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Vancouver Canucks defenceman Quinn Hughes in action against the Calgary Flames at Rogers Arena last month. The Canucks have fallen to the bottom of the NHL’s standings, just two years removed from taking the Edmonton Oilers to seven games in the second round of the playoffs.Simon Fearn/Reuters
At this time two years ago, the Vancouver Canucks were busy stupefying their fans – and the league.
After 30 games, they had 41 points and were the talk of the Western Conference. It would be a harbinger of things to come: five players to the all-star game; first in the Pacific to end the year with 109 points. The Canucks would take the Edmonton Oilers to a seventh game in Round 2 of the playoffs before bowing out. Quinn Hughes would be the first Canuck defenceman to win the Norris trophy. Coach Rick Tocchet would win the Jack Adams trophy as coach of the year.
The future seemed, well, more optimistic than it had in years. If you squinted a bit, you could see the outlines of a future Stanley Cup team.
And yet here we are today, with the Canucks dead last in the NHL after 30 games and the future exceedingly bleak.
It now seems just a matter of time before Hughes, one of the greatest talents to ever pull a Canucks’ jersey over his head, is traded. Management references words like “rebuild,” “retool,” and “transition” to describe the days ahead.
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And you wonder why the team’s fans are some of the most bitter and jaded in the NHL.
It all surely sits as one of the most remarkable and perplexing developments in recent NHL memory. To see what was widely viewed as a young, up-and-coming team implode the way it has – with a savvy, experienced NHL veteran in Jim Rutherford at the head of their management team, no less – in such a short period of time is unfathomable.
But literally one intractable problem changed everything: Veteran J.T. Miller seemingly could not exist in the same dressing room as the team’s talented young centre, Elias Pettersson because of personality differences.
One had to go, and with Pettersson’s play having declined significantly after signing a mammoth eight-year, US$92.8-million extension – making his contract virtually unmovable – it made moving Miller the only option.
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Vancouver Canucks centre Filip Chytil (72) is tended to after he was injured during the first period of a game against the Washington Capitals on Oct. 19. He’s played in just six games this season, his first full one with the Canucks.Nick Wass/The Associated Press
Rutherford pulled the trigger on a deal with the New York Rangers in January that sent Miller (and pieces) there in exchange for centre Filip Chytil, a defensive prospect and a conditional first-round pick whom Vancouver would trade the following month to Pittsburgh for defenceman Marcus Pettersson and forward Drew O’Connor, both solid NHLers who were perfect for a team still in ready-to-win-now mode. (Or so it thought).
Neither team won the Miller trade. While the Rangers made him captain, his play on the ice has been spotty at best. Meantime, Chytil, a talented centre when healthy, arrived with a history of concussion problems and true to form, he’s missed considerable playing time since the trade from the effects of two hits to the head. At this point, it’s hard to say whether Chytil even has a future in the league.
By the end of last season, the team’s once bright future looked shockingly dark. And when Tocchet departed over the summer for Philadelphia it was significant. He seemed to know what others didn’t want to concede: the Canucks were no longer an ascendant team. They were a squad destined to languish in the middle of the pack – at best. He wanted no part of that.
When the injury bug hit to start this season, putting the Canucks behind before they could barely look up, it seemed to trigger the reality that this iteration of the team was going nowhere.
More importantly, it seemed to dawn on people that the Canucks were unlikely to be a team that would be desirable to a superstar defenceman, in Hughes, who will be a free agent at the end of next season and who has expressed a desire to play with his brothers – Jack and Luke – one day.
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Recently, there have been moments with Hughes both on and off the ice – giving head-shakingly short, monotone postgame interviews; appearing defeated and bereft of motivation on the ice – which have suggested he’s already moved on. You can only imagine how hard that’s been for Canucks’ fans to witness.
Now, those same fans are bracing for the moment when Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman will break the news of what the team received in exchange for Hughes. It would go down as arguably the biggest trade in the team’s history, which is why it may not happen immediately.
While Hughes has expressed a desire to play with his brothers one day, Rutherford would be derelict in his duties if he focused solely on that option – and there is no indication he is. A team that believes it is one great player away from a Stanley Cup would get Hughes, if traded this season, for two playoff runs before he could leave. That’s a lot of time to have with a player of his game-changing talent. The team would also have the opportunity to try and extend him.
Rutherford knows any deal will be scrutinized for decades. The Miller deal was somewhat of a bust, mostly because Rutherford took a gamble with Chytil that ultimately was a mistake. He turned the first into two decent players who were additions to a team Rutherford thought he was still building into one that would have a shot at contending for the Cup in the near future. That is no longer the case. Which makes any upcoming Hughes trade, should it happen, even more significant.
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Vancouver Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford, front right, would walk a fine line if he had to trade Quinn Hughes. The right deal could put his team in place to be a future Stanley Cup contender, while a bad deal could set the franchise back years.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Meantime, it’s hard not to feel for a fan base that has been kicked in the shins as often as this one has over the last 55 years. Losing in three Stanley Cup finals is one thing, but it’s been the periods in between in which management did not seem to know whether it was coming or going that has infuriated and disillusioned so many supporters.
Rutherford has three Stanley Cup rings on his résumé as a team builder. But he also turns 77 next year – a young 77, but 77 nonetheless. He certainly would not fit the profile of someone suited to a team in teardown, rebuild mode. And yet, that seems to be where the Canucks are at – if not a complete teardown, in a state of rebuild for certain. I believe Rutherford has the complete support of ownership on whatever moves he ends up making.
For Canucks fans, they really won’t know what kind of team they’ll be cheering for in the foreseeable future until the Hughes trade is completed. There is an enormous amount riding on it – for Hughes, new coach Adam Foote, the remaining players, ownership, the fan base and the Canucks president himself.
Rutherford may not win a Stanley Cup while with the team, but he could set it up for one down the road if he plays the Hughes trade right. The wrong move could also set the franchise back years.
It’s a tremendous responsibility with an enormous amount at stake. That’s why he gets the good parking spot at Rogers Arena.
