Canucks Army Monday Mailbag: June 27th

The Vancouver Canucks added another six players to their organization by way of the draft on Friday, so yeah, that’s neat. Of course, it’s not the flashiest lot of players. Even their highest selection, Olli Juolevi, is renowned for his calm, cool and collected nature. He’s unspectacular, but in the best way possible.

With a little luck, though, they might’ve secured another NHL player or two. The Cole Candella selection in particular looks like a steal at 140. And while I might quibble with the Canucks use of draft picks on overaged, unremarkable forwards, most of those picks carry a slight probabilistic advantage of making the NHL relative to where they were selected. Certainly not the picks I would’ve made in their shoes, but you can’t always get what you want, right?

Anyways, there is the “tl;dr” of the draft weekend and my general feeling on the crop of players selected. Enough of my inane blithering, though. It’s question time.

Well, if the Canucks rebuild on the fly fails, you can point to the Columbus Blue Jackets taking Pierre-Luc Dubois at third overall on Friday as the reason why. Seriously. That was their best hope of securing a first line centre capable of filling the role of heir apparent to Henrik Sedin. The Canucks have needed to address that need in the worst way possible and have frankly whiffed for about three consecutive seasons. So, there’s one need they need to but can’t address. 

You’re asking for trades and signings specifically, though. That’s a tough question to tackle. Mostly because the Canucks and I don’t necessarily share the same vision or short-term goals for this franchise. Whereas they want the Canucks to compete for the playoffs, I want a firesale and extended rebuild to start as soon as yesterday.

If they are trying to compete next season, they need to address their scoring — primary and secondary alike. That means snagging one of the big fish in free agency. You could certainly make the case for Milan Lucic as the big catch, but everything I’m hearing indicates he’s not all that interested in being part of a prolonged rebuild. Same goes for Andrew Ladd. Kyle Okposo would work in a pinch, though. 

If the Canucks can secure Matt Barzal for Alexander Edler, that’s a trade they have to make. It would be absolutely inexcusable of them not to. Edler is great, but it’s not like they can’t find a comparable short-term fix in free agency for a similar cost. Barzal absolutely has the potential to develop into a first line centre and this is a team that needs that kind of prospect desperately. 

Well, in a world where Lars Eller and Andrew Shaw can fetch two second-round selections at the draft, I would like to think that the Canucks could secure, at the very least, a late first-round selection for Hansen.

I was actually a very picky eater as a child.

I would pray to the new and old gods alike. Perhaps even the Lord of the Light.

I get the sense based on how this question is worded that you’re wanting to hear that they’ll take a long-term approach to building this team. That’s just not really the case, though. They want that gate revenue. They want it really, really badly. So yeah, they very much so are satisfied with sneaking into the playoffs and seeing what happens.

Want to know the absolute worst part, though? If they can land one of the premier free agents, they very likely could compete for a spot somewhere between eighth and eleventh overall. That’s the absolute worst place for a franchise to finish.

Thomas Vanek isn’t aging well. Not at all. He’s always been a pretty porous player defensively, but he could always more than make up for that with his goal scoring. That just isn’t the case anymore. At the right price, one could argue that he’s worth the gamble as a reclaimation project. Just not sure he moves the needle for the Canucks.