Now I don’t run the Canucks, but I’ve been a fan of hockey for 15 years and feel that the Canucks aren’t making the right moves right now. Heck, they haven’t made a lot of good moves in the past 10 years. It’s been a tough few years being a Canucks fan, so today, I’m going to pretend like I’m taking over the Canucks general manager position and tell you what I would do to fix the mess the Canucks are currently in.
First things first, let me clarify: The Canucks need to blow it up and go in a full-on rebuild! No more of this “re-tool” bogus. You can’t win the Stanley Cup without home-grown talent. How many Canucks players can you name that are GOOD home-grown talents? I can only name 4, which are, Petterson, Boeser, Hughes, and Demko. Maybe we can throw in Podkolzin and Kuzmenko if we want to be generous.
Canucks president Jim Rutherford addressed the media today and it was a doozy 🎤😵💫 pic.twitter.com/8ywGVNORb7
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) January 16, 2023
But the point is, you can’t win without raising your own talent. Overpaying to trade for players or overpaying to sign someone in free agency won’t magically solve all your problems.
So here’s what we do, we trade players that will get us good returns that will not cost us in salary. What that means is we shouldn’t trade players like Garland, Ekman-Larsson, or Myers if we’re forced to retain salary at the same time. It’s just not worth it to retain salary or give up draft picks to a team to eat their salary at full, as it would likely cost the Canucks a 1st or 2nd round pick.
Instead, we trade players like Scheen and Boeser, who could yield good returns while not having to retain salary or some at the very worst for Boeser. What’s the return? I would take any young prospect who the Canucks can develop or take a draft pick. I personally wouldn’t take anything lower than a 2nd round pick for Scheen and Boeser. Both are proven to be good players in our lineup and could be amazing depth pieces for a contending team.
Hear from Bo Horvat following being traded to the #Isles ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/WUIC2CZekM
— New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) January 31, 2023
Anything can happen at the trade deadline, and with the Canucks trading away their captain Bo Horvat a couple of weeks ago, it shows that anything is possible, and it’s very likely the Canucks aren’t done selling their roster. Hopefully, this leads to them getting the 1st overall pick, which is the ultimate prize to give Canucks fans at least a little bit of hope after this awful season.