Blowing up Canucks not the answer
The lazy, default reaction the rest of Canada has to the Vancouver Canucks, who are full of whiners, isn’t helped by the lazy, default reaction many people here have to the hockey team losing in the playoffs.
We sincerely hope no fans or sports radio programmers were so distraught at the team’s first-round playoff loss that they went swimming from the Lions Gate bridge — but the whine region in B.C. is vast when it comes to the Canucks.
Head coach Alain Vigneault is not only the most successful coach in Canucks history but a fraud who has somehow escaped detection by all but the keenest observers for six years. Daniel and Henrik Sedin aren’t winners. Turns out Alex Edler is really Michel Petit and Ryan Kesler is all scowl and no action. And how in the world was Mike Gillis named general manager of the year amid enough dumb moves that he makes Jack Gordon look like Sam Pollock?
At least some of the derision would be understandable if the Canucks were the Edmonton Oilers or Columbus Blue Jackets instead of a team that just had the best two seasons in franchise history, amassing 228 points (14 more than any other team), 105 wins (five more than any other team), two Presidents’ Trophies (two more than any other team) and five playoff rounds (which may yet be as many as any other team because three of the final four teams from last spring are already out and the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins face a Game 7 on Wednesday).
We understand the preceding paragraphs have branded the writer an apologist-hack because true nobility in sports lies with demanding people get fired, if only to mollify the outraged.
But you should understand also that this kind of tinfoil-on-the-head braying only reinforces the belief to people in Edmonton and other places that Vancouver is full of kooks and Canucks fans are as arrogant and self-entitled as the hockey team is accused of being.
If the Canucks can get better by firing easily the best coach they’ve had, by all means pass the blindfold and cigarettes. But unless the Detroit Red Wings are going to punt Mike Babcock — and why wouldn’t they because they lost in the first round, too — it’s hard to imagine any of the small handful of coaches in Vigneault’s class being available as a potential upgrade.
As for the players, it is in the interest of everyone involved to find a place where deposed starting goalie Roberto Luongo wants to play. Schneider must be signed before he is exposed to free agency. And, regardless of which way the Canucks believe the NHL is headed, they need to get younger or risk a Calgary Flames-like crisis in two years.
Judged on the last two weeks and the last two years, the Canucks need changes, but not a demolition.
“We had a good regular season but that’s not what we were looking for,” captain Henrik Sedin said. “We looked at post-season success and we didn’t get there. We played five games and we have nothing to show for it. (But) a good team is built with patience. You can’t rebuild because you had an off-year (in the playoffs).”