So.... who is your 'Playoff' Team?

[Aaronp18]

Yeah all I really see is someone else with a Cup or another Cup and we have nothin.

[2Fingers]

The NHL is dead to me, the Canucks have ruined it.

That's a shame - hockey is the best sport, and the NHL playoffs are the best example of it - I can see not wanting to watch Canucks games for a while, but writing off the league seems extreme.

OK - not fully dead.

If I had to pick a team it would be Ottawa or Carolina.

Buffalo making it to the 2nd round would be fantastic.

[Meds]

I would be very OK with Buffalo losing in the finals.

And frankly, I’d like to see either Utah or San Jose go deep as well.

All of them are teams whose management and ownership groups are doing things that the Canucks simply have failed at for the past decade.

[dbr]

Being able to watch sports as a neutral is a lot of fun, if we get some Cinderella story that might be nice to follow but I’m not going in rooting for any team.

I do want to see: Hughes get softened up real nice, the Wild out in the first or second round for draft order reasons, and I will enjoy the Oilers annual crushing defeat.

[Cookie La Rue]

I want the Sabres back in the final. Wtf would it be fun against Dallas.
Brett Hull is history. Watched these games in Van'99. Remember walking down Granville a few times before realizing while talking to people that the gwg was illegal.

[Tciso]

I guess terminology is fluid.

I'm a fan of the Canucks.

I've said for years that I am a Canucks fan. If I was a "hockey" fan, I'd pick a hockey team to cheer for.

[Tciso]

I do want to see the Wild out in the first round for draft order reason.

The Ying/Yang of draft picks. I am 100% behind this. But, it won't happen. Minny goes to the finals. Just like how we got 3 years of Luongo chargebacks, and Ottawa gets their 1st round pick, and it bumps us from 32nd to 33rd. Canuck Luck.

[theman]

Minny will be playing Dallas in the first round, what is their head to head this season?

[Cousin Strawberry]

Minny may have weak goaltending (not counting Wahlstad) in the big games. Gussy didn't look like anything special whatsoever in Milano

Plus Quinn can be thumped into irrelevance as we all saw

[Tciso]

Minny will be playing Dallas in the first round, what is their head to head this season?

I might watch a bit of this series. Hughes still interests me.

[Hockey Widow]

Minny will be playing Dallas in the first round, what is their head to head this season?

I might watch a bit of this series. Hughes still interests me.

Ya I'm still interested in Hughes. Interested in seeing him lose.

[Meds]

I want the Wild out in the first round. But only because of how it affects our draft position.

If they go to the finals I’ll be pulling for Quinn to hoist the Cup and would love to see him win the Conn Smythe.

I don’t get the ill will towards him here. He lit it up, played his heart out, elevated the team, and was zero drama. He let the team know almost 18 months before he was traded that he did not expect to extend in Vancouver. I opine that based on Rutherford’s comments about when he had “an idea” that Hughes wasn’t sticking around. The timing of that coincides with Pettersson’s no-show in the playoffs and his follow up arrival at camp where he hadn’t prepared in the offseason. Things went south with JT, and when the team stuck with Petey despite it being Miller who held the active NTC…..I’ll digress on the history and simply point out that we all are in agreement that ownership/management have driven this iteration of the Canucks into the ditch and are now piloting it to the bottom of the silt. The only thing they got even halfway right in the last 2 years is the Hughes trade.

With that in mind, what marquis player, who wants to win, should reasonably be expected to stay on the sinking ship when they have watched as management demonstrated a complete lack of a plan? When, instead of pivoting to build a winner when their star said I won’t be staying, spent 18 months throwing various shit at the wall to try and change one player’s mind…..

I think we easily lose sight of the fact that we are fans. Our allegiance to this team is voluntary, we chose the Canucks, not the reverse. Players don’t play for the fans, they play for themselves, they play to win a Cup, they play for a paycheque. The players that don’t play that way are generally the type that you don’t win with.

I’d like to think that this group of reprobates on this hockey talk message board are bigger than petty vindictiveness in regards to a player like Hughes. Our ire should be directed solely at the architects of this situation, Aqualini and those Fuckin’ Guys.

It would be different if QH had said nothing and simply walked leaving the team with dick in hand. He didn’t. He gave the 2 years notice.

[Hockey Widow]

He quit on the Canucks. He was part of the leadership group yet had no control in the dressing room. He is a self entitled prima donna American asshole. He is a top Man in this league and was fun to watch. His skill level is above elite. But he quit on the Canucks and wanted out. Yet he was part of the problem as this was his team.

[Meds]

He didn’t quit. His game didn’t drop off. He always played to win. We never saw him pout. We never saw him phone it in. He signed a contract that was terminating June 30 2027 making him an UFA and there was no obligation to re-sign. He did the Canucks a solid by telling them 2 years in advance that he did not want to stay with the organization, he didn’t have to tell them anything.

Hyper-critical fan base? Check.
Toxic local media? Check.
Obtuse ownership? Check.
Inept management? Check.
4 coaches in 7 years? Check.
Counterpart superstar problem? Check.
Losing culture? Check.

I don’t know of a single player who wouldn’t check out.

McDavid is the best player on the planet right now, he’s lost in the finals twice in a row. His UFA decision? I’ll give you 2 years to walkout a plan, if you can’t I’m going somewhere I think I can win. Guaranteed he wouldn’t have done that if he was in Vancouver with the above…..he would have be gone.

[Cousin Strawberry]

It was more of a bailed on than quitting.

That said we all basically drove him out of town because even if he wanted to extend he couldn't have. What he didn't do is reassure a neurotic and fragile fan base that he was a committed Canuck for the long haul which was what was required. He likely didn't reassure a neurotic and fragile management group either hence the president barfing clumps of anxiety out in every interview