With us rounding towards the end of the season, it's truly wild what a wasted year this has been. Every possible silver lining from this absolute stinker comes with an immediate caveat that seems to make the failure and disappointment less worth it.
- It has been one of the most disheartening years I can remember, with genuine failure across the team at many levels, which usually leads to at least a high draft pick in the draft, made especially exciting with a local, sure-fire superstar at the top of the draft. BUT, the Canucks played the wheels off their best players down the stretch when there was zero chance of making the playoffs in a cynical attempt to change the narrative around the season and they demolished their lottery chances.
- During a period in which the stated goal of the team was to compete, the team was forced to trade away their captain and leading goalscorer due to misallocation of the cap, which at least hopefully leads to great assets! BUT they turned around and traded the premium asset from that deal + a high second for a defender at the peak of his value, in a move that looks like a savvy team taking advantage of management's myopic interest in a player. Hronek looks to be a reasonably good player and a fit, but right now Akito Hirose looks like Bobby Orr next to the pupu platter we've been icing, so can't get too far ahead of ourselves on Hronek.
- The beloved-by-the-market coach was not getting the same reaction from players in his second season, so the Canucks moved on to a coach who seems to be getting a better reaction. BUT in doing so, they absolutely embarrassed themselves and immensely disrespected a great coach and by all accounts a wonderful man in the process, stringing him along and ensuring that this went down in the messiest, most unnecessarily unprofessional and cruel way possible.
- After finally shit-canning one of the most stupid, insular and close-minded front offices in the history of the league, the Canucks made commendable efforts to bring in a diverse, intelligent, capable crew into the FO. BUT they found themselves embroiled in controversy early in the year when a f***ing human rights complaint was levied against them by a staffer, which is just never a great look, and unfortunately does not seem out of step for one second for the people who own this team.
We head into the offseason with the sole goal of needing to resign Pettersson, no matter the cost, and part of that is needing to demonstrate to him that there is a runway to future personal and team success in Vancouver. However, we have a team that is structured in such a way that building a legitimate contender will require unending front-office excellence and essentially batting 1.000 on all moves moving forward in order to actually compete in Pettersson's window, which is unreasonable to expect for any management group, let alone this one which has already shown itself to be prone to pretty catastrophic errors. I genuinely fear that Pettersson re-signing with the Canucks will just make him a much better Horvat 2.0, a beloved player in the market who can't push the team up a mountain himself, and when he eventually leaves after giving his all the market will turn on him as a turncoat or someone who was overhyped and not really that good after all. Pessimism is the only thing batting 1.000 in Vancouver, and I will continue on this path until shown a reason to believe otherwise
