Saturday Roundtable: O Captain, Come Back Captain

The Canucks may have won in the shootout last night, but that doesn’t make everyone any less nervous moving forward. The team has been dropping points left and right, and core players have dropped like flies. None more significant, though, than Captain Henrik Sedin. We don’t have an exact timeline on when he’ll return, but in the meantime, the roundtable addresses what to do if he’s out for an extended period of time.

Throw in the white towel.

Please don’t make a trade for a short term stop gap as it will just cost you futures. Henrik is a big part of the team, and no matter what you trade for it won’t help to fill any void left by him. So given that, what’s the point in acquiring another team’s cast off with hopes of not being terrible. Just let it ride and hope for the best, which is #34 for the Zurich Lions.

We all wanted the kids to play, well here we go!

Replacing a player of Henrik’s calibre is next to impossible in any circumstances, and just like we said last week, the Canucks aren’t in a position to trade developing assets for short term help.

You have to look at the team’s results this year as completely throwaway at this point. As such, they can’t make any trade here that they wouldn’t have made if Henrik was healthy. And when the trade deadline comes: sell, sell, sell!

Ultimately the best solution would be taking a shot at signing one of Stephen Weiss, Olli Jokinen, or Mike Richards (depending on his status) to a one-year deal. They are another body for the lineup and will avoid over exhausting Horvat and McCann. The best case scenario they can flip one for a draft pick at the deadline if Henrik is healthy by then.

That, or recall Linden Vey and Brendan Gaunce and ride the youth movement and keep slippin’ to Chychrun.

The Canucks need to lose. I know it, you know it. The Canucks need to be so bad that they feel the need to raise a “7” banner again to fill the void of not putting up a banner for a season.

Firstly, shut Henrik down for as long as it takes. Don’t rush him back for some ill-fated hopes at squeezing into that 3rd Pacific Division slot in which you’ll get destroyed by whomever you face.

Secondly, give Linden Vey another shot at this. He’s young, and maybe if given another opportunity he could play up to the expectations he has failed to live up to since the trade from Los Angeles. Everyone wanted a youth movement, and bringing Vey into the fold to save the load from Bo “The Franchise” Horvat and Jared McCann would be ideal, even if it results in losing a lot and eventually losing the draft lottery.

I don’t want to say it but start putting in the guys that have earned call-ups. This isn’t going to be a banner year unless they have the 7 somewhere still. This thing is cyclical and go figure as the Sedins go out the turnaround happens; same as when they got here. It’s not going to be pretty but has it been even close to that for the last 2 months? No sir.

I want to see what our up and comers are doing and if it means continuing to lose, what’s the difference from now? Make an unrealistic trade and start over. I can’t see this organization being worse than EDM or CGY so do something that makes the team better long term, find a new hero. Doubt Stamkos would play here but there has to be someone that will.

Make a hockey trade and get the fans attention again, because they’re bordering on indifferent, they might be there already.