Sedins hog all the blame for sour season
Twins didn’t have a good campaign, but team’s woes extend well beyond first line
Had they been left long enough in the interview room Tuesday, Danny and Hank Sedin would have accepted responsibility for global warming, the housing bubble, the best picture flub at the Oscars and man-buns.
But due to incoming waves of players for season-ending news conferences, the Sedins had time only to insist on all the blame for the Vancouver Canucks’ atrocious season.
Advanced interrogation techniques were not required. We simply asked.
“I think with our contract, we should lead this team,” Daniel told reporters. “We’ve got to lead, we’ve got to be the top guys. And we haven’t been this year, and that’s why we are where we are. The way we look at it, we have to be those guys.
“I think if we’d played up to our standards ... we could have fought for a playoff spot.”
Henrik added: “We’re very disappointed with the season we had. That’s on us, and it hasn’t helped our team to win the games you need to win to make it to the playoffs. That’s on us.”
So, the twins got coach Willie Desjardins fired, Derek Dorsett and Erik Gudbranson injured, and failed to teach Nikita Tryamkin enough English for a news conference.
At age 36, the Sedins combined this season for 94 points — 10 less than either amassed individually when they were winning consecutive NHL scoring titles at the start of this decade — when Henrik won at 29 and Daniel 30.
Even after 17 years in Vancouver, the Sedins’ level of accountability is breathtaking.
But we’re not letting them take this one for the team.
The Canucks, who won four times in 20 games after the Sedins’ friends, Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen, were dealt away for prospects at the trade deadline, missed the Western Conference playoffs by 25 points. The Sedins would have needed to win the Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies for the Canucks to cover that abyss.
Certainly, the Sedins needed to be better, and may have been able to lift their team by 10 or 12 points in the standings double-handedly. But they were never good enough to alone make the difference between a 69-point team and a 94-point team.
When they turn 37 next fall, in the final season of their identical fouryear, US$28 million contracts, the question will be: How much better can the Sedins still make the Canucks? And at the expense of which developing players’ ice time?
Frighteningly few players get to end their careers well on the same team with which they began.
Consider the four Canucks whose jerseys hang in Rogers Arena. Stan Smyl retired early, his career shortened and diminished by injuries. Trevor Linden ended his career a hero, but only after returning to the organization and adapting to a depth role. Markus Naslund left to join the New York Rangers as a free agent as his productivity eroded. And Pavel Bure bolted the Canucks in his prime and forced a trade to end a caustic relationship with management.
The Sedins, however, have the chance to honourably end their careers as Canucks. If they don’t stay too long. And aren’t road blocks to anyone else’s development. And don’t cost too much.
Next season, they’ll be fine. With the Canucks probably two to three years away in their rebuild from tilting their trajectory back up — if everything goes well and Vancouver drafts a couple of first line-calibre forwards — the Sedins will still be significantly better and more productive next season than most players on the team. They insist on it. “We’re focused on coming back and having a great year next year,” Daniel said.
“That’s going to solve a lot of issues that have been on this team. A lot of people look at age. For me, it was an off-year. If we were 25, it would have been an off-year. Now that we’re 36, people think it’s because we’re getting old. We have to come back and prove first and foremost to our teammates that we can be those (front-line) guys.”
Daniel finished with just 15 goals and 44 points this season, Henrik with 15 and 50 after a final-week surge. But more alarmingly, the twins’ possession numbers plummeted and the brothers combined for a minus-43 rating after being plus players their whole careers.
They were still solid offensive contributors, but suspect defensively.
“It’s not their fault that we haven’t been able to find players who can help them continue,” Linden, the Canucks’ president, said Monday. “But they’re very good offensive players, great people, (a positive) influence in our locker-room.
“When I talk to them ... this has been hard for them, no question. But at the same time, I think they enjoy working with the young players and understanding where we are.”
Henrik, who has produced 50 to 55 points in three of the last four seasons, said the brothers can be 60or 70-point players next season. He also said the Sedins understand the “rebuild or retooling” will take another couple of years.
“Coming into each training camp, we never look at ourselves as being the No. 1 guys,” Daniel said. “We have to earn it every year. If Bo (Horvat) wants to be the No. 1 centreman, he’s going to have to earn that, too. We’re going to do our best to push him to be the best he can to get that spot. That’s the way we look at it.
“Our only focus is to come back and prove to ourselves and our teammates that we can have a good year. And we’ll go from there.”
It is one of the biggest goals of their career.