Much like this opener in a series of season by season reviews that we’re set to kick off on Canucks Army, the 2000-01 campaign laid the foundation for an exciting and promising era in Vancouver Canucks hockey. It was Marc Crawford’s second full campaign with the team and Brian Burke’s third – great name, that second guy. It was also the first such campaign in a string of four straight campaigns resulting in a playoff birth. 

It was a time of youth, hope and new beginnings. The Canucks cashed in on a pair of lottery tickets, with the inception of the West Coast Express. An unlikely hero pushed them to the post-season in thrilling fashion. And Dan Cloutier was awful as ever!

Lets relive each moment, on the other side of the jump!

An early 2000’s Canucks team, that was nearly undone by goaltending you say? Why I’d never. To put some of these numbers into context, the league average Sh% was 9.9% and the league average Sv% was .903. The three headed monster of ‘Backup’ Bob Essenza, Felix Potvin and Dan Cloutier left plenty to be desired from the crease.

At an average age of 26.7, the Canucks were more than a full-year younger than the league average of 27.8. Given that this team was just a year removed from selecting the Sedin twins one-and-two in the 1999 NHL Entry Draft, it makes sense – it also goes to show that the turn around from a proper tanking can be some kind of quick, with just a little luck. 

This list also features an impressive collection of obscure Canucks forwards, highlighted by the diminutive Steve Kariya and Drake Berehowsky. 

A combined Goals Saved Against Average of -27.31. This was the beginning in a long period of goaltender ineptitude for this franchise. And when one examines the pieces involved, it’s hardly a wonder why.

Net gains and losses:

Mostly, these trades represented lateral moves by the Canucks. The acquisition of Dan Cloutier represented a relative boost in net and provided a certain degree of stability, insofar as he did win the odd game. That they acquired the draft pick eventually used on Fedor Fedorov is of keen interest for Kevin Bieksa fans like myself – as Canucks lore goes, Kevin Bieksa one-punched Fedorov in a bar fight while Burke was present, impressing the latter enough to earn his first contract.

The available data for free agency from this period is relatively limited. I did stumble upon one website, though, that included all the transactions from this period. The term and finances aren’t included, but it’s better than nothing.

Notable signings

Scouting has never been an exact science, but it was especially luck related the further back one goes. That the Canucks could hit .330 on this draft is phenomenal. Unfortunately, contractual demands from R.J. Umberger forced the Canucks into trading the utility forward for 13-games of Martin Ruchinsky.

The Canucks entered the 2000-01 season with very little in the way of expectations. They were a young team on the rise, still fixing the mistakes of the previous regime. The West Coast Express was still a seedling and their goaltending left much to be desired. The Sedins were also in just their first NHL season, and considering that their development was a bit of a slow burner, they weren’t even halfway at their peak yet.

And to add to the theme of fresh beginnings, it was Markus Naslund’s first season as the captain of the Canucks.

All the same, the upstart Canucks greatly exceeded expectations. They started the season off hot, entering the Christmas break with an impressive 17-10-4-4 record. Things tailed off considerably in the new year, though, as the Canucks went from playoff shoo-ins to scratching and clawing their way into the eighth and final seed in the Western Conference.

In fact, making it’s way into the top-20 of All-Time Canucks Moments as presented by www.canucks.nhl.com was Harold Druken’s overtime marker to secure the Canucks spot in the post-season. Here’s the Canucks.com assessment of the play…

The Canucks looked every bit the Cinderella story they were, facing the dominant first overall Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Quarter Finals. Unfortunately, they stopped several stops short of the crystal slipper, getting unceremoniously shellacked by the Avs in sweeping four game fashion. The Avalanche would go on to win the Stanley Cup, fulfilling a dream of Raymond Bourque’s.

Points: Markus Naslund, 41G 34A 75P

Naslund’s 75-points marked a new career high for the budding Swedish star. It only makes sense, given it was the first campaign of the West Coast Express. 

Goals: Markus Naslund, 41G

This one isn’t overly surprising. Naslund put up some beautiful markers that season. It was easy enough to remember what an absolute laser of a wrist-shot Naslund possessed, but I’d almost forgotten what a shifty skater he was. It was a bit of a struggle to find a set of highlights specific to this campaign, but if you skip to the 1:20 mark in the video posted below, you’ll get an OK set.

Assists: Andrew Cassels, 44A

I had always remembered Cassels as a two-way force, lauded for his face-off ability and defensive acumen. Little did I know, he had some amazingly productive seasons strictly from an offensive standpoint as well. This was one such occasion. Cassels was also second in points on the Canucks, with 56 on the season.

The cutoff for underlying data estimates at www.War-on-Ice.com is the following season. But, with a little digging through the Canucks Army archives, I was able to stumble upon this gem of a post by some Toronto Maple Leafs-guy, which showed their possession statistics on a team level. 

Using these estimates, the Canucks had a very respectable 52.9% share of puck possession. Given that their goaltending was way below league average, this should come as no surprise – what with the post-season appearance and the like. 

Without being able to dissect the minutia of each players contributions to this possession mark, it’s hard to suggest alternative deployments, usage, etc. By that same token, I was never overly fond of Murray Baron’s game and I feel as though, on an intrinsic level, playing him a whopping 19:24 a night might not have been the best decision. Then again, the eye-test can and does lie on a regular basis and for all I know, Baron might have been a possession stud that season.

They could have saved themselves a lot of agony by never trading for Cloutier, too. That goes without saying though, right?