Sterling.Archer

Nobody seems to be blaming the players for the Nucks' decline. It seems they're perfectly adept at tuning out any coach, whether it's AV or Torts. I don't know at this point if it matters who is behind the bench, but I'm pretty tired of Torts' defence first shot blocking mentality. It's boring. Gillis had to go because in the end he failed to surround our core with the right pieces. Initially, he did, with Higgins and Lapierre, but I think we can all agree that Gillis' biggest failure was not acquiring a stud second line/potential first line forward that could play with the Sedins or with Kesler. Booth and Raymond were supposed to be these guys but they are not. Gillis also never replaced our powerplay quarterbacks Salo and Ehrhoff. Garrison and Weber were supposed to be these guys but they are not. On teams like Chicago Boston San Jose Anaheim and LA, young guys were able to fill these holes. The Canucks could have gone down this road but Gillis traded away guys like Grabner and Connaughton, guys who could have possibly filled the holes we had after the SCF. He also did not get enough for trading away two of the best goalies in the league. Don't get me wrong, I love Tanev/Santorelli/Stanton, but these guys are not the impact type players we crucially needed, just supporting cast members. Considering all this I think it was his time to go and hopefully we can get somebody in here to pick up the pieces and get this franchise back on track. I think that this team can still be competitive next season with the pieces we have as long as our drafting proves to have been effective and we and bring in a couple key players.

I can see the Canucks moving up the draft order with a trade this year like they did last year to get the player they want. This time we need to get a roster player out of the deal though, especially if we are trading away Kesler.

Firstly, I don't know if I believe that Aquaman and Co. have Gillis on a leash and that the decision to keep Kesler was about filling seats, at least in this case. Why would you start Lack at the Heritage Classic and then trade Luongo for a couple of players most casual hockey fans have never heard of? Business clearly isn't the only driving force here. Furthermore, the seats are emptying FAST. Many of those Heritage Classic tickets were given away to minor hockey league teams. If the goal was to fill seats, wouldn't the Aquilinis have encouraged Gillis to trade Kesler to re-energize fan interest in the team? Secondly, The trade offered by Pittsburg was garbage. Brandon Sutter is a remarkably underwhelming player. Yeah, he was a high first-rounder, but that was in 2007 and he's been a solid third liner since (sounds like a new version of Steve Bernier or Jeff Tambelini), which IMO is not enough return for Kes. A first-round pick from the Pens is basically a second rounder because they're a damn good team. Pouliot is the only player who interested me in this deal but who knows what kind of a player he's going to be and when. D-men take a long time to develop. We're still waiting for Yann Sauve to do something and everybody thought he was the sh*t in 2008. I'm really interested to see what Philly had to offer. I think they were the only seriously interested team that had tradable assets we could use. Schenn or Couturier and some other pieces would have made me happy, but we don't know what those other pieces would have been. Anyway I have a Kesler jersey so I'm happy I don't have to drop another couple hundred bucks and he's been great this year so can't say I disagree with keeping him for now. Gillis has made some trades that we can recognize were failures (Ballard, Pahlsson, Roy) but I don't think flaming him here is justified. Excited to watch Horvat and Shink next year and to see Eddie Lack develop!

Great news! Stanton was among our most solid and consistent defenders before his injury. Still can't believe the Hawks let this guy go... #grabnerwaivedbypanthers