More of same from Canucks, so far
Following a dreary weekend for the Canucks, Lions and Whitecaps, here’s something that will bring you down even further: the musings and meditations on the world of sports.
As the Vancouver Canucks
■ stare down the barrel of a fivegame road trip, we’d like to tell you the apprehension over the team is misplaced; that it’s the result of an overly sensitive market that reacts reflexively to the short term and misses the bigger picture.
The problem is we can’t.
It’s just four games in, but the Canucks have already actualized every fear the faithful imagined before this season started.
On a team that needs superior goaltending, the goalkeeping has been average. The power play, which was a huge priority this off-season, is humming along at an 8.7 per cent success rate with two goals in 23 opportunities — and even those numbers don’t capture its fecklessness.
As for the lineup, the Canucks brought in Travis Green, a coach who likes to play an uptempo, attacking style, and stuck him with a group of forwards that includes the Sedins, Thomas Vanek, Sam Gagner, Derek Dorsett and the injured Loui Eriksson who, collectively, are slower than the service at a walkin clinic.
This is a team that also vowed to get younger this year and have sat out their best prospect, Brock Boeser, and their second-best prospect, Jake Virtanen.
OK, there will be nights when the goaltending delivers results. And Bo Horvat and others will get hot over the length of the season. But as far as turning around this franchise, as far as sending the message that the worst of it is over? Sorry, we can’t see a way out this year.
The question then becomes, does the Aquilini ownership group share Jim Benning’s vision for this team? Are they patient enough to wait the two or three seasons it will take to fix this thing?
More to the point, are they willing to sit through another season where attendance dwindles and interest in the team wanes? Again, there wasn’t much to like about their season-opening four-game homestand, but the most alarming development might have been in the stands.
Maybe we’re wrong about this. Maybe Horvat and the cohort of players in their early 20s are ready to take the next step. Maybe Jacob Markstrom is a topflight NHL goalie. Maybe Green can squeeze every last drop out of this group.
We’ll likely know if all that’s possible by the end of this road trip. For the Canucks’ sake, it better be.
Hands up if you saw Vegas winning ■ four of their first five games. Didn’t think so.
With declining television numbers, ■ the ever-present concussion story and their drama with the smooth operator who sits in the oval office, it’s hard to see where things could go worse for the NFL. Remarkably, they have.
In the last couple weeks, the league has lost Aaron Rodgers, Odell Beckham Jr., J.J. Watt and Luke Kuechly to long-term injuries. And Arizona running back David Johnson was already on the sidelines.
Those players aren’t just stars. They’re among the game’s most recognizable players, crossover figures who drive the massive business of the NFL.
Not sure what the answer is here, but any league lives and dies with its stars. The NFL has been able to withstand a number of body blows over the years. This one is as dangerous as any of them.
Finally, we’re not going to try to ■ minimize the pain the B.C. Lions are suffering. They will miss the playoffs for the first time in 20 years. There is much uncertainty over the sale of the team and its direction. On top of everything else, this market seems to have tuned out the Lions.
But there is a silver lining and it concerns the core of this team. The Lions’ leadership group still includes Solomon Elimimian, Bryan Burnham, Jeremiah Johnson, Jonathon Jennings and a couple of others. These are good players but, more importantly, they’re high character individuals. That might not sound like much when a season is going down the tubes, but you just had to watch how hard Elimimian, Burnham and Johnson played in Winnipeg on Saturday afternoon to understand there’s still life in this team.
Jennings, of course, is a different matter and whoever is running the show next season has to make his rehabilitation the team’s top priority. Whatever else he is, he’s still only 25 and he has all the tools. There’s a good quarterback there somewhere.
The point is, the Lions aren’t that far off. They need a new vision for the team and a new direction, but there are pieces in place.
You just hope the next regime can build something around them.