It’s officially here.
The Vancouver Canucks rebuild.
And it’s ugly.
Really ugly.
Since the New Year, the Canucks have been a miserable lot with only two wins in 23 games after a 6-4 defeat to the Carolina Hurricanes at Rogers Arena on Wednesday.
It was a spirited effort coming off a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of the Dallas Stars Monday at the same venue but it was a loss nonetheless.
At least there was one bright spot in that Brock Boeser finally scored – ending a drought of 22 games without a goal. The same couldn’t be said of Conor Garland, whose goalless skid hit 23 games while Elias Pettersson reached 15 contests without a tally.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what’s wrong with this club.
As we mentioned in a previous column, we would find out a lot about which veteran players you can move forward with and which you can possibly jettison.
Case in point, Jake DeBrusk.
The affable 29-year-old told Ben Kuzma of the Province after the 6-1 loss to the Stars “that [rebuild] is not something I would be okay with or accepting. My game doesn’t fit that,” which led to some backlash from Canuck Nation. DeBrusk did try to backtrack on his comments after Tuesday’s practice but my money is on Kuzma, a seasoned reporter who wouldn’t take comments out of context.
One can clearly deduce that DeBrusk would be willing to waive his no-movement clause to a team that is in the hunt for the Stanley Cup and it’s entirely possible that he is dealt before Friday’s noon trade deadline.
The same can’t be said for Pettersson, whose contract runs through 2032 with an AAV of $11.6 million.
Pettersson’s play has sunk so low that Canucks head coach Adam Foote benched him in the third period during a recent game in Seattle. After a rather testy exchange with the media earlier this week, Pettersson has many wondering if mentally he’s already on a plane back to Sweden.
Unfortunately for the club, the Pettersson situation has to be resolved before this team can start building for the future.
A few years back, I asked a coach how he turned his team from a laughingstock to one that was competing for championships.
He stated the first thing that you needed to do was find players with character, establish a culture and then the talent would eventually follow.
As it stands right now, the Canucks need to find the right mix of veterans with character who will be able to establish a winning culture. That means setting standards when it comes to work ethic and holding one another accountable to those standards. It also means being a mentor to younger players and providing an example to them in terms of how to conduct yourself as a pro – basically all the boxes that Tyler Myers checked off before he was dealt to Dallas.
Now ask yourself how many of the above boxes does Pettersson check off given the fact that even the organization itself has questioned his practice habits and off-season conditioning.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin alluded to the aforementioned issues yet again during a media availability session after the Myers deal on Wednesday.
“It’s easy to say that you’re going to be better but what are you actually going to do to be better? I think that the action is something we want to see. We want to see the players working with him. For Elias, it all starts by being prepared and pushing himself every day to get better. There is no doubt about his talent level. We’ve seen that but hopefully he finds it and he hopefully continues to work on it,” stated Allvin.
As TSN’s Craig Button told CHEK TV’s ‘Donnie and Dhali’ this week, Pettersson’s time in Vancouver “doesn’t feel like it’s tenable.”
Maybe a fresh start would rejuvenate Pettersson’s career.
A trade prior to Friday’s deadline is extremely remote given Pettersson’s on-ice performance and most hockey observers believe there is a better chance of a deal being made in the summer but one thing is for certain.
Something has to change because the current situation can’t continue.
Veteran B.C. sports personality Bob ‘The Moj’ Marjanovich writes about the B.C. sporting scene for Black Press Media. This column is brought to you in part by:
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