Seattle just made the playoffs with crap goaltending. I guarantee they're going to have three goaltenders in net before their playoff run is over. Why are you in such denial about the state of this team? You're name-dropping players who performed well. So what? Is Arizona a good team because Clayton Keller had an amazing season? Is San Jose a good team because Erik Karlsson got 100 points?
This season was mediocre. We set out to make the playoffs this year. We ended up in 22nd place. By all standards, this season was a failure. I'm not saying there aren't things to look forward to. But this season was a failure because our team was mediocre. Before Tocchet, our defensive stats were horrendous across the board. There are hundreds of team and individual defense metrics that show we sucked. We actively used a pairing of OEL-Myers and you're blaming two goalies on minimum contracts. That's what you get for starting two goalies earning minimum salary - you lose games. We didn't do anything to improve that. Management actually didn't do anything to stop the losing, including getting rid of our head coach. We couldn't even afford a decent backup because we were maxed out on the salary cap.
Give your a head a shake and admit that this team has been poorly managed for several years now. We are on our fourth coach in six years, dude. What kind of birdbrain tries to pin our whole season on our backup goalies? "Oh yeah, the Canucks this season were a disaster because of... the backup goalies." That's so stupid. Just keep making excuses for why we've failed to make the playoffs each year. It's a long list.
Just look above. There are actual people who think we're not a mediocre team.
This was probably the only Canucks community that was actually happy with the outcome of this season. Folks here kept saying "winning this game proves how competitive we are to our opponents". This is true - when facing teams like Chicago, San Jose, Columbus, Anaheim, and Arizona, we really showed them how we're a team to be feared next year. Yessir. How about the head-to-heads with our playoff-bound division rivals? 0-3 against Vegas, 1-2 against Edmonton, 1-2 against L.A., and... oh wow, 2-2 against Seattle. Judging by fan input from various hockey communities, I think a lot of people weren't surprised with Benning and Rutherford mismanaging the team, but they were surprised at how quickly our young and exciting core from 2020 (Pettersson, Hughes, Horvat, Boeser) got turned upside down in less than 3 years.