Monday Mailbag: How to get Chris Tanev back, ranking Elias Pettersson, and where the Canucks go from here

It’s time for major changes after the Vancouver Canucks were embarrassed on a three-game road trip that saw them allow 19 goals in three games while scoring only a single goal in two of the three games.

I’m not breaking any news here as I write that this team is in shambles.

The fanbase is mad and they damn well should be. The franchise appeared to be in a better spot than they were last season. We were expecting the young budding stars to take the next step and become elite players in this league while adding a couple more rookies in Jack Rathbone and Vasily Podkolzin to the mix.

Things were supposed to be much better, and today was supposed to be about the bright exciting future.

But instead, the losses on and off the ice are beginning to pile up, and as we know from the weather here in British Columbia — when it rains, it pours.

I know that you’re not happy with this team, I’m not either. I wake up to do my job and over the past two weeks I have found myself enjoying driving out to the Abbotsford Centre more than Rogers Arena.

No matter the case, change needs to come and it needs to come now. Not during the Olympic break, not at the end of the season, not in the summer.

Change needs to come now.

And that’s the case with a lot of our questions in the mailbag this week.

We got a lot of questions but honestly, 75% of them were about the same damn thing. So, we will try to mix things up a bit with some questions on other topics but let’s just hit the few big questions off the top and work our way into it.

Out of the dark underworld that Canucks Twitter is becoming, it’s time to open up the mailbag and see what we got this week.

Here’s where the Canucks are going, to a state where their fan base becomes so apathetic that they don’t care about this team anymore.

The Canucks return to Rogers Arena this Wednesday to face a team that bombarded them like the 2007 New England Patriots did to every opponent during the regular season.

There are avenues that the organization can try to explore to right this ship but it needs to happen as soon as possible. In my honest opinion, the only quick fix option has to be firing the coach and bringing in a new voice. This is professional sports. Coaches get paid a lot of money to be behind the bench and get the best out of their players.

Right now, Travis Green is only doing one of those things.

I don’t know if a new coach will get this team into the playoffs. They need to be very good for the remaining 66 games of the season to even have a 50-50 chance of getting into the playoffs.

From here, the Canucks can make the playoffs if they finish the season with a record of 37-22-7 or better.

As for where the team actually goes from here, it wouldn’t shock me to see no changes at all.

The owner has shown confidence in Jim Benning time after time. On top of that, maybe the owner just doesn’t want to waste millions of dollars in unworked hours that Travis Green has left on his brand new contract that he signed this offseason.

I’ll say this once and I think I speak for a big portion of those who follow this team:

Over the next 10 months of restructuring a front office and staff, if the owner wants to take the cheap route on anything in this organization. Fans of this team should be disgusted. It’s too good of a fanbase to have to deal with cutting corners and cheaping out from the top.

So, where do we go from here?

To changes.

Changes that will assemble a staff that is run correctly with smart minds at the helm and smarter minds under the hood.

An apology from the owner, draft picks from the general manager and Quinn Hughes recording a remake of the “how come he don’t want me” scene from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

It would be an excellent idea to hire a president who can be someone who communicates with the owner and the general manager.

I’d like to see it done yesterday.

I would still say he is ranked second behind Cale Makar.

If this year’s version of Elias Pettersson is the new norm, he will be jumped by a lot of players in the 2017 draft class.

And Miro Heiskanen is already nipping at his heels.

The only name outside of the market who consistently comes up is Mike Futa, which, I don’t really like.

Jeff Gorton is with the NHL Network and he has quite the resume. That could be interesting.

If you were to promote from within, I’d be interested in seeing what a smart mind like Chris Gear can do.

As for coaches, my big three have been and will continue to be Bruce Boudreau, Dan Bylsma and Claude Julien — in that order.

I’m quite worried.

The confidence is missing and with it, the points are missing too.

I don’t know how he gets back on track but I’d think that a coaching change can only help.

Best: Bruce Boudreau

Cheap: Brad Shaw or Trent Cull

Well, it’s been a tough week and we can only hope that changes happen to this team in the coming days. They either need to make personnel changes soon or completely change the way they have played over the past few weeks.

The Colorado Avalanche are coming to town on Wednesday and they will be looking to light the Canucks up once again.

Things could get ugly quickly.

The clock is ticking on this Canucks team.