Canucks better get good returns
Vancouver needs good price back in picks if they’re going to deal away fan favourites
There is a certain irony in all these rumours about Eddie Lack and Kevin Bieksa being moved when it comes to the fellow doing the moving.
Perhaps the most popular player ever to be traded out of Vancouver was Trevor Linden when Mike Keenan was brought in through Mark Messier’s influence and proceeded to turf the fellow who had been the captain that took them to the 1994 Stanley Cup final.
Needless to say, the fan base was completely and totally enraged, the deal tending to be forgiven and largely forgotten for one very significant reason.
It may well have been the best move ever made by a general manager, right up there with Markus Naslund for Alek Stojanov.
Coming back, of course, was Todd Bertuzzi (who later turned into Roberto Luongo, who begot Shawn Matthias and Jacob Markstrom) and Bryan McCabe (who quickly became one of the Sedin twins) and a thirdrounder who turned out to be Jarkko Ruutu.
Otherwise, Keenan’s name would be taken in vain far more times than it has been. Glen Hanlon was the other player whose trade left the city in shock, and tears in many cases, but again that one was mollified by the fact Richard Brodeur quickly took the team to the Cup final shortly thereafter in ’82.
We bring this up because Linden and his general manager Jim Benning may be about to pull the rare double — which is to move two of the most popular players in Canucks history in rapid succession — if indeed Lack is the goalie to go and Bieksa is asked to waive his no-trade clause and he accepts, assuming all the ducks are in line, those ducks perhaps including a contract extension.
And who knows? With the Ducks unable to sign Francois Beauchemin, he could end up going to the Ducks, but enough quackery for the moment.
Bieksa has been a fan and media favourite for a lot of very good reasons for a long time and he’s made his love of the city known in words and deeds, just as Linden did in his playing days here.
The contributions he’s made here on and off the ice have been nothing short of breathtaking, some of them not even seeing the light of publicity, as difficult as it is to keep things under wraps here.
Like Linden, he got to within a game of the Cup only to see it snatched away and his team never really get close again.
While Lack hasn’t been around nearly so long, he has quickly found a way into the hearts of almost every Canucks fan with a quirky nature that seems to make him genetically perfect to play goal in a place called a “goalie graveyard” by a previous Vancouver GM who could never find a goalie. Lack’s honesty, unfailing humour, courtesy and affection for this community have taken hold very quickly and you can see the affection for him all over social media.
Compounding this move in the case of Lack — all because Benning loves draft picks and already has traded a second-rounder for Sven Baertschi, who has been guaranteed a position on next year’s team despite proving absolutely nothing at this level — is the fact that Markstrom seems destined to struggle in this Vancouver environment unless he stands on his head from the outset.
As a minor leaguer who chafed at questions asked of him when he struggled in his few appearances with the Canucks this year, many members of the media are already predisposed to jump all over him should he pull the sieve act he did in his first start here last season.
Trying to play goal in this league is difficult enough without having that strike against you — entirely self-inflicted, we might add.
This is not to say Benning or Linden should be seriously taking the popularity of players into account when trying to improve the team. They’ve got to make the best possible moves. And we understand moving Bieksa will create some badly needed cap room, although here again signing both Derek Dorsett and Luca Sbisa to those lavish deals late in the year helped create this lack of cap space.
So let’s put it this way: if Lack and/ or Bieksa is moved for draft picks, they sure as hell better be good ones.