?
The deadline, therefore, offers an opportunity to collect some assets — assets a rebuilding organization needs. The Canucks squandered that opportunity last season and while there were mitigating circumstances, the end result was a loss for Linden and Benning. This year, they enter the deadline in a similar situation with a group of veterans who have some value on the market.
And this time they have to make some moves. This time they have to get ahead of the problem.
We understand this isn’t easy. We understand these players mean a great deal to the franchise and this city. We also understand the players in question — Alex Burrows, Alex Edler, Ryan Miller, Hansen; sorry, the Sedins are in a different category — have no-trade clauses and both Benning and Linden have said they won’t approach players about waiving their no-trades.
But they did with Jason Garrison and Kevin Bieksa in past years. They also went down this road with Dan Hamhuis last season who agreed to waive his no-trade late in the game. In the end, Benning couldn’t make a deal, Hamhuis went to free agency and the Canucks got nothing for their player.
The organization can’t afford to stand pat again at this deadline. This is a team that’s staring down the barrel of back-to-back 28th-place finishes. They can’t sell another season with this same group. They have to be in the business of the future.
Complicating matters is the expansion draft in which Hansen — the most marketable player among the veterans — is vulnerable. Again, if he’s allowed to go to Las Vegas without any return it will be a public-relations nightmare for the Canucks.
It’s a pity because Hansen is exactly the kind of player you want in your organization. But hockey is a business, sometimes a crummy business, and the Canucks have to make the difficult decisions successful organizations make.
Today’s discussion question: Was Melissa McCarthy’s turn as White House press secretary Sean Spicer the best thing on SNL since Martin Short’s male synchronized swimmer?
In his last five tournaments, Adam Hadwin has finished T10, T11, second, T49 and T12 on Sunday in Phoenix. The 49th was the result of a final-round 76 at the Farmers Insurance but Hadwin came back with a final round 66 this week to cash another big cheque.
He’s also 10th in the FedEx Cup. The kid from Abbotsford has set the table for a huge season. It bears watching.
There were, of course, any number of storylines connected to Super Bowl LI but the most compelling concerned the legend of Bill Belichick.
On a player-by-player basis, the Atlanta Falcons were young, faster and more talented. They had more offensive weapons and, in quarterback Matt Ryan, they had the NFL’s MVP at the controls.
The Patriots one advantage was Belichick, the dark genius of so many victories who was gifted an extra week to prepare for the Falcons. Somehow, the pundits felt, he’d find a way to neutralize Ryan and exploit the Falcons’ young defence. Somehow he and Tom Brady would again plot out a winning course.
Except this time he didn’t. This time he wasn’t even close. Pause. This was the top to the bit I filed at the end of Sunday’s third quarter when the score was 28-9 for the Falcons and a Patriots’ comeback seemed as likely as an eight-track comeback. It was pretty good stuff. There was this line. “By halftime the only suspense left was Lady Gaga’s stage show. Would she make Republicans’ heads explode?”
There was a comparison between the Falcons’ defence and the defence their head coach Dan Quinn built in Seattle during the Seahawks’ Super Bowl years. There was even a pronouncement that this game announced the end of the Belichick-Brady dynasty. Except it wasn’t. Not even close. It all happened so fast it’s almost impossible to recount the details of the Patriots’ comeback here. If memory serves, there was a Ryan fumble when the Falcons still had things under control. There was a crazy catch by Julian Edelman which, one supposes, was payback for David Tyree’s catch in Super Bowl XLII.
But the Falcons still had the ball deep in New England territory with four minutes left when a score would have finished the Patriots. But they probably would have found a way to come back from that, too.
No, there’s no rational explanation for this unless you come to Belichick. You don’t know why. You don’t know how. He just does it.
In another lifetime, Vince Lombardi won five championships in Green Bay in nine years, including the first two Super Bowls, and they named the Super Bowl trophy after him.
Sunday marked the fifth Super Bowl for Belichick in his 16 years in New England. He is unquestionably the greatest coach in NFL history and makes the short list of the greatest coach in professional sports history.
And this was his signature win.