Ownership and Management

[Meds]

Mistakes that stand out for me, one mistake that led to another, the snowball affect from mistake no. 1:

1. Not recognizing the level of toxicity caused by Miller

Was that toxicity an actual thing at the time?

2. Trading Horvat instead of Miller[/quote]

Horvat was not worth his original ask, and if rumours are true, Daddy Horvat was a pain in the ass. Miller was in his third season in Vancouver and had amassed 217 points over 202 games since arriving. Horvat had produced 144 points over 195 games during that same period. That move was a no-brainer.

3. Trade for Lindholm

This was an excellent trade considering where the team was at, there was a clear window in front of them, and if Demko doesn't get hurt, Boeser doesn't get hurt, and Pettersson doesn't go off a fucking cliff, the Canucks make the Conference finals and stand a reasonable chance against Dallas.

4. Not executing Pettersson for Necas trade
5. Pettersson’s contract

That was a massive mistake considering the trend and the emerging rumours regarding JT and Petey. Who to blame for that though, ownership (rumoured) or management?

6. Not signing Zadorov
7. The Miller trade for concussion Chytil, Mancini, 1st pick
8. Flipped NYR pick M. Pettersson (see not signing Zadorov)
9. Not flipping the NYR first pick for a centre

That chain of events is staggeringly bad when you connect all the dots between them.

10. Not signing Suter/signing Kane.

Suter is on pace for the same production. The team needed an asshole, Kane fits that bill better, but he's not living up to the rest of the expectations.

11. Demko contract, the injury troubles are concerning

For me this is secondary to Lankinen's contract. If they are keeping Demko, then they should have kept Silovs. This is magnified by the fact that the NHL was making changes to the LTIR rules come playoff time. Demko was a dice-roll that nobody can blame them for.....when healthy he's a top-3 goaltender and possibly the best goaltender we've ever seen in Vancouver. But hedging that bet with an albatross contract that you also threw trade protection on????!!! Insanity.

12. Waste of time and picks - Reichel, Kravtsov, Kampf, etc

Meh. With the holes that needed filling on the cheap, Reichel cost us what, a 4th? Kravstov cost us Lockwood and a 7th. Who gives a shit.

13. Losing Tocchet

I appreciate you putting this at the end of the list as it was the result of all of the other shit piling up.

[Lancer]

Mistakes that stand out for me, one mistake that led to another, the snowball affect from mistake no. 1:

1. Not recognizing the level of toxicity caused by Miller

Was that toxicity an actual thing at the time?

2. Trading Horvat instead of Miller

Horvat was not worth his original ask, and if rumours are true, Daddy Horvat was a pain in the ass. Miller was in his third season in Vancouver and had amassed 217 points over 202 games since arriving. Horvat had produced 144 points over 195 games during that same period. That move was a no-brainer.

Yeah, it doesn't look good in the rear-view mirror of it all, but at the time keeping Miller and trading Horvat looked like the right move. We can quibble about who would have been the better Captain, but if Horvat stayed, Quinn would never be captain either.

3. Trade for Lindholm

This was an excellent trade considering where the team was at, there was a clear window in front of them, and if Demko doesn't get hurt, Boeser doesn't get hurt, and Pettersson doesn't go off a fucking cliff, the Canucks make the Conference finals and stand a reasonable chance against Dallas.

Again, hindsight doesn't make this look pretty either but it was a move that made sense at the time. With the season they were having, management going relatively all-in was hardly seen inside our outside as a bad move.

4. Not executing Pettersson for Necas trade
5. Pettersson’s contract

That was a massive mistake considering the trend and the emerging rumours regarding JT and Petey. Who to blame for that though, ownership (rumoured) or management?

This is where I think the wheels really started to come off for management. You didn't need to hindsight to feel less than confident that Petey would rebound. Maybe it was comfort in the devil they knew vice whomever they would get in trade for Petey, but management hitched themselves to Petey. He may make it back to Alien-level play, but management isn't looking good right now.

6. Not signing Zadorov
7. The Miller trade for concussion Chytil, Mancini, 1st pick
8. Flipped NYR pick M. Pettersson (see not signing Zadorov)
9. Not flipping the NYR first pick for a centre

That chain of events is staggeringly bad when you connect all the dots between them.

Miller effectively tied their hands with NYR, but taking on Chytil with a history of concussion problems feels like an unduly risky bet. Dunno if other options were on the table, but management would have been better-off taking an extra pick or a pending UFA to make the cap math work. Chytil's greatest value to-date is the LTIR benefit to the cap - which management has yet to use wisely.

10. Not signing Suter/signing Kane.

Suter is on pace for the same production. The team needed an asshole, Kane fits that bill better, but he's not living up to the rest of the expectations.

This was an egregious move IMO. Was never a fan of Kane coming to Vancouver and he's proven me largely right by doing sweet fuck-all of consequence on the ice.

11. Demko contract, the injury troubles are concerning

For me this is secondary to Lankinen's contract. If they are keeping Demko, then they should have kept Silovs. This is magnified by the fact that the NHL was making changes to the LTIR rules come playoff time. Demko was a dice-roll that nobody can blame them for.....when healthy he's a top-3 goaltender and possibly the best goaltender we've ever seen in Vancouver. But hedging that bet with an albatross contract that you also threw trade protection on????!!! Insanity.

Demko's case is a tricky one for any manager. Look around, and it's clear what happens to teams which don't have reliable goaltending (eg. Edmonton, Toronto, etc.). If you are a manager and you have a Vezina-calibre goalie, you keep that goalie - even if he gets injured a lot. I agree, signing Lankinen and ditching Silovs was a bad move. That said, I wonder if Silovs performance this year had more to do with Pittsburgh coaching him to better handle long-range shots through traffic where it seems he was unable to do that in Vancouver. Does Silovs play like that in Vancouver instead of Pittsburgh? Dunno, but like it would have mattered this year anyway. I get that Lankinen won management's confidence last season, but I think it was premature.

In short, management has poo on their faces but IMO their mistakes were more towards the end than the beginning. Up until the the All-star break in 24, everything looked solid and on-track. At the end of the playoffs, they should have started to see what was coming and get out from under it. That said, up until the start of the 24-25 season there were as many reasons for optimism and keeping the ship on-course as there were for tearing it apart. Everything worked - until it didn't.

[Chef Boi RD]

Disagree with Mëds take on Horvat. Just heard that Team Canada is looking strongly at Horvat for the Olympic squad. Who the fuck cares about the captaincy, I don’t think Quinn does either. The Lindholm trade was a waste of time. Suter should’ve been signed. To rely on mush head Chytil down the middle was a colossal error. Kane is an absolute waste of time.

Simply, they have been chasing the original mistake that is keeping Miller as long as they did (over Horvat), and the harder they’ve tried to get ahead of it, fix it, the worst it got, creating more problems and then more problems to where we are now. It’s been a major bed shitting since the original mistake (keeping Miller/trading Horvat).

[Meds]

I think that the "worthwhile" IF's start AFTER acquiring Lindholm.

IF you elect to keep Petey (which they did) but they also kept Lindholm (which was doable because Petey's $11.6M didn't kick in until the following season) AND they keep Zadorov. THEN when the Petey/Miller eruption occurs and they trade Miller, the return doesn't have to be Chytil. Instead they bring back that 1st, Mancini, and Reilly Smith. With Zadorov still on the roster, that 1st rounder doesn't need to be spent to acquire Marcus Pettersson, it can instead be held or packaged to improve the top-6. This would have made retaining Suter more doable or at the very least not led to acquiring Kane. Maybe Tocchet stays in that event (I doubt it though, I think keeping Petey over Miller was the nail for him).

The Lankinen contract is just fucking brutal though. They should have let him test the market and then we would have all watched as stayed for $3M or less. Nobody was signing him to be a starter, and nobody is dumb enough to pay a backup goaltender that kind of cheddar.....and if they did, they sure as shit don't turn around and commit another $8.5M to another goalie to run a 1A/1B.

[Meds]

Disagree with Mëds take on Horvat. Just heard that Team Canada is looking strongly at Horvat for the Olympic squad.

Would Team Canada be taking a hard look at Horvat in any year besides the current one? No.

[Topper]

Spiffy new lower bowl seats reduce capacity.

Massive ticket price increases especially stinging season ticket holders, the most die hard of consumers.

No one watching the product. I'm not watching, Lever hasn't watched for years. I have no interest in the day to day, game to game nonsense.

Can't sell out a Saturday early evening game vs the Canadiens.

Empty lower bowl seats between the blue lines. If they still had the old lower bowl reds, the Flames would have thought they were playing a home game.

Discounted tickets going on sale days before a game.

Larger discounts on game day for "students".

Large discounts now on offer to season ticket holders to get them to buy and gift reseller seats.

Salaries in US dollars, stadium revenue in weak Canadian dollars so raise prices in a weak economy and drive away consumers.

Just what is managements business plan to make money for the owners?

Canucks Sports & Entertainment

Families can afford to go to a Goldeneyes game and hit the concessions. Whitecaps have the buzz of the cities winner. Lions were a game away from the Grey Cup.

Adios

[Meds]

I think some of this sums up the state of the NHL on the financial side Topper.

Vancouver doesn't even make the top-10 for cost of going to a game.

The below are average ticket prices.....

Toronto - $373.50
New York - $315.08
Vegas - $367
Boston - $350 (premium)
Chicago - $297.27
Montreal - $232.21
Edmonton - $207.27
Philadelphia - $189
Washington - $220
Los Angeles - $175

Obviously the Canucks product doesn't warrant prices in that range, and market size plays a big part.

Either way, the average fan is priced out.

[donlever]

2 tickets....$550.00 per game.

Value?

...and he's right, they're using season holders as ready made brokers.

Or trying to.

[Megaterio Llamas]

They're not competitive, and they're not rebuilding either. So, what are they exactly?

That's going to be a tough sell.

[donlever]

Part of a minor league sports town they are.

Sports Gods bless the Caps and the Lions but the Canucks are supposed to be our Prime Time event.

On the Comedy Channel maybe...

You've got life long fans like Topper who literally don't give 2 sweet fucks anymore.

...and are they cultivating a broad scale G2 G3 following?

Don't know about that either from some of the intel I am aware of.....

It's certainly not good Megs.

[Cornuck]

There a lot of things to do with $550 rather than go see a Jekyll and Hyde team.

I'll keep watching, since it's basically free and I live in the middle of nowhere. Oddly, the recent games have mostly been entertaining.

But if I still lived up there? It would be a much lower priority, especially live.

[Meds]

Yeah, it's why I always chuckle when Blob gives me the gears for canning my Sportsnet subscription. They aren't worth any sort of investment.

A DAZN subscription is much more worthwhile between September and February.

Until fans start talking with their wallets, nothing will change.

The current economic times (which Topper pointed out) are perhaps what fans of this franchise needed in order to re-prioritize to the point that ownership wakes up and smells the coffee.

[Lancer]

There will always be those who want to be entertained - and if the home team isn't playing entertaining hockey, at least there are a number of visiting teams who do, so the casual fan will show up just to see high-calibre hockey.

There will always be the visiting team fans, and you'll still see the odd folks going to games as part of a destination trip.

But management needs to sell hope - that things will get better. Only two things really sell that: wins - and not the flukey kind; and young talent.

Fans were willing to accept that last season was a Murphy season outlier. This year has blown that illusion away.

Fans look at this team and its on-ice performance, and it's hard to see hope. They're sub-.500 near the bottom of the standings. Few of their wins have been utterly convincing - as often as not they've clung by their fingernails to victory. The core is either eternally-injured, a shadow of their former selves or (depending on who you talk to) wants to bolt at the first opportunity. Pretty bad that management allegedly had to talk with Hughes about his body language - he looked so evidently miserable and dispirited.

...and yet management is trying to put lipstick on this pig.

The funny thing is the non-core players who are fan favourites like Sherwood and Garland are the ones most-discussed as being on their way out - almost like management wants the team to be less watchable and relatable.

Who wants to watch a Sea of Kampfs???

[rikster]

Canuck tickets prices rate in the middle to upper tier as compared to other major events in Vancouver....

Just purchased tickets to a Cirque Du Soleil production at a cost of $233 each ....

Attendance year to date is up over last season;

https://soundofhockey.com/2025/11/21/20 ... hatgpt.com

https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/a ... hatgpt.com

The price of a ticket is a reflection on the cost of doing buisness in the NHL and is inflationary which unfortunately means many fans cannot afford to attend games live...

Just 34% of the Canucks total revenues are from ticket sales, a percentage that is declining as a % of total revenues as other revenue streams continue to explode ...

What does give me some concern is that from a pure revenue point of view, are they better off to charge at the high end knowing that they won't sell out but total gate receipts will be greater than if they had lower ticket prices and more butts in the seats?...