Auditions underway for Canucks
Final 26 games of disappointing campaign will see coaches re-evaluating team’s youthful corps
If you cast your mind back to the start of this NHL season, you’ll recall any sense of optimism in the Vancouver Canucks was centred around a dozen or so players who were in their early- to mid-20s.
Those players, the theory went, were entering their peak years, and while nobody expected the group to take a giant leap together, it was reasonable to think some would emerge as difference makers in 2017-18.
The Canucks have now played 56 games with that group. On Tuesday, head coach Travis Green suggested he isn’t any closer to knowing what he has in his millennials and that uncertainty makes the next 26 games crucial to this franchise.
“Quite frankly, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” — Travis Green
“For sure,” he said, before adding, “Quite frankly, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
It was an unusual time to quote Eldridge Cleaver, but as you may be aware, these are unusual times for Green’s team.
The Canucks, and stop us if this sounds familiar, start their final stretch staring down the barrel of another disastrous regular season. Before their Wednesday meeting with the Florida Panthers, they sat in 28th place in the NHL, which is bad enough. But the scary thing is, they’re also at a point in their season where they’ve folded like a cheap lawn chair in each of the past two campaigns.
Somehow, someway, the cumulative effect of losing turned Valentine’s Day into the point of no return for the Canucks in Willie Desjardins’ last two years. Last season, they went 5-18-3 after Feb. 14. The year before, they were 9-17-1.
Now they stand at the same place again. So what makes anyone think it will be different this time around?
Again, we look back to the 20-somethings.
Dragging this team back toward the light might be a big ask for the Canucks’ younger players, but it’s not like the organization has a lot of choice in the matter. The problem is, beyond Brock Boeser and Bo Horvat, Green is unclear on what he has with players such as Ben Hutton, Jake Virtanen, Sven Baertschi, Derrick Pouliot, Troy Stecher, Erik Gudbranson and Nic Dowd.
The list should also include Markus Granlund, likely done for the season with an ankle injury, and Brendan Gaunce, who’s out for a couple of weeks at least. Still, Green has call-ups Reid Boucher, Nikolay Goldobin, Philip Holm and Darren Archibald to consider which makes this stretch drive one long audition for a number of players.
“We haven’t had the consistency we want (this season), but that’s part of it when you’re a team that’s growing and trying to get better,” Green said. “You’re going to have inconsistency throughout your lineup, from your forwards to your Ds right down to your goalies.
“They understand we’re a team that’s trying to get better and there are going to be changes. There are always going to be changes when you’re at our stage.”
Those changes will likely begin at the NHL trade deadline on Feb. 26, but it also figures that will be a constant theme through the off-season.
The Canucks are looking at eight restricted free agents who all belong to the 20-something club and all have something to prove over the next two months.
“Every guy in here wants to prove themselves to the other players in this locker-room,” said 23-yearold defenceman Ben Hutton, one
of the bubble guys. “They want to prove they’re good players, that they belong in this league, and they deserve a lot of ice time.
“These last 20-something games are going to prove a lot.”
OK, the Canucks might have hoped the first 56 would have settled some of the arguments. As it is, it’s difficult to know who’s in the rebuild and who’s out, especially with the next wave of prospects prepared to join this team.
“Young guys have to start stepping up,” said Horvat. “For myself, I have to be one of the guys who’s consistent on a day-to-day basis. If I can lead by example, I think the other young guys will follow.”
And that’s why these final 26 games are so much more than an end to another depressing season.
Horvat, Baertschi and Hutton were part of the previous two collapses. Stecher, Granlund and Gudbranson were around last year. Injuries, to be
sure, have played a part in some of their stories but losing casts a wide net and all the Canucks’ 20-somethings have been tainted by the scarlet L.
Now, if you’re looking for a silver lining — which is a full-time job with this team — the Canucks are coming off their most impressive performance of the season, a 6-0 clobbering of the Stars in Dallas on Sunday.
That win followed a players-only meeting and the players now say their minds are right.
Some of them were even talking about getting back in the playoff hunt. The faithful, you sense, would settle for a respectable finish to this season.
“We have a lot of young guys playing for spots,” said Daniel Sedin. “That should be motivation enough.”
Yes it should.