After bidding farewell to Alain Vigneault, the Canucks welcomed John Tortorella to Vancouver. He never actually moved to Vancouver, instead opting to commute from Point Roberts, WA. 

The 2013-14 season was one of the weirder ones. Tortorella managed to alienate multiple players and get production out of almost none of them. After insulting David Booth, upsetting Ryan Kesler, prompting the trade of Roberto Luongo, overplaying Eddie Lack, and putting a chip on Dale Weise’s shoulder so large that it can only be called a full potato, Tortorella was let go following one unforgettable season.

The 2013-14 Canucks were pretty bad. Almost the entire roster had a statistically (and probably emotionally) bad year. They simply could not score and had the 26th best power play in the league. Their penalty kill was ranked 9th, due in part to the addition of Brad Richardson and the Sedins to their PK.

It is never a good sign when a team’s leading scorer has 50 points. Henrik and Daniel’s seasons were more affected by injury than the number of games played would suggest. No Canuck skater had a good season under John Tortorella. Especially miserable were Alexandre Burrows and Alexander Edler. Burrows broke his foot, his jaw, and scored a total of 5 goals. Edler’s season can be summed up by this tweet:

Luongo continued to be Luongo this season, though he missed time due to injury and was, of course, traded in the spring. Eddie Lack was thrown into a difficult situation but likely learned a lot about being a starting goaltender in the process. The saddest part of this is Joacim Eriksson’s GAA, which is a reflection of the back end of a 9-1 loss. 

The big one here is obviously the Schneider trade, which established that Luongo would be the Canucks’ starting goaltender for the 2013-14 season. The other big one here is the Luongo trade, which established that the Canucks are incapable of keeping a starting goaltender. 

The Canucks acquired Raphael Diaz in exchange for Dale Weise, who went on to become a god in Montreal. Diaz was eventually traded for a 5th round pick.

One of the Canucks better pickups was Ryan Stanton, who was waived by the Chicago Blackhawks just before the season began. Stanton scored one goal but was a decent depth defenceman. 

The signings of Mike Santorelli and Brad Richardson were both reasonably successful. Santorelli had a good enough first half to end up 7th on the team in scoring. He played just over half of the season before having to undergo shoulder surgery and miss the rest of the season. Richardson was not offensively productive but contributed to the team’s good penalty killing numbers. Yannick Weber was also signed before this season.

The 2014 draft was Jim Benning’s second big moment as the Canucks GM and he didn’t do horribly, though there were some strange decisions made (Mackenze Stewart???). The Canucks did not take the best player available at 6th overall, but they never really tend to do that. Virtanen and McCann have both represented Canada and could turn out to be pretty decent players. Forsling had an excellent 2015 World Juniors tournament and was traded for Adam Clendening in late January of that year.

Thatcher Demko has represented the US at a junior level and currently plays at Boston College. Plus he just seems like a fun dude! 

Because Burrows was out with a broken foot after the first game of the season, there was an opportunity to load up the Canucks’ first line. The “Beast Modo” line – comprised of Kesler and the Sedins – led the league in average ice time during their run together. Though the trio was fun to watch, it left a Kesler-shaped hole in the second line. 

In December, the Canucks went 10-1-2. This was their peak. 

January of 2014 was easily one of the worst months of the post-lockout era for the Canucks. Roberto Luongo returned from injury only to get re-injured after a run-in with Dustin Brown. Soon after, the team lost 9-1 to the Anaheim Ducks. In the following game, 3 Canucks were injured, including Henrik Sedin, whose ironman streak ended at 679 games after a shootout win on January 18th. If that date rings a bell it’s because John Tortorella and his Vancouver Canucks played one of the strangest games in franchise history that night. The comically overcrowded penalty box led to a game of comically understaffed benches. Tortorella was suspended for 15 days. 

 

Unfortunately, the rest of the season was anything but forgettable. After Eddie Lack started the Heritage Classic, Roberto Luongo agreed to a trade and he was once again a Florida Panther. Eddie Lack played almost every game after that, including one that saw the New York Islanders scored 7 goals in the third period. 

During a 3-0 loss to Anaheim that would see the team miss the playoffs for the first time since 2008, fans started a “Fire Gillis!” chant. Canucks fans fished their wish and Gillis was let go the following day.

Where to start. The Heritage Classic fiasco was a turning point that should never have been for the Canucks. Almost directly after this, the team bid farewell to the best goaltender in franchise history and the man who had helped to build the most successful and entertaining Canucks team of all time. 

Tom Sestito added nothing positive to the roster but held onto his roster spot due to toughness and his contributions to Tortorella’s famous “moral victories” (losses). Tortorella wanted grit out of his fourth line but did not play them very much, essentially rolling a three line team for most of the season.

The best part about the Torts era is that it ended after one season. Regardless of your feelings towards what came next, another season like the 2013/14 season would have been truly unwatchable, even with a bit more luck and fewer injuries.