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Worth the Fall


stetty2

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4-8-2 in the month of January.

What will it take for the Canucks to win consistently again. Is it a mental thing? Or is there something else at play like injuries to Henrik Sedin, Chris Tanev, Kevin Bieksa, Mike Santorelli, and Tom Sestito.

The thing is, don't all good teams face adversity each year? Or perhaps this is too much to handle for such a depleted team all the way through the organization.

The Utica Comets, the Canucks farm team. They are the worst team in the Eastern Conference and sit 29th in the AHL, just a win ahead of Hartford for last place. They are also 0-17 when trailing after 2 periods. Sound promising to you? The Canucks traded so many quality draft picks, they have nothing left in the system with the hopes that Bo Horvat and Hunter Shinkaruk can make the AHL next year.

So what is wrong with the Canucks NHL team? Goals.

We can expect Daniel Sedin to score a lot more than he has this season. Daniel has scored 36, 29, 31, 29, 41, 30 in the six years before the lockout. Right now he is on pace for 19 goals. Not acceptable when you are meant to be the teams leading goal scorer.

Daniel knows he needs to be better. "We gotta find some ways to score goals. That's starts with me. You can't miss your chances. It's gonna be tough to win games that way."

There is a lack (sorry for the pun) of scoring from all fronts. Burrows was a 25+ goal scorer 4 times in his career. Now he can't bury 1 in his injury plagued season that has seen him play in only 24 of the teams 56 games.

The Canucks are 19th in the league in goals-for with 142.

Their Power Play is ranked 29th in the league at 14% and falling fast.

They just aren't getting goals. Especially on the power play when they should be putting teams away.

What happens if they squeak into the playoffs?

The Canucks have gone 2-10 since game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2011. Losing 3 to Boston, 4 to L.A. and 4 to the Sharks. This team isn't a whole lot better than any of the previous years.

Wouldn't you rather see them get a decent draft pick and put a bit more into the system?

Once the summer roles around, they can try and buy some free agents when the salary cap goes to 70 million. There is a few good natural scorers in the UFA pool coming this summer. Marion Gaborik, Thomas Vanek, Paul Stastny, Ales Hemsky, Matt Moulson, and even Dany Heatley if the team gets really desperate. He might make a solid 3rd line winger if you can get him at a good price.

Now it's time to think about the long term future. Because throwing away assets at trade time is as useful as Derek Roy in the playoffs last year.

What do you think:

Is it better to make the Playoffs and try and make it past the first round?

Or miss the playoffs entirely and get a higher draft pick?

Your opinion greatly appreciated below.

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I say trash the entire core. There has never been a situation where a core went through its peak, tanked, then miraculously added a few pieces via UFA and then were contenders once more.

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