LuongovsTuuka

This makes a lost season completely worth it if it happens. Benning as GM please.

Listened to the 1040 interview with Linden and he is winning me over quickly. Get Jim Benning or Ron Hextall for GM and we are on our way. As much as this looks like a PR move, and it is, it's also about turning around the public perception of the team for fans, potential free agents and for players currently on the team. If you want the team to be a popular place for players, this is the way to go.

If they hire Feaster... April Fool's Day was last week! I was on the fence with Gillis, but Feaster is terrible. Bring in someone new, but someone who has experience. I mentioned Jim Benning a few weeks back. That's the kind of guy the Canucks need running this team.

If Nylander drops to 13th, he will be boom or bust. I think he could be a steal. I know they need a forward, but if the Canucks nabbed Fleury, he could be that future top 4 blueliner they don't have in their system.

It was a baffling turn after losing to Boston in 2011, trying to add grit at the expense of scoring ability when the Canucks only scored 8 goals in a 7 game final. There has been an abundance of 3rd and 4th line players, but the quality of the bottom six has not been very good for a long time now. In the playoffs, teams that can roll four lines win. I think this year was a failure because the team didn't fully commit to getting younger or getting better. The locker room got stale and this is the end result. The injuries just amplified the problem.

He had a good season last year and this year has been a mess from top to bottom with the Canucks. I agree he's been brutal, but Edler is worse. It's giving me Nordmark flashbacks.

All I have heard on TSN and CBC for months is gloating about how good Toronto is and how bad Vancouver is. It would be fitting if both teams missed the playoffs. I don't have an allegiance to any Canadian team just because they play in Canada. There are plenty of good Canadian players to cheer for on American teams.

He could have saved himself time and just sent the fans a link to this video.

So this means Gillis is likely gone then. I actually agree with that. If the owner wants a new GM to head up a rebuild/retool, then just straight up block Gillis from dealing away core players. I wonder if Gillis called LaFontaine for advice after the deal was blocked.

It is a tough time to cheer for the Canucks, with a season going so wrong from one that had started out so well. Things looked good at Christmas, but it's been really poor since then. There is a lot of reactionary talk on the forum and I honestly don't agree with 99% of what I am reading, so I opted to go the blog route. New posts on the forum tend to either get torn apart or potentially locked, so there's that to consider as well. Throwing away this team's core for nothing or for middling draft picks and prospects is a really bad idea. The idea that the team can be fixed by tanking and drafting early is a bad idea as well. Yes, Chicago and Pittsburgh did that, but they also signed some great depth and the Pens got two guys in Malkin and Crosby who simply make them nearly unstoppable. I could point to the Islanders, Columbus, Florida and Edmonton as examples of why blowing everything up could mean disaster. Gillis has signed this core and right now it isn't playing to its full potential. This can be seen as Tortorella's fault on some level, and maybe they change the coach again after this season. The thing is, Gillis has signed guys for below market value and the Canucks have managed to get free agents. He has signed both UFA guys like Garrison and Hamhuis as well as college kids like Tanev or European talents like Lack and Eriksson. They come here, in part, due to the reputation the team has had for winning and for the team atmosphere. Everything on that level looks broken right now. The team cannot score. They have zero confidence as a team. They play back and they play not to lose. This season is lost. I saw that early in January and I have seen it with the Canucks for a long time. If you look at any playoff exit since 2006, before Gillis was in the picture, this team has never been good at turning momentum back in their favor. Now that has carried over into the regular season as well. There is no magic wand to be waved here. There are no easy answers. Okay, you ditch Luongo and get what back? You want cap space? Okay, but if you're right no one wants to sign here, you're just saving the owner some money. It's not like ticket prices will drop if the team's salary goes down. I don't have as big an issue with the decision to start Lack over Luongo in the Heritage Classic as others do. It's one game out of 82 and the team has won one of its last ten. Torts was playing a hunch and he lost. My issue is that this can even be an issue right now. Everyone seems ready to ditch Gillis, but I don't see a lot of solutions outside of trade proposals which are usually terrible ones. The real solution has to start with Gillis. Sit down with the Sedins, Kesler, Luongo, Bieksa, Burrows and any key guys in this line up and ask them what THEY think will work. Keep Tortorella out of the meeting for the first hour. Swear they can talk off the record and say whatever they want. If they want to vent about the stifling system they are being forced to play, let them. Let them discuss who they feel should go and why. Have them honestly grade their performances. These guys have played together for almost a decade, so honesty should not be a problem within this group. Ask them where the team should be headed and whether or not they want to be a part of the process going forward. At the end, ask if they want to meet with the coach, If the vote is a no, then sit with Tortorella after that meeting and tell him what they said, without naming names and causing more internal strife. If Tortorella is not on the same page, then as a GM make a decision about who you feel is right or wrong. If Tortorella is badly out of touch, you let him go right now. You do not wait until the end of the season. You then hire the most player friendly coach to finish the year you can find and work to repair the broken relationships on the roster. Notice I didn't say who to trade or who to trade for. There is something wrong internally and bringing in new players likely won't fix it. If there is something that wrong and Kesler was openly whining during the Olympics, then the entire league knows the Vancouver locker room is toxic right now. Players will not want to come here. My main concern is that a knee-jerk reaction and dealing away key guys could lead to five or six down years before the Canucks show they can hold their own with the best in the NHL again. The Vancouver market is not known for supporting losing teams for very long. Combine a weak Canadian dollar with low attendance figures and tell me how much worse things get. Maybe the internal salary cap drops so the owner can make a profit and the Canucks become like the Islanders money-wise. I am not going to stop supporting the team because of down times. I never have. I never abandoned Boston even when O'Connell was the GM and when Ray Bourque had to head to Denver to win a Cup. That was as dark as it got, but I kept cheering for them anyway. Yeah, I know the Bruins and Canucks don't get along, but I picked Boston when Neely went there and never imagined they would ever meet in the Finals. I certainly had no clue they would get along so badly when they did either. My point is, as dark as things look for the Canucks right now, just throwing everything and everyone out would be a mistake. There are some good young players on the team, some solid prospects developing and there could be a solid draft pick or two picked up this year as well. Even in poor draft years there are solid players drafted. During the pre-season, I was excited by Gaunce, Shinkaruk, Horvat and Corrado and I still think those guys have a solid future with the Canucks. Maybe I have to take time away from the Canucks' forum right now. It just seems to devolve into pointless arguing and the same stupid trade proposals. If pointless arguing and stupid trade proposals are going on in the GM's office, then the team is in real trouble. Cooler heads have to prevail. Make the Canucks a team players want to come to again.

Kesler and Higgins are the only forwards who have looked dangerous during the team's recent slide. If Kesler is traded for Sutter (who can't score), a poor first round pick and an average blueline prospect, I will be ready to join the "Fire MG!" crowd. If that's the best deal being offered, then hold onto him until the draft. The team needs a major shake up, but just handing off Kesler for a bad return is not the right move to make. I still don't understand why the Pens would want him either since it drops him to the third line.

Dear Lord people need to chill out. The cancer to this team is any fan who booed Lack during the game. That's the problem here. When Boston starts Chad Johnson, I don't flip out because they didn't start Rask. Luongo will start the next game they play. Unless Lack or Luongo start scoring goals, the real cancer to the team (not scoring) will take them out of the race within the next two weeks.

I am a fan of Lou and all, but if not starting this game is going to destroy any hopes of him staying here, that's insane. There is no way fans in this city will have the patience for a rebuild, none. It was a game against Ottawa. Yes, it was in a dome, but it's not like they were playing for the conference lead or that this team is going anywhere. It's one game. Why does this city crave goalie controversies?

I think you just did.

That Latvian goalie had the game of his life. It would have been 6-1 if he hadn't been on his game. The score doesn't matter. The result does. Defense wins championships, always has. At no point in the games did the Canadian team appear to be in trouble.

Seriously, Price was amazing through the entire medal round. No goals against in almost 3 complete games. No, the US had some solid chances and he slammed the door shut. There were a couple of nice chances for Sweden today, too, and he was perfectly positioned to make the save every time. No one had a net to shoot at.

I am the first to jump on Ovie when he loses, but the entire Russian team blew past the media and he stayed to answer the tough questions. He got my respect for that. That Russian team was NOT the best Russian players. It was politically motivated and I am glad it blew up in their face. The KHL players are not on par with the NHL.

The general manager has to stand behind his team publicly and support them. It is near the trade deadline and, as bad as they have been playing, do we want them distracted with trade talk and possibly play even worse? Brian Burke has called out teams he has run for poor physical play and poor goaltending. It never worked out for the best. I do remember Burke going to the Canucks who were out of the playoffs, telling them he believed in the group and that he wasn't trading anyone, and then they went on a hot streak and they made the playoffs. He was hailed as a great GM back then. A decade later, Gillis tries something similar and everyone hates him for it. I also would not expect the owner to do anything other than stand behind his team. How did the Oilers' apology letter to the fans work out for them? The Canucks problem goes further than defence and it is the same problem we had when AV was coach. It is adapting to a change in momentum. The Canucks have not been able to deal with adversity for years now. In the Chicago series' we lost, they took over and the team had no answer. In 2011, it almost happened again after the Canucks had a 3-0 series lead. In the Finals, after the Bruins won game six, the Canucks gave up. The Canucks don't have a heart and soul player who puts the team on his back and takes them to the next level. They need that. No one trades those players.

Gagner has 5 goals for a cap hit of 4.8 million. He has two years left on that deal. He has never scored more than 20 goals or 50 points in a season. I am very glad he's in Edmonton.

That's cherry picking. Garrison, Hamhuis, Santorelli, Richardson, and Lack were all signed by Gillis. Schneider was expendable because of Lack and a glut of NHL goaltending. He then smoothed over the Luongo situation and he's having his best season in years. He picked Stanton off waivers which there were a ton of posts about at the time saying it was a useless move. He got the Sedins to take a discount to stay here, same for Kesler. In terms of drafting, Corrado, Shinkaruk, Horvat and Jensen will likely all see time with the Canucks this season or next and Jordan Subban is a wild card there, too. He may be small, but so is Torey Krug and look at his numbers in Boston.

He also acquired Shawn Horcoff, gave up Eriksson, Morrow, Reilly Smith and Matt Fraser (who could become an NHL ready forward with some sniping ability). The Dallas - Boston trade was a saw off, worked for BOTH teams. There is a large risk for Dallas, too. Tyler Seguin could mature and become a solid leader for the team or his partying and immaturity could hold his career back. It has happened to players before. That's why he was available. Dallas was not a bad team before Nill got there. I think they would have made the playoffs last year if they hadn't traded Ryder for Cole. In 2011, all they had to do was win the 82nd game of the season and they would have eliminated Chicago and finished 8th in the West for a date with the Canucks. Nill inherited a relatively good team and they are at the SAME level now that they were in terms of wins and losses as they were before he got there. They had 48 points in 48 games last season and in the seasons before had 83, 88, 95, and 89 points. They were never in Panthers or Oilers territory. Nill also signed Gonchar who has been showing his age for 5 million dollars. Imagine if Gillis signed Gonchar to that kind of money and brought in Horcoff and his 5.5 million cap hit? That's 10.5 million in cap on Gonchar and Horcoff. Add Erik Cole at 4.5 million as well. That's 16 million in cap on three guys who are over the hill. Goligoski has 3 more years at 4.6 million. Daley has been a disaster at times and he gets 3.3 million in front of Lehtonen who makes 5.9 million in cap with a NTC and he's never won a playoff game. Nill still has a ton of work to do.

As a fan of Dallas as well as Vancouver, I call BS here. Dallas has been in a playoff spot three years running only to crap out at the finish line. Lehtonen is overrated, their blueline is a mess and I don't understand why they traded Joe Morrow to Boston in the Seguin deal since they need more prospects on the back end. The 7-3 meltdown tonight against the Islanders is more of the same as the Stars from previous years. Jim Nill is an upgrade at GM over Joe Nieuwendyk simply because he was TERRIBLE. Trading Ryder for Cole was the worst trade of the year last year. The Stars don't have the horses to make the playoffs and the Canucks are a better team than Dallas. They are 7 points behind Vancouver with two games in hand. Sure, give Jim Nill a couple of years and they likely are breathing down the necks of the Hawks, but that's because Nill is that good and not because Gillis is that bad.

I just wish he had never said it at all. I have agreed with most of the moves he has made, though if he really wanted to make a statement, he would have let the Sedins go as UFAs at the end of the season. I understand why he signed them, since there is no guarantee you can replace them and it signals a rebuild if you can't. Canucks fans don't have the patience for a rebuild, not a proper one anyway. The teams everyone seems to want to emulate spent years at the bottom of the NHL collecting top draft picks. It worked for Chicago, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, but it hasn't for Columbus, Florida and the Islanders.