The Vancouver Canucks are dead last in the NHL with a 16-27-5 record. They allow the most goals against in the NHL and score the second fewest, leading to a league-worst minus-50 goal differential.

And, lest we forget, the Canucks were forced to trade their captain.

At this point, it’s somewhat surprising that Adam Foote still has a job. After all, the turnover of head coaches in the NHL is insane. Ten of the NHL’s 32 head coaches have been on the job for less than a year; 29 of them have been on the job for fewer than four years.

With a season this ugly, a lot of other coaches would have been shown the door already, especially given how the systems Foote has put in place seem to be a big part of the problem.

Of course, the Canucks’ management team can put up with some ugliness right now.

“I don’t mind it being ugly this year,” Jim Rutherford recently told The Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason. “Because getting that high pick is important.”

Still, there has to be a limit at some point. When will the Canucks reach that limit?

Let’s run down a few options.

There’s a strong case to be made that the Canucks should fire Foote immediately.

The Canucks are on a ten-game losing streak, tying a franchise record for futility, and coaches who lead their team to long losing streaks like this don’t last long.

Case in point, the only other time in franchise history that the Canucks lost ten games in a row, head coach Tom Renney was fired as soon as the losing streak ended.

Literally. The Canucks won a single game to end their losing streak. Renney was fired the next day.

The counterpoint to firing Foote immediately is what Rutherford said: “getting that high pick is important.”

The Canucks already got one dead cat bounce from trading Quinn Hughes. They can’t afford another one from firing Adam Foote.

A new head coach might pull the Canucks out of their nosedive the same way Rick Tocchet did when taking over for Bruce Boudreau. When Tocchet was hired, the Canucks were 27th in the NHL and free-falling into the NHL’s basement. The new coach bump pulled them up to 22nd by the end of the season, giving them the lowest odds of moving up to first-overall in the draft to select Connor Bedard.

The Canucks need a top-tier, first-overall type of prospect in this year’s draft, and so they can’t afford to finish too far from last place.

Right now, Foote’s coaching isn’t working, which is exactly what the Canucks need for long-term success. They arguably need a larger buffer of losses before risking a new coach bump.

So…

This would be a weird time to fire Foote and put a new or interim head coach behind the bench. The Canucks are embarking on a long homestand over the next two weeks, where they play every other night, giving limited time for practices. Everything’s a little hectic right now.

Besides, there’s a natural breaking point coming up in the form of the Olympics.

Perhaps the best course of action is to keep Foote behind the bench for the remaining seven games of the Canucks’ homestand (and the two road games that follow), and then make a clean break during the Olympics in February, giving the team a chance to start fresh after the break.

There are other potential breaking points coming up this season. The Canucks could wait until after the trade deadline on March 6 (though that will be in the middle of a back-to-back), or they could wait until the Canucks are officially eliminated from playoff contention, or they could wait until there’s a public outcry from fans.

But waiting has its own problems: at what point does losing become damaging to your team’s morale, culture, and development?

Is a ten-game losing streak the best thing for Liam Öhgren’s development? Is Footes’ defensive system shattering the confidence of Zeev Buium, Tom Willander, and Elias Pettersson? Is it fair to Nikita Tolopilo to let him get lit up?

There’s an argument to be made that this short-term brutality is hurting the team’s long-term culture.

On the other hand…

Look, losing is the best thing the Canucks can do right now, as they need to finish last in the league to get the best lottery odds.

Foote’s Canucks are doing a whole bunch of losing.

Don’t mess with a good bad thing.

Then, when the best possible lottery odds are secured and the season is over, you fire Foote to send a message to the players that this season was a one-off, and losing like that won’t be tolerated in Vancouver. At least, not any more.

Boom, culture saved.

But there’s one last option:

There are two reasons not to fire Foote.

One is that you firmly believe that Foote isn’t the problem — or even a problem — for the Canucks, and that with more time behind the bench, he could be a legitimately great head coach. He just needs a chance.

The other is that you think the Canucks need to tank more than one season in order to rebuild with a cadre of elite prospects, so the best thing to do is keep the coach around who led the Canucks to a tie for the worst losing streak in franchise history.

With that in mind, maybe the Canucks should keep Foote beyond this season, either to grow as a coach while teaching a rebuilding team, or to lead the team to the promised land of multiple top-five draft picks.