This race for 31st is a wild one
If the Canucks find a way to finish below Arizona, they’ll still need a little lottery luck
Because we’re all about the positivity, we’re happy to report the Canucks have only one game left with the Arizona Coyotes. With that in mind, here are the always uplifting musings and meditations on the world of sports:
■ Given their most recent form, it’s hard to envision a world where the Canucks finish outside the bottom three in the NHL this season.
This, in turn, will again raise any number of uncomfortable questions about the state of the franchise and the Trevor Linden-Jim Benning administration. But let’s put that aside for the moment and focus on what’s become the most exciting event on the faithful’s calendar: draft day.
Heading into Monday’s games, the Canucks sat fourth from the bottom (or, for our purposes, fourth from the top), but the larger development is last — or first — overall is now within reach. Following Sunday’s stultifying 1-0 loss to the suddenly competent Coyotes, coach Travis Green’s team sat four points ahead of the 31st-place Coyotes, who also have a game in hand.
Buffalo and Ottawa, which hold down 30th and 29th, respectively, were just three and two points back of the Canucks with games in hand.
OK, in this race games in hand are a purely theoretical concept, but let’s just say the Canucks can get to 31st. What does that portend for the rebuild?
It would be cruel to suggest this team might win the Rasmus Dahlin lottery because these, after all, are the Canucks. If that should happen, it would be a total game-changer for this franchise. It might also signal the end of days.
What’s more likely, and interesting, is if the Canucks end up 31st and the possibilities that opens up. After Dahlin, there are three forwards on the top of most boards: Andrei Svechnikov, Brady Tkachuk and Filip Zadina. All three are wingers. All three project as front-liners. But while the Canucks’ roster has more holes than a bad alibi, none of those three really address their needs.
So we ask, if they do end up picking second to fourth, does that open up a trade-down scenario because the next group features a number of defencemen — which does fill a crying need for the Canucks?
The interesting part here is the four most-often mentioned blue-line prospects — Quinn Hughes, Adam Boqvist, Evan Bouchard and Noah Dobson — all bring something a little different to the party.
Hughes, who plays at Michigan, is this year’s Cale Makar, a five-foot-10, 170-pound offensive dynamo. One scout said if the rover position still existed, Hughes would be the first pick in the draft. The Canucks, as it happens, were high on Makar last year and general manager Benning has already talked about his desire for a power-play quarterback.
That brings us to Bouchard, the London Knights blue-liner who has NHL size and leads all OHL defencemen with 23 goals, 61 assists and 84 points. Surely that ticks every box for the Canucks — but another scout says the best all-around defenceman available this year is Acadie-Bathurst’s Dobson, who’s also made the biggest jump since the start of the season.
For all that, the highest-rated defender on a number of boards is Sweden’s Boqvist, another offensive-minded D-man. The issue there is the reports on Boqvist sound a lot like the reports on Olli Juolevi in his draft year.
The most likely draft-day scenario is the Canucks finish somewhere in the bottom three and drop their customary three spots, but that still brings the defencemen into play.
That, at least, is the way it looks now. You may also be aware things tend to change with this franchise.
■ Tiger Woods’s performance at the Valspar was an electric moment for golf, but the notion that it announced his return to the top of the game sounded like wishful thinking for the TV networks.
Woods is 42, an age when virtually all the game’s greats were in decline. He’s also had three back surgeries, major reconstructive surgery on his left knee and at least a dozen other injuries that have forced him to miss playing time.
He’s now a year removed from his latest back operation and the mere fact he could come back and be competitive on the PGA Tour is an extraordinary achievement. But that was one tournament. How long will his body hold up? While we’re asking questions, how long will his game hold up, especially under the blast-furnace pressure of a major?
With this comeback, Woods has written another chapter in his incredible story and become a much more likable, human figure in the process. These are no small things. Golf fans should be thankful for them.
■ Speaking of your basic immortals, the bride and I caught Jerry Seinfeld in Las Vegas over the weekend and the dude killed it. He’s 63 and could be coasting on his name, but he’s as fresh and funny as ever.
Always thought Richard Pryor was the greatest standup of all time. I’m beginning to reassess that position.
■ We’re approaching the start of baseball season, which, for me, raises the great existential question: Do I protect Byron Buxton for $20? I await your responses.
■ Finally, in 1990, then-Oilers centre Mark Messier edged out Bruins defenceman Ray Bourque for the Hart Trophy by two points. It was later revealed that one voter left Bourque off his ballot because the great blue-liner was going to win the Norris and that was enough.
That was the first year your agent voted on the award, and since then there have been weird choices (Jose Theodore?), runaway choices (most of them) and a few other close ones: In 2000, Chris Pronger beat Jaromir Jagr by a single point. But I can’t remember a year where there were so many worthy candidates.
My favoured candidate for most of the season has been Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, and if you were going by the definition of the award — the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team — he should win. Well, either MacKinnon or New Jersey’s Taylor Hall.
On that basis, who knows? You never hear Anze Kopitar’s name, but the Kings’ centre has as many points as Hall and is regarded as one of the two or three best defensive forwards in the game. Nikita Kucherov — the leading scorer on the league-leading Lightning — is a safe pick. But in a lineup that includes Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, I’m not sure he’s the best player on his team.
Evgeni Malkin has made a late charge and may be leading the race, but the Flyers’ Claude Giroux is just six points back of Malkin.
Blake Wheeler has been a rock on a surprising Jets team. Eric Staal is getting some run for his monster year in Minnesota. Boston’s Patrice Bergeron was in the conversation before his late foot injury.
It might come down to something as subjective as Colorado making the playoffs to determine my ballot, but there will be a worthy candidate who doesn’t make the final five. That’s never happened in my experience.