Dazzle

Hard to argue against this particular point. The Canucks' failing to find a proper coach is on Benning there. He really might have had a mulligan if this team exploded this season. Instead, everyone might get fired and the assets might get offloaded for a rebuild, if this losing keeps going on for years.

The lame excuse is ignoring what Gillis did throughout his tenure - or rather, what he didn't do. He sold out the future for the present. So, yes, the Canucks were one game from winning the Stanley Cup. But at the same time, he could not draft a single worthy roster player, minus two of his HIGH first rounders, and Ben freaking Hutton. All of his picks - from first rounders (when he did have one, like Brendan Gaunce) to his late rounders - did not help with the depth of the team. We were left taking on some players like Megna and Chaput. There was nothing to build off of. Not even a goalie. Remember that Schneider was traded away so that Luongo could be the starter. Complete mismanagement. Benning didn't actually have a lot of options. Kesler was not worth as much as he could've fetched, given the circumstances of how he demanded a trade (plus the two team trade list he had). Also, given the fact that the Canucks did not have any worthy roster players, the Canucks could not effectively 'rebuild' in the same way that the Coyotes did this off season. Gillis did a lot of damage to this team, in spite of his strong season teams he helped build.

With all due respect to the coaching staff and how purportedly nice they are, the Canucks really shot themselves in the foot by needlessly extending some coaches, when they could've just started with a new slate. The team was supposedly projected to make the playoffs, and under Green, this has never happened except the bubble. Moreover, Green's win percentage is not any better, or is comparable to the WD era, who had a MUCH WORSE roster to play with. We all knew WD's limitations as a coach, so that's why he was replaced. WD had a short stint as LA King's coach, before going back to juniors. Some coaches don't do as well in the big leagues (i.e. Don Hay), but they do amazing in the lower leagues. I am not questioning how 'nice' these people are, but it's becoming clear that Green, however nice he may be, is just not suitable for this job. The decisions made by Green (and WD really) have been headscratching. With WD, at least he had the excuse of having a poor roster, so he overplayed players like Megna and Chaput, both of whom were very serviceable players in their own right. Curiously, Green has had a very stereotypical approach to his rosters, as we never really saw Macewen or Bailey much, despite several chances in the callup. Some of the blame may be on the players for not 'rising up'. However, we also see Green stifling current roster players (Podkolzin for example), while overplaying others. Last night, we saw Garland have an amazing game - and guess who Green sat UNTIL the game was too late. It's becoming clear that Green is a glorified AHL coach. He has never really achieved much, even with this enhanced roster. That is saying a lot about his capabilities. When a coach fails to adapt to a vastly changed roster, that's on him. Also, if our defensive aspect of the roster is questionable, shouldn't we spend more time being responsible in that area? Nope. Green's approach is run and gun, at the cost of defense (while employing a questionable defensive coach that isn't Shaw). It's Baumgartner. Nice guy, but I doubt he's well known as a defensive stalwart. Green, for whatever reason, doesn't like to see scoring in his lineup. He benches the players who score (Podkolzin, Garland), probably for deviating from 'his' game plan. To me, this coach sucks.

"That's a good team over there." "We had some good looks. We didn't deserve to win. I liked a lot of moments of the game, but sometimes you just don't get the point."

Terrible coaching. Poor preseason preparation and once again, a poor showing for the most part except at the very end.

So I don't get why we boxed ourselves into a corner with coaching. The Canucks literally could've fielded every single coaching candidate out there, but they extended Green instead. Nice.

You should worry about how you're spending your money.

I dunno... did we really expect a difference with the coaching? Were the old Canuck rosters the reason behind why Green's system didn't succeed? Green has been the wrong hire, and it was really obvious last season. The freaking season was trying to tell us something, in hindsight.

That will never happen, unfortunately. The so-called cheating scandal in Arizona 'only' took away a 1st and a 2nd rounder from AZ - yes, punishing, but three first round picks against Chicago? Nah. In the end, the draft didn't really cripple AZ. They offloaded assets and got their first rounder back (with the OEL trade for example), and then subsequently added a lot of second rounders. The fine for Chicago should have been closer to 5 or 10 million. Chicago still has their cup, and the fine is 'only' 2 million. The team has a bunch of scapegoats. As it stands, the team 'looks like' they have done their job.... They definitely didn't lose as much as they could've.

Hope Jasek recovers from this. Such a nice start so far.

You didn't really answer any one of the points I made: Which Canadian player from the Canadian leagues could we have picked in lieu of what we picked? If we're going to go with the narrative of 'good old Canadian boys' are the best, WHO would you have picked, that is a Canadian, instead of Virtanen (lol, big hole in your argument already), Juolevi, Boeser, Pettersson, Podkolzin? Besides, we have picked some Canadian boys (i.e. Jett Woo) and we had picked a player like Brendan Gaunce before when we did have a first round pick. The main point: a Canadian player from a Canadian league does not make him a better hockey player. It's such a joke that you even subscribed to the idea to begin with.

I am also not impressed by the 2 million fine. It's literally nothing. Even 5 million is not that much.

Are you serious? Lmfao. This is the same rehash of 'Canadian' bias. Does a player's origin have any relation to how good he is as a player? Another way of looking at this is: Can a player's success be attributed to how 'Canadian', he is? And also, at what point could we have picked a Canadian high given our picks? Let's look at the failed picks Virtanen: coulda picked Nylander and Ehlers at that range. Neither of the latter were Canadian. Juolevi: Tkachuk and sergachev. American and Russian. Pettersson: Cody glass? If we had followed the Canadian model, we woulda missed out on all the highlights of Petey. Brock Boeser - come on dude. Boeser was a solid pick, and I don't give a flying f that he is American. Any other pick now would have been the wrong one. Look at Boston picking Canadians lol with their three first round picks. Stop with the dinosaur Don Cherry esque bias of Canadian players. You should not pick them from where they come from, but what they are doing. I don't give a flying f if the player comes from India and played cricket all his life before switching beautifully to hockey. If he can play, he can play.

Nothing wrong with Hutton. Very likeable guy. He just played on some bad teams after Vancouver though. Imho, I'd rather Hutton than Rathbone on the backend.

I don't hate Rathbone at all. You're totally right that he is out of his element, but shows a lot of promise. I just don't want to see him being used in the big leagues where he's getting majorly exploited, but the coach is not punishing him for his lapses. Yet he is punishing those who aren't doing any worse than he is.

An STD? An itch that is Green can't be good.

Omg seeing Rathbone into the lineup makes me hate this coach. Is he so blind to see that Rathbone isn't NHL ready yet?

Such bushleague coaching. He wasted all that preseason time to take these few games like a preseason.

I really don't understand why they clung onto Green, especially as you pointed out how WD did more with a terrible roster, and he sucked.

I believe Benning did all he could to improve this team. The BIGGEST mistake was to extend Green. I just don't understand WHY they had to extend him. Management as a whole is crap.

I don't get why they extended Green to begin with. It was the perfect opportunity to let an experienced coach handle an up and coming team. I was not at all impressed with how Green handled preseason, and nothing he can say will convince me that his approaches were well thought out. Reading about how he's handled players like Bailey, Macewen, and Podkolzin demonstrates what we've seen for YEARS. Coach Green's doghouse is one that you do not get out of.

What a crappy coach. This just proves that there's no winning under Green once you're in the doghouse. Absolutely crap management. This is on Benning for extending this crap.

I don't agree with your post, at least not completely. I think casting blame on Toews for allegedly not knowing about the situation involves a one-sided analysis. That being said, Toews not knowing about such a huge thing in the locker room says several things: 1) Toews isn't really the captain, since he didn't know about this (so he claims) - weak point 2) Toews is a weak captain - also a weak point 3) Toews was just as complicit about incident as the people he's defending - for a situation like this, I find it difficult to believe that he really didn't know. 4) Toews hasn't fully processed this situation, but has leaned back on his previous ties to his 'friends', but not necessarily agreeing that the sexual assault was acceptable. He merely just stated that the blame should go to those immediately involved (i.e. Brad alrich) I think point 4 reflects Toews and his damning social intelligence. I don't think he was directly involved at all with the hazing, but this is a poor look on him being a captain for not knowing (and possibly not being trusted by Beach in the first place). Additionally, defending those who just resigned is a weird hill for Toews to die on. He should have just shut his mouth from the beginning.

There will always be someone wanting to take the new GM role on an NHL team. Or head coach really. Why the Canucks decided to keep Green, despite the other available options, including Gallant, is beyond me. Some say it's AQ saving money, but that is a load of bullocks. The millions he spends on the coaching staff are nothing to what he makes yearly. He's a billionaire for a reason.

Wait wait wait, is CDC finally realizing that the Poolman signing wasn't as bad as initially reacted????