Friday Rewind: We Beat the Leafs & That’s All That Matters
By Kyle Chaters
5 years agoThe Best
Kesler Reflects on His Canucks Career & Leaving Vancouver
Former Canuck Ryan Kesler made a rare Vancouver media appearance this past Wednesday when he was a guest on SportsNet 650’s The Playbook with Satiar Shah and Jawn Jang.
He has understandably kept his distance from Vancouver since the trade that sent him to Anaheim in the summer of 2014 under controversial circumstances. Listening to this interview, it very much sounds like the 34-year-old forward has matured over the last five years. After playing in his 1,000th career NHL game the night before in Arizona, the competitor in Ryan Kesler gave the person in Ryan Kesler rare permission to open up in a reflective way and share his thoughts:
On the pain he still feels from the 2011:
“Yeah, you know, I think… that’s the only thing I wanted. You know, when I left Vancouver, it wasn’t about me not liking it there or not liking my teammates. It was just, after that 2011 year… It affects you mentally. It affects you personally. I remember coming into the rink the next year and walking into that arena, all the memories just come back to you. And it was hard walking into that arena because, every time you stepped in, I always get that game 7, you know, loss back into my head. And I took it really hard. And it was something I’ll never forget. But, you know, saying that… You can look back now at the season and just reminisce about how good our team was, you know, up and down the line up. Manny Malhotra, Raffi Torres, Jannik… You got Max Lapierre and Higgins on the fourth line… And our D-core, everybody knows how good our D-core was. And the fact that we didn’t win is… is crazy to me. You know, you look back, and you look back at all the games where…we were getting blown out there, and then we’d come home and win one-nothing. It was just a weird series and…it still sticks with me to this point.”
On why he decided to leave:
“Yeah, exactly. And I get why fans were mad at me – are mad at me. Trust me, I hear the boos. It’s tough. You know, I get it as a fan, when one of your players leaves the organization trying to… but, I know which way the Canucks were going, and I got a taste in 2011 and I needed another chance. My career probably would have been unfulfilled if I didn’t give myself at least another crack, and we had two cracks at the Western Conference Finals and we fell short both times, but, you know… I really cherish the time I had in Vancouver. It was definitely… looking back at the teammates and, you know, the fans, and the time that I’ve had there, it was an unbelievable ride and I’m thankful to have a chance to play in a Canadian market.”
It’s no secret that Ryan Kesler is not a popular guy in this market. He abandoned the only teammates, organization, city, and fans he’d ever known in his career to chase success for himself.
It’s often forgotten that, in the summer of 2010, the debate was whether he or Henrik Sedin should be named captain of the team. Most polls at the time showed the two of them neck and neck in support for the job, despite widespread agreement that Henrik was the right choice once the decision was made.
He was a leader in Vancouver, and at the earliest sign of trouble he put himself before the team and ran away.
To top it all off, he handcuffed the organization by refusing to accept a trade to any team other than Anaheim, badly hurting the Canucks’ ability to maximize the potential return for a star player.
All of that being said, though? This could be the moment where we start to see some of those harsh feelings fade away. As more time passes, fewer and fewer fans will remember the sting of the moment. The anger felt when rumours swirled that Kesler was spending his time at the Winter Olympics in Sochi telling anyone who would listen that he wanted out of Vancouver.
Despite the hurt he caused in this market, Kesler was a warrior for the Canucks. When he suffered an injury to his finger in the playoffs very early in his career, I will never forget that he demanded the training staff cut it off so that he could continue to play. The painful, extensive injuries he deals with today are the result of a player who physically gave it his all in every single moment on the ice.
Certainly no one will forget his legendary performance against Nashville in the second round of the 2011 playoffs.
And there certainly is precedent for players who left under less than desirable circumstances to bury the hatchet. The nasty divorce between Pavel Bure and the Vancouver Canucks left an emotional crater where the city’s relationship with it’s biggest ever superstar should have been for 14 years. Today, Bure’s name and number are immortalized in the rafters of Rogers Arena.
If Pavel Bure can come back home, why can’t Ryan Kesler?
He is one of only 25 active NHL skaters, and the 333rd player in NHL history, to have hit the 1,000 game milestone. 655 of those games were played in the blue and green.
I’ll be honest. I don’t know if, as a fan, I’ll ever be able to forgive him for the choices that he made. You can’t change the past. But they say time heals all wounds, and this is certainly a first step in the right direction.
#fireBenning
A movement has officially begun:
I’ve been tracking #fireBenning on Twitter for a few weeks now. Until early February, there were very sporadic appearances of the hashtag every few days, but nothing major.
Then, strangely, there was a spike the night of the 4-0 win over Anaheim. The volume increased. And after increasingly larger appearances during games against Colorado and Arizona, it exploded the night of the 3-0 beatdown in Vegas.
#fireBenning was officially trending. And it hasn’t let up since then.
This is absolutely something worth watching. It could very well be the canary in a coal mine that is quietly warning us that this offseason could potentially see changes far more significant than we realize.
It means that after almost five years of almost complete failure, one of the worst management group’s in the NHL could be seeing the end of the road.
Aquilini isn’t blind. He is aware of far more of the conversation about his team than he lets on:
He might not always make it clear that he hears what the fans are saying, but he’s listening. As he never tires of telling us, he has always been first-and-foremost a diehard fan of this team.
Allegedly, Aquilini was entertaining sponsers in a private suite at the game in Las Vegas. He was rightly embarrassed by the performance of his team. And Benning and Weisbrod are both feeling the heat now because of that. Jason Botchford has also reported that ownership has recently begun an audit of the moves made by management over the last few years.
Pettersson, Boeser, and Stecher aside, it’s difficult to find any that reflect well on Jim Benning.
For most of the season, the belief was that Benning had bought himself time because of Pettersson. Even if the expectation was that the Canucks would miss the playoffs this year, Pettersson playing well would still be considered a victory. If the playoffs weren’t made in 2020, Vancouver’s 50-year anniversary season in the NHL, that’s when a change at the top would be made.
It doesn’t feel like that’s necessarily the case anymore.
Think about all of the pressing moves that management has to deal with right now. Gagner and Gudbranson are already gone, but they need to find a way to get rid of Sutter. They need to find a way to get rid of Loui Eriksson’s awful contract. They need to sort through all of the garbage on the wing to decide what to keep and what to toss. They need to completely rebuild the defence from the ground up. And they need to figure out what the hell is going on in Utica.
What do all of these priorities have in common? They are all problems that were originally created by this management group.
I mentioned in the last Friday Rewind that I have a real problem trying to decide whether Benning should get credit for trading Erik Gudbranson. It was objectively a good trade. A major problem was solved. The problem is that the only reason there was a problem that needed solving was because Benning made a major mistake in the first place. It is not a good look when everything your team needs to address in the offseason is everything they did in the previous offseason.
Yes, Benning deserves praise for the good moves he made. Pettersson is an enormous win. Boeser is an enormous win. Gaudette and Stecher are both big wins. But that doesn’t mean you can just write off everything else that has happened. For every Pettersson and Boeser, there’s been a Jake Virtanen or Olli Juolevi. Not that both can’t still be contributors, but these are top-5 picks we’re talking about. You simply can’t miss on those.
Quinn Hughes could be the best defenceman the team has ever had, but he hasn’t played a single NHL game yet. What if he can’t take the next step? He would hardly be the first defenceman who was taken high in the 1st round of the draft only to turn out to be less than stellar.
I’m not saying he’s one or the other. What I’m saying is that we have no idea what he is yet. Just assuming that he’s going to be a perennial Norris-calibre player puts an unbelievably unfair amount of pressure on a kid who is still just 19-years-old. And he’s still only one player.
The bottom line is that Benning’s greatest qualities are always sold to the fans in the form of his drafting ability. And so far? We have two great players to show for the last five drafts. Everything else is yet to be determined.
There’s also the matter of draft picks. For a management group that, again, has always sold drafting as it’s strongest suit, there has been almost zero effort made in their entire time in charge of this hockey team to acquire more draft picks in order to take advantage of those skills:
Just look at that. Does that look okay to you?
We are talking about a management group that has done nothing more than shoot itself in the foot almost every single time a trade or free agent signing is made. Is Roussel a win? Sure. Were Baertschi and Granlund wins? Sure they were. But is this team honestly any closer to winning a Stanley Cup because of those moves? Or are we just treading water in the middle of the ocean, arguing about how long it will take for us to drown? The draft is where they should be having the most success, and yet they make no effort to capitalize on that.
Adam Gaudette is a perfect example. Taken with a 5th round pick acquired in exchanged for a player who now plays in the National League in Switzerland. That was the last time a trade was made specifically to acquire a draft pick that wasn’t subsequently flipped for something else. And Mike Gillis made that deal.
Instead, we get Gagner’s, Eriksson’s, Vey’s, Spooner’s, Pouliot’s, Beagle’s, Del Zotto’s, Schaller’s, and… Linus Karlsson’s?
I mean, my god. Do we want to win a Stanley Cup or not?
Just ask yourself: What move has this management group made that brought the team closer to winning a Stanley Cup? Because right now we’re looking at finishing bottom six in the entire league. Is that better than bottom five? I guess, but is the bar really that low these days?
Pettersson and Boeser don’t count because any team with one of the worst records in the NHL for four years in a row had damn well better have at least one or two good players to show for it from drafting so high every year. Even Peter Chiarelli managed to draft Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl for the Edmonton Oilers. He still destroyed the rest of that team and will likely never work as a general manager in the NHL again.
So, what’s left? Not a lot.
Instead, we’ve had a series of middling moves or outright failures as Jim Benning has bumbled his way through five years as the general manager of this hockey club. Mike Gillis was fired after only six years, and he had a Stanley Cup Final appearance and two Presidents’ Trophies to show for his time in charge.
Think about that. Whatever your position is on Gillis, the team he built was a single win away from finally bringing a cup to Vancouver. And they had two chances to do it. Not one chance. Two.
And none of what I just said mentions anything at all about the team’s failure to “weaponize cap space”, or the beyond strange move to let Laurence Gilman go from the organization, a move which is far too often ignored and forgotten about. What was the reason, again?
Ah, yes. “Too many voices in the room.” As if the voice of a talented, experienced executive somehow hurt the team.
Well, now he’s doing incredible work with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Vancouver Canucks are paying their 4th line over $10 million a year to do basically nothing.
If anyone out there doesn’t grasp quite how bad the team’s record has been since Benning took over, here’s a fun fact for you: The most consecutive seasons that the Vancouver Canucks have missed the playoffs in is four. They didn’t qualify for the post-season in their first four years of existence as an NHL expansion team, and they missed another four in a row in the late nineties. This current stretch will only be the third time in fifty years that Vancouver has gone four straight seasons without playoff hockey. If they miss again next year, it will officially set a new club record for futility. Couple that with the fact that Vancouver also has the fewest total wins in the NHL over the last four years. Fewer than Arizona. Fewer than Edmonton. Fewer than anyone.
Like I said, next year is huge for this franchise. It begins this summer with the draft in Vancouver. It will continue through next season as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Vancouver Canucks. The Sedins will see their numbers raised to the rafters alongside Smyl, Bure, Linden, and Naslund. Multiple celebrations and ceremonies are planned. The team will wear several vintage jerseys and debut a brand new 3rd jersey.
Ownership wants everything to be big. They want to be proud of their team. They want the respect of the rest of the league. They want to make the playoffs. They want to be relevant again.
What they don’t want is to be made to look foolish. They don’t want to be a joke. How do you think it’s going to look, as the organization tries to enjoy all of those incredible moments they have planned, if it all happens during yet another losing season? Can you imagine how Francesco Aquilini will feel if that happens in his moment of glory? I’d be willing to bet he’ll feel an awful lot like he did in Las Vegas last Sunday. Only worse. Much worse.
The best possible indicator of future performance is past performance. As they conduct their audit, what are the chances that ownership finally comes to the realization that that maybe Jim Benning and John Weisbrod aren’t the guys they want in charge of their team during such a critically important time after all? With so much on the line, can they be trusted to not screw it up?
Buckle up, folks. It’s time. The #fireBenning movement has begun.
Demko Shines
The Vancouver Canucks suffered a pretty demoralizing loss Thursday night in Edmonton, but it wasn’t all bad news. Thatcher Demko was given the nod for his second start since joining the team and performed admirably, despite being hung out to dry by the terrible defence in front of him:
As the season winds to a close, fans will be paying close attention to Demko’s play. The Canucks need to know what exactly they have in the young netminder, as a decision will have to be made this offseason regarding who the backup will be next year. Demko may be the “goalie of the future”, but he is also the victim of some terrible injury luck that has unfortunately limited his appearances in net this year. Stopping 31 of 34 shots and shutting down Oilers for most of the rest of the game was certainly a nice bounce back from his last start, a 5-2 loss to Arizona. Hopefully the kid can keep it up.
I Will Never Not Enjoy Beating the Leafs
With Wednesday night’s win against Toronto, the Canucks were able to keep the tradition of dominating the Leafs at home going nice and strong:
We also ruined their perfect record of 32-0 when leading after two periods, thanks in particular to a clutch performance by Dan Murphy:
Ahhh. Feels good.
Horvat Hates the Leafs
“I love beating the Leafs. There’s nothing better. All the Leafs fans back home, all my buddies and stuff. . . I like beating the Leafs.”
Can we just go ahead and sew the captain’s C on this guy’s jersey already?
The Worst
Losers in Las Vegas
“Worst game of the season.”
If you’re a Canucks fan, chances are you probably find yourself saying this at least once a few times a year. This year has been no exception, with a handful of games coming to mind that certainly fit the bill.
There was a 5-0 loss to the Penguins at home in October, a 5-0 loss to Toronto in January, and that 1-0 loss to the Ducks in February. You could also fairly take your pick of almost any game the Canucks played this year against the Sharks.
Recency bias tends to leave you thinking the most recent disaster was the worst, even if it wasn’t really. I don’t think that’s the case here.
I believe this was the worst game of the season for the Vancouver Canucks.
My reasons are simple. This is the game where the push for the playoffs died. This is the game that finally shook the faith of ownership in Canucks management. This is the game where an actual Stanley Cup contender laid a beat down on a pretender, and removed all doubts about what the Vancouver Canucks actually are. And what they are is not good enough.
I mean, just LOOK at this:
The Canucks almost immediately found themselves in the weeds as soon as the puck was dropped. Things didn’t get better.
The entire game was the same series of events stuck on repeat like some horrible remake of Groundhog Day: Vancouver loses control of the puck. Vegas has a high quality scoring chance almost immediately. Markstrom makes an unbelievable save. Or five. Rinse and repeat, over and over again.
That’s basically all that happened in this game. The shots were 48-19 in favour of Vegas. Despite his all-star play, Markstrom never had a chance. It was an absolute spanking.
Yikes, man. Yikes.
Sutter Done for Season
It was announced on Tuesday that Brandon Sutter will undergo surgery to address a sports hernia on his right side.
The expected recovery time for the procedure is 6-8 weeks; effectively ending the player’s season. Sutter had a similar procedure done on his left side back in 2015. The 30-year-old centre will finish with 4 goals and 2 assists in just 26 games this season
He previously missed time this year dealing with a separated shoulder suffered in an October 29 match against the Minnesota Wild. It will be the fewest games he has appeared in for the Vancouver Canucks since his first season with the team in 2015/16, when he missed 33 games due to the aforementioned hernia surgery, and 29 games with a broken jaw. The most games that Sutter has appeared in for the Canucks in a single season is 81, and that was two years ago.
It’s a real string of bad luck for a player who is one of the team’s best penalty killers, but it’s even worse news for management. With Pettersson, Horvat, Gaudette, and a likely immovable Jay Beagle under contract, Sutter looks to be a good bet as far as trade candidates go this offseason.
Dubbed a “foundational piece” by management when they acquired him, the Canucks have yet to see the post-season with Sutter in the line up. That’s not necessarily his fault, but it’s hard to be a difference maker when you’re hurt all of the time. A price tag north of $4 million a year doesn’t make him any better of a deal.
With a full NTC, the injuries were only one reason why Sutter was impossible to move by the trade deadline this year. Management should have far more luck this summer, as Sutter’s trade protection reverts to a modified NTC on July 1st. At that point, he can only provide the Canucks with a list of 15 teams he cannot be traded to, which hand-in-hand with a clean bill of health should do wonders for Benning’s ability to move him.
Dahlen Harassed on Social Media
This was one of the more disappointing bits of news to come out this week.
In an interview with the Swedish publication HockeyNews, Dahlen explained in Swedish that he was forced to close his social media accounts after receiving hateful messages from Canucks fans:
“I have not done so many interviews, I find it difficult to get messages from Vancouver fans. They have written very hateful messages and it ended with me removing both Twitter and Instagram. I have tried to keep myself in the dark now and focused on trying to feel a bit better.”
The 21-year-old winger went on to state that he had never asked for a trade. He said that he had only ever expressed to his agent that he was unhappy with how he was being developed in Utica:
“There are fantastic teammates and captains in the team, the guys are wonderful but that is the way they try to develop young players. It has had the opposite effect on me and it feels like I have been trampled rather than lifted. Instead of becoming a better hockey player, it has gone in the opposite direction. I have not been able to do anything offensive without being afraid of being benched if I make a mistake.”
Now, we’ve heard a few different stories about what exactly happened to the relationship between Dahlen and the Canucks. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter. Even if we assumed the worst – that this was an arrogant, selfish player who was upset that he wasn’t playing in the NHL yet and demanded a trade instead of acquiescing to management’s requests that he craft his game and prove himself in the AHL first – it wouldn’t matter. Behaviour like this is never okay.
We all know how social media can be. We all know how message boards and forums can be. We know how some unfortunate people choose to behave online. But stuff like this has an impact. It has a damaging impact on the player involved, and it has a damaging impact on the people in the city responsible. Other players see this stuff in the news. They see how players are treated here. They see how Erik Gudbranson was treated. They see how quickly fans turn on star players like Naslund or Luongo when things begin to go downhill. How some fans act during things like the moment of silence for Ted Lindsay a few days ago. The Stanley Cup riot may have been 8 years ago, but people don’t forget things like that. They didn’t forget the riot before that either.
I’m not dumping on all of Vancouver here. This particular incident may even been the result of a single, very motivated loser. What I am saying, though, is that fans need to remember that stuff like this adds up. It makes the fans, the city, and the province look bad. And a bad look can take a long, long time to be forgotten. People often joke about the toxicity of the media and the fanbase here in Vancouver. Let’s try to do our best to change that narrative, because it does all of us a disservice when the actions of the few ruin the reputations of the many.
The Revenge of Sam Gagner
Jim Benning is receiving applause from one hockey fanbase these days; just not his own.
On February 16th, Sam Gagner was traded to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for Ryan Spooner. Gagner has spent most of this season on loan to the Toronto Marlies after he was placed on and cleared waivers on October 1st. The Canucks had obviously seen all they needed to see in him, so getting an asset back in the form of Spooner was a win.
Why is this bad news, you ask?
Well, Gagner has triggered something in that tire-fire they call a hockey team in Edmonton. He may not be entirely responsible for it, and you may not believe it, but the Edmonton Oilers are actually mounting a late-season charge to try and make the playoffs.
Gagner has appeared in 10 games for Edmonton so far. In that time, he has scored 3 goals and 2 assists, including a particularly nice effort against your very own Vancouver Canucks that resulted in his 300th point as an Oiler:
He’s also been a godsend defensively for a team that desperately needed exactly that. The Oilers are 6-2-2 in that same 10 game span, including their current 4-game winning streak.
SportsClubStats.com is giving Edmonton only a 4.5% of making the playoffs. It’s not gonna happen. The Oilers only have 15 games left to play and there hasn’t been enough of a dip in the play of the teams above them to allow for much upward movement. That being said, NHL general managers often talk about making trades to “shake things up” when their current roster is underperforming. This is a perfect example of that strategy having some success.
Again, I’m not saying this is all explicitly Sam Gagner’s doing, but I do think it’s fair to point out that Edmonton and Gagner are both doing an awful lot better since that trade went down. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about Vancouver.
Moment of Silence Ruined
And the award for the most infuriatingly awkward, sad, and disrespectful moment of the week goes to…
Just. Be. Quiet.
For ten seconds.
That’s all.
Don’t shush other people who are talking. Don’t yell at other people who are talking.
It doesn’t work and it makes you just as guilty for ruining what is supposed to be a moment of respect for someone who has passed away. Someone who played an important role in shaping something you love into what it is today.
Just be quiet.
The Highlights
Edler Burns the Leafs
Markstrom Steals One
Go Lei-vo! Go Lei-vo!
Easiest Goal Ever
Edler with the Deflection
The Forecast
Saturday, March 9th
It’s been a bit of a theme this season for the Canucks to get stomped by a team and then have an opportunity for payback within a week, with similar situations arising recently with Anaheim and Arizona. One of those opportunities led to a better result, while the other… not so much. The Canucks are 1-2 this season against the Golden Knights, who are currently 6-3-1 in their last 10 games. They’re also flying into Vancouver as winners of their last 5 in a row. Needless to say, this could very well be another difficult night for the home team. The game starts at 7pm PST.
Wednesday, March 15th
The Rangers are 2-4-4 in their last 10 games and only a single point above Vancouver in the standings, so this should be a more even contest. At 7pm PST inside Rogers Arena, the Canucks will play New York for the second time this year. It will also be an opportunity for Vancouver to get a little pay back for a 2-1 loss suffered at Madison Square Garden earlier in the season.
The Last Word
There wasn’t a lot of good news this week for the Canucks. The final nail was driven into the playoff-coffin, a few fans made poor decisions about how to treat the players and game they love, a hated former Canuck made me hate him slightly less, and Jim Benning’s job may be on the line if these last few weeks continue to go poorly.
At least we beat Toronto. That’s all that really matters, right?
What do you think the five best and five worst things to happen to the Canucks this past week were? How would your list be different from mine? What are you excited about for the upcoming week in Canucks Land? Which game are you looking forward to the most? Do you think there’s still a chance the team makes the playoffs, or are you ready to start plugging away at the NHL draft lottery simulator?
This series is for you guys first and foremost – if any of you have any ideas for things you’d like to see included in future editions of the Friday Rewind, please let me know in the comments, get at me on Twitter @KyleChaters, or use the hashtag #FridayRewind.
Constructive criticism and helpful suggestions will be appreciated! Everything else will be mercilessly ignored!
Have a great week, Canucks fans!
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