The immediate future of Vancouver’s unrestricted free agents is a popular topic right now. Really, it’s been a popular topic since about April 26th, 2015, the second-last time the Canucks were embarrassed by the Calgary Flames. Fan optimism goes a long way in colouring the markets view, and on a per person basis there can be any number of different takes on the matter at hand.

There are a few different players that these conversations encompass: Dan Hamhuis, the hometown guy and usually reliable defender, not to mention all around great human being; Yannick Weber, the power play specialist with zero goals and a ticket to Utica; Brandon Prust, the twitter smack-talking pugilist whose love of hugging could not steer him clear of the waiver wire; and of course, Radim Vrbata, the stone cold sniper who has brought none of the stone and all of the cold to his game this season.

That last fella, Vrbata, is the one that I want to talk about the most. He’s an interesting case, because Canucks management is tasked with doing all they can to sneak into the playoffs this season and letting go of a goal scorer at the deadline would severely hamper that pipe dream.

Here’s the thing: at this point, the Canucks wouldn’t need Vrbata even if they were trying to push for a playoff spot.

Following the loss to Calgary on Saturday, the woeful Canucks are sitting with 52 points in 52 games – good for an uncontested 24th place in the league standings (or, if you’re of the right frame of mind, 7th on the draft board – hello Olli Juolevi!). Math tells me that there are 30 games remaining, and wishful thinking tells me that the playoff bar is going to be about 92 points, with an unimpressive crop of Western Conference teams shooting for the final wild card spot.

This leaves the Canucks needing 40 points in the remaining 30 games. That could potentially be a stretch record of 18-8-4, but armed with the knowledge that the Canucks like to lose about a quarter of their games in extra time, it’s probably more like 16-6-8.

Is that doable? Sure! In the sense that it’s not impossible. Is it probable? No, not really at all.

I’m okay with this. This is fine. It’s been a long road, but I have come to accept this, and really, you should too.

I was never a part of #TeamTank, nor was I ever convinced that this was a playoff team. I was more of the “let’s see how this goes, maybe they’ll Calgary their way” kind of mindset. Well, it went terribly. That was clear quite a while ago. Sure, the injuries allow for a little extra denial, but now that we’ve seen these Canucks at full health, denial has been sent to a farm upstate where it can run down and play with other psychological mechanisms that have outgrown their usefulness.

So, since the playoff race is clearly speeding out of reach, we really should have no fear that this management group will do anything besides dismantle its excess parts and ship them off in order to accumulate assets for some brighter future.

Of course, there’s always this:

I’m not the type that typically grinds this regime and assumes that they will choose the worst option at any given opportunity, but this does strike a wee bit of fear in my heart. The idea that a marketable player like Vrbata would be kept on to help this sad sack team make a hopeless run for the playoffs, when he could be fetching beautiful things like prospects and draft picks, is unsavoury, to say the least.

So here’s the plan: convince Jim Benning (and anyone else that still thinks that the Canucks could make a playoff push) that they can still try to salvage this season without Radim Vrbata. Because, seriously, he’s not making any difference.

Ever since Henrik Sedin got injured, the Sedinery has slowed down a considerable amount. That’s alright though, because the second line just happened to catch fire at around the same time. When Bo Horvat scored that ugly goal against Arizona on January 4th, everyone hoped it would open the floodgates, and it certainly did. The line of Horvat, Sven Baertschi, and Vrbata was one of the league’s hottest trios in the month of January. Yet it’s been largely a two-man show.

During the month of January, Horvat and Baertschi combined for 11 goals. Of those 11, their frequent linemate, Vrbata, assisted on just two. At even strength in January, Horvat, Baertschi and Vrbata had four, three, and zero goals respectively.

It’s not even just about goals. If you wanted to break down the line into their stereotypical offensive roles, maybe you’d have Horvat as your puck retriever, Baertschi as your set up man, and Vrbata as your finisher. In those roles, the individual shot rates shown in the table below would make sense. Vrbata has the highest, followed by Horvat, followed by Baertschi.

When you move along to scoring chances, the order stays the same, but the gap between each successive forward thins. Finally, we look at high-danger scoring chances, and suddenly Vrbata falls off a cliff. There’s a simple explanation for this: Vrbata’s shots come almost exclusively from outside the low slot.

Now to an extent, this is just Vrbata’s style. He’s a volume shooter and often shoots from a distance. But even for him, this number is surprisingly low. This season, Vrbata is creating high danger scoring chances at his lowest rate in nearly a decade, and January was the worst month of them all.

It’s no wonder his even strength shooting percentage is also the lowest among these three players this season (6.09 per cent, compared to Horvat’s 7.02 per cent, and Baertschi’s stellar 15.69 per cent). Goals have been few and far between for Vrbata this season, but the fact that he can’t buy a goal while riding shotgun with the team’s hottest line for a month? That’s not good.

In fact, the only time in that entire month that Horvat and Baertschi combined to assist on another player’s goal, the scorer was young Jake Virtanen. On January 11th against the Florida Panthers, Horvat, Baertschi and Virtanen shared the ice for all of 34 seconds at even strength. That was all they needed, however, for Virtanen to score this goal, assisted by the pair.

That game, while those three shared the ice, their line’s Goals-For per 60 minutes was 105.88, and they had a Corsi-For percentage of 100 per cent. Is that sustainable? Uhh, no, but I’d sure like to see them try. Remember this magic from the pre-season?

It seems that Willie Desjardins is coming around on this idea. Monday morning at practice, the coach had switched up the lines.

It doesn’t even have to be Jake Virtanen. Down on the farm, there’s a kid who’s piled up 18 goals in 39 games. Shinkaruk, often pegged as a perimeter player, has evolved beyond that this season. While he’s still a bit undersized, he’s an angry little spark plug, thrashing away at opponents on the forecheck, and charging hard to the net.

There’s also Brendan Gaunce, tied for second on the Utica Comets in goals (12) and points (24) in 34 games. The centre-turned-left winger has been playing right wing the past couple of weeks, on a line with Shinkaruk centred by Mike Zalewski, and the trio has been heating up. Just two nights ago, Gaunce potted two goals, including a beauty of a game-tying goal, and an AHL record tying game winner.

There’s also Alex Grenier, even though he’s stuck in a deep funk (his last goal was December 18th), could provide a different and interesting look on Horvat’s right flank.

Heck, I’d even take Linden Vey there right now. Vey, Horvat and Baertschi have been showing solid chemistry on the Canucks second power play unit, plus this move would allow McCann to return to his natural centre position instead of being forced to get spotted in on the wing.

With any of these replacements, it’s hard to argue that the second line would get worse. It’s easier to suggest that, the way things are now, Vrbata is, in fact, dragging the second line down, if he’s having any effect at all.

For this reason, and many others, the Canucks should be dealing Vrbata at or before the February 29th trade deadline. They may get a little worse, or they may get better. The most important thing is to get something in return for an asset that still have value, rather than letting it expire in the summer.

Despite ragging on Vrbata throughout this post, the streaky winger certainly still has value. Cold as he is this season, he’s just a single season removed from a 31 goal campaign. Even with his spotty playoff history, his goal scoring potential is likely still enough to net a relatively high draft pick and/or a decent prospect. That’s something the Canucks need to take advantage of.

If there’s anything to place your hope in right now, it’s that Benning has already shown this season that he isn’t afraid to rid himself of ineffective veterans. With Chris Higgins, Brandon Prust, and Yannick Weber already in or their way to Utica, it’s clear that veterans aren’t getting free passes this year – not even the ones that Benning himself brought on board.

On top of that, Benning has seemingly shifted his attitude in interviews from a total focus on playoffs to doing what is best for the long term success of the team. From an interview last Tuesday:

It does sound a little like he’s begun to talk himself into being a deadline seller. Of course, as the losses mount, it will take less convincing to get there.

Whether you’ve given up on this season, or you’re still hanging on to those playoff hopes, you can get to where you wanna go without Radim Vrbata.