One of those rare players that you can pin the exact moment his career started going down hill. Cloutier was the single biggest hinderance the WCE-era Canucks had, one wonders where a slightly better goalie would have taken that team.
Vancouver's best team from that era was 2002-03, and they had a clear path to the SCF once Detroit and Colorado were knocked out in the first round. The only obstacle would have been an Anaheim team that couldn't score, and I have a tough time seeing Giguere shutting out that Canucks team.
Instead, the meltdown happened. It's easy to blame Cloutier, but I think it's more accurate to question where Bertuzzi was during the playoffs. In the first round, he had one goal and one assist....he also gave St. Louis five power plays
and negated two Canucks power plays by taking bad penalties. In the second round against Minnesota, he was even worse.
All Vancouver needed was for Bertuzzi to not play terribly. In 14 games, he had two goals and four assists, put his team shorthanded 11 times, negated two more power plays, and was a complete non-factor on the power play. He did lead the league in playoff penalty minutes with 60. Naslund had five goals and 14 points, Morrison four goals and 11 points...Bertuzzi two and 6.
2003-04 was a pale shadow of 2002-03, even before Bertuzzi was suspended. The Canucks went from a 20.76% power play in 2002-03 down to 14.79%, Bertuzzi had gone from playing on the edge to playing like a loose cannon (17 negated power plays in the regular season in 69 games), and nothing was clicking. They had a better record, but it was obvious they weren't going to go anywhere.
Cloutier was a problem, but not the biggest reason the team didn't win.
