The Vancouver Canucks have done a very odd thing since they traded away their captain, Quinn Hughes, and admitted they’re entering a rebuild: they’ve gone on a four-game winning streak to climb out of last place in the NHL.

Now, still not even halfway through the 2025-26 season, the Canucks find themselves just four points out of a playoff spot, with at least one game in hand on each of the four teams ahead of them.

So, uh, I guess congratulations are in order for a successful rebuild. Time to call off the tank and trade that first-round pick acquired in the Quinn Hughes deal for some immediate help, right?

That’s a tad hyperbolic, of course. I don’t think anyone is actually thinking that way, least of all the decision-makers in the Canucks’ front office.

After all, the Canucks may be four points back of a playoff spot, but they’re also just one point out of last place. It will take a lot more than a four-game winning streak for them to escape the gravitational pull of the NHL’s basement.

Besides, the goal isn’t making the playoffs — or, at least, it shouldn’t be. The goal is to win the Stanley Cup, and the Canucks still have a lot of rebuilding to do before they can match up against the likes of the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars in the Western Conference.

Still, if the Canucks extend this winning streak much further, they will do some damage to their tank treads.

But not irreversible damage. It brings to mind the 2021-22 Montreal Canadiens.

After trading Tyler Toffoli that season, the Canadiens went on a five-game winning streak and, furthermore, won seven of eight games. That streak pulled the Canadiens out of last place.

Now, Toffoli isn’t Quinn Hughes, and the winning streak came later in the season when the Canadiens were firmly entrenched in the NHL’s basement, and it also coincided with a coaching change and other factors. But it’s funny to look back at social media from that time, because you can find Canadiens fans concerned that the team was ruining the tank with their winning ways.

Not to worry: the Canadiens lost 19 of their next 26 games, including a nine-game losing streak, to finish firmly in last place, after which they won the draft lottery and picked first overall.

I’m not saying the Canucks’ situation is like the Canadiens’, but I think there’s something illustrative about that team.

The 2021-22 Canadiens were one season removed from going to the Stanley Cup Final. That gave them every reason to believe that they were a good team on the cusp of something great heading into the season. To explain their dreadful 2021-22 season, they could have pointed to devastating injuries and absences as an excuse, as they set an NHL record for the most man-games lost, with key players Carey Price and Joel Edmundson missing almost the entire season.

Instead of making excuses, however, they committed to a rebuild and traded away as many veterans as they could to add prospects and picks.

It wasn’t even that many trades, but it made a difference. Heading into the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, the Canadiens had two picks in each of the first three rounds. They would’ve had three first-round picks if they hadn’t made a panic trade in the offseason to add Christian Dvorak after Jesperi Kotkaniemi signed an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes.

That draft epitomized the truth of Jason Botchford’s exhortation, “We need picks…We need an army.” The point of accumulating picks isn’t the hope that each of those picks will turn into a quality NHL player, but that by giving yourself more darts to throw, you increase the chances that one of those picks will turn into something special.

Late in the second round of the 2022 draft, with a pick acquired by trading Brett Kulak, the Canadiens selected Lane Hutson.

Now, as the Canadiens lead the Atlantic Division three years after he was drafted, Hutson is averaging over 23 minutes per night and has 32 points through 35 games. It’s pretty easy to make the argument that he’s a lot more important to the Canadiens’ success than the first-overall pick they got that year, Juraj Slavkosvky.

All that is to say, whether or not the Canucks are successfully unsuccessful in their tanking efforts this season, the priority should still be to add more draft picks. Lots more. They need more darts to throw in hopes of hitting a Hutson.

Right now, the Canucks have an extra first-round pick thanks to the Hughes trade, but that’s their only extra pick in the draft, and they lack a third-round pick thanks to the Nikita Zadorov trade a couple of seasons ago.

That’s why the Canucks still need to be shopping their veteran players — at least, for after the holiday roster freeze. And if moving out some of those veterans makes the team a little bit worse to get them closer to drafting Gavin McKenna, all the better.