Can Canucks escape rebuild roundabout?
Vancouver has proven the club is adept at tanking, now they need to start showing they can win
If you look at the NHL standings, you can identify a dozen or so teams that claim to be in some stage of a rebuild.
At least that’s what they tell themselves, and their fans. What it really means is they’re not very good.
Still, in analyzing those teams, the more difficult chore is slotting them into the various subcategories within the larger concept of rebuilding. Not all rebuilds, it seems, are created equal and you just have to look around the league to understand that’s the case.
Toronto, Calgary, Columbus and Winnipeg, for example, occupied that place of existence for long stretches but have since moved into a much trendier neighbourhood and we can be happy for them.
Then there are those organizations that appear to have evolved into real teams but haven’t been good enough, long enough to secure a complete and unconditional release from rebuild hell. These include Colorado, Montreal and, depending on the day of the week, Buffalo.
There’s also a third group that isn’t really rebuilding and not really peaking. They’re just trapped in this purgatory where they aren’t good enough to move up the food chain but are too good to accumulate marquee draft picks. The two best examples here are Dallas and Minnesota.
This brings us around to the fourth and largest group of the rebuild club, a collection of teams that, through their own ineptitude, have accumulated some attractive pieces in the draft. In time they could free themselves from rebuild bondage and join the Winnipegs and Torontos. They could also be trapped in that Dallas-Minnesota netherworld.
Time, as always, will be the ultimate judge here but it was still instructive to watch the two teams at Rogers Arena on Thursday and try to glean some insight on the art, and perils, of rebuilding.
The late Jim Taylor once wrote the Canucks are in the middle of a 22-year rebuild that, considering the era, was a fairly accurate representation of the team’s direction.
The 2018-19 Canucks aren’t quite that bad — and if that isn’t a case of damning with faint praise I’m not sure what is — but they’ve been on the rebuild train for a while now and they’re just starting to show signs of extricating themselves from the goop.
The problem is there are at least 10 other teams in the same position. As it happens, the next six teams that blow through town, beginning Thursday with the Arizona Coyotes, running through Sunday and the Florida Panthers and continuing with the Oilers, Sabres, Red Wings and Hurricanes, are members, more or less, of that same club. Which raises the question: which of these teams will get it right?
Just wish like hell we could tell you.
Compare, for instance, the Canucks’ lineup and the Coyotes’ lineup. In the last four drafts, the Canucks have picked 23rd, fifth, fifth and seventh. The Coyotes have picked third, seventh and 16th in 2016, 23rd and fifth.
You know about the Canucks’ young core. The Coyotes, for their part, have assembled a nucleus of Clayton Keller, Jakob Chychrun and Alex Galchenyuk (the return for Max Domi) with centre Barrett Hayton coming.
So, tell me, who’s farther ahead?
You’d likely give the edge to the Canucks based on Elias Pettersson — and it isn’t funny how this conversation always comes back to EP. But if you’re looking at the two lineups through a Coyotes’ lens, you might have a different opinion.
That, moreover, is the same story for so many teams. Florida comes to town with Sasha Barkov, Aaron Ekblad, Jonathan Huberdeau and Jared McCann. The Oilers — sheesh, not sure what we can learn from them. And the Sabres, the next team in town, appear to be further along, even if they’re just hanging on to the wild-card spot in the East.
That leaves us with the Red Wings and Hurricanes who are in a similar position to the Canucks and Coyotes. Again, we’re painting with broad strokes here and each team has its own story to tell.
But the central theme is the same. They all boast some nice young pieces. That gives them some reason for optimism. But we also know only a couple of those teams will evolve into Stanley Cup contenders because, if history has taught us anything, it’s taught us it’s not as easy as tanking and accumulating high draft picks.
The art of the rebuild involves complicated calculus in which drafting is the most important variable but there are a half-dozen others in the process. Player development is right up there. So is trading. And signing free agents. And, when you get past that, there’s an element of blind luck involved.
At some point, however, you have to move on from the draft-and-develop stage and prioritize winning.
Despite what you hear from the draftists, the Canucks’ end game this season has to be the playoffs. That will mean they’re making strides. That will mean their goaltending is good enough. That will mean players such as Jake Virtanen, Ben Hutton, Troy Stecher and Adam Gaudette can be a part of a successful team.
Ultimately, that’s more important than another bottom-of-the-barrel finish. In four of the last five seasons, the Canucks have finished 26th, 29th, 28th and 25th. They’ve proven they can tank.
Now they have to prove they can be competitive.