The Hypothetical Arm-Chair Retool.

[Ronning's Ghost]

If the Canucks are selling, it's almost always best to sell at the deadline.

If the Canucks are out of the playoffs at the deadline, I hope they are selling.

[Chef Boi RD]

If the Canucks are selling, it's almost always best to sell at the deadline.

I agree but can they afford to let this fester until the deadline? Might do more damage than harm, waiting. The mix ain’t right. They are playing like they are waiting for something to happen, wanting something to happen. They’ve checked out, or some of them have. It’s not pretty.

How this current incarnation of this management group handle this situation is gonna be a big tell in what we have with them. I am getting the feeling we’ve seen this show before.

[Lancer]

If the Canucks are selling, it's almost always best to sell at the deadline.

I agree but can they afford to let this fester until the deadline? Might do more damage than harm, waiting. The mix ain’t right. They are playing like they are waiting for something to happen, wanting something to happen. They’ve checked out, or some of them have. It’s not pretty.

As long as the risk of long-standing damage in the room is acceptable, I say let them ride out this miserable season with this bunch. Management under pressure is just a fat target for vultures in the league and good deals seldom materialize. Hopefully they exercise patience and wait for the right deal vice "wanting something to happen". Let this season be ever etched in the souls of the remaining core as a place to which they never want to return. Sometimes you have to experience 'wrong' to get to 'right'. Much as I hate to see a season wasted with the best Canucks defenceman ever in his prime, as long as they draw lessons from this season and mature moving forward.

As they said at the infantry school, "Embrace the suck."

[UWSaint]

As long as the risk of long-standing damage in the room is acceptable, I say let them ride out this miserable season with this bunch. Management under pressure is just a fat target for vultures in the league and good deals seldom materialize.

Correct.

Remember, Boeser wanted out. The right deal didn't materialize. He then had his best season and seemed enthusiastic about Vancouver.

Garland wanted out. The right deal didn't materialize (if he was shopped at all -- but you'd have to think there were some interested teams thinking they might get him for a song or maybe even sweetened). He then had his best season as a Canuck and followed it up with another good season.

A few lessons. One, Allvin is unlikely to move just to move. He's not the type to deal from a place of temporary disadvantage -- unless and until they've decided the player really can't help this club, in which case the disadvantage is structural and perceived to be permanent. Two, we don't know exactly why Boeser and Garland wanted to leave -- I think at the time the most obvious factors were the constant churn of coaches and relative underperformance (in Boeser's case) and perceived underutilization (in Garland's case) -- "fresh start" arguments for moving players with a lot more left in the tank. But *maybe* the reasons these players wanted out went beyond the most obvious factors -- and maybe these are the same problems that exist today. Three, winning solves everything, at least as long as winning continues.

My view is that this third point that should drive all decisions. Is this team, as wounded and seeded with petunias as it is, a better bet to start winning than a team where there's some chemo to kill bad cells (and some good ones in the process) with whatever return those players will bring? The return means everything in that scenario.

And much like rebuilding (which I suppose is the other option -- move everyone with value and start over), excising a cancer doesn't necessarily bring about its intended end. New players are added -- will they have issues -- new fissures can be created in groups currently getting along, etc. Remember Vancouver's 2010s culture issues, borne from playoff failures, metastasized by the Torts experiment, didn't fall away with the retool. New guys became part of the problem, perhaps the leading edge. And the Canucks as an organization have never fully recovered their reputation enjoyed in the 2000s -- that Vancouver was a high quality organization. To be sure, they've made strides, but it has been a step forward a step back; sometimes two back, sometimes two forward.

[rikster]

As long as the risk of long-standing damage in the room is acceptable, I say let them ride out this miserable season with this bunch. Management under pressure is just a fat target for vultures in the league and good deals seldom materialize. Hopefully they exercise patience and wait for the right deal vice "wanting something to happen". Let this season be ever etched in the souls of the remaining core as a place to which they never want to return. Sometimes you have to experience 'wrong' to get to 'right'. Much as I hate to see a season wasted with the best Canucks defenceman ever in his prime, as long as they draw lessons from this season and mature moving forward.

I think that's the way I'd look at it too...

Management looked to fill the backend with short term solutions to bridge the arrival of Willander and EP2 ( who is having a very good AHL season) with the likes of Forbert and Desharnais and in doing so chose size over skill...

Management didn't expect the number of key injuries and its highest paid forwards to dry up in the manner in which they have...

But the half full is that management can stop thinking short term for a playoff run like they did last season and make moves with the long term in mind...

On the forward group, they look to have Raty and Lekkermaiki and Sassons in their lineup full time next season so it could have as many as 5 rookies either next season or the season after playing full time ...

If management agrees that will influence what their ask for Miller will be....

Its also why I don't see the need to spend the return for Miller on Byram especially considering he is on expiring contract that is currently paying nearly $4 million per season...

Take care...

[Kenji]

Yes Rikster this feels sensible as their strat and also as a way for us fans to rationalize. I don't quibble with anything you have said - eg that there are prospects who seem ready to break in as soon as next year that they didn't want to block. I would just add that another weird factor to a weird year is that the Jack Adams coach of last year is a lame duck who seems to have lost control of the room this year. I don't know how to feel about that.

[Lancer]

I would just add that another weird factor to a weird year is that the Jack Adams coach of last year is a lame duck who seems to have lost control of the room this year. I don't know how to feel about that.

This one is hard to square; the criticism and calls for firing Tocchet when the guy was a Jack Adam’s winner just last Spring. You don’t go from the best coach in the league to fireable chump in less than a year.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they give him a two-year deal max as a bit of a ‘show-me’ deal. If he proves more chump than champ next year, can him. The penalty won’t be too bad if they do that.

Unless this season turns around, Tocchet and his staff will have a LOT of reflection and homework to turn the team around next season.

[Ronning's Ghost]

You don’t go from the best coach in the league to fireable chump in less than a year.

Historically, a lot of NHL GMs seem to have thought that it doesn't take much longer than that.

https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/how-r ... ward-curse

I think that overall, more of the things that decide whether or not a team has a good season are outside of coach's control than within it.

[Cousin Strawberry]

Coach of the year is like giving the Temp a Dundee award