The Vancouver Canucks made a very serious push to pry the first overall selection at the 2014 NHL Entry Draft from the Florida Panthers. Apparently, they offered the Panthers their first round selection, sixth overall, along with Jason Garrison and Hunter Shinkaruk for the pick. Presumably with the intention of using it on Sam Reinhart of the Kootenay Ice.

Knowing everything we know now about the players involved (Garrison, Shinkaruk and Jake Virtanen) would you pull the trigger on that trade? I’m open to you approaching this any number of ways, but it’s probably best to do so envisioning the Canucks spending that pick on one of Reinhart or Sam Bennett.

It’s an easy yes for me, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts. If not, what might you offer instead?

Last week I asked: Are you committed to an extended rebuild, or would you prefer it if the Canucks made a serious push to make the playoffs?

This is a team in transition, but I am not sure if rebuilding and making the playoffs are mutually exclusive.

By all means try to make the playoffs, players play, they don’t tank. if they don’t want to compete and win, you don’t want them on the team.

Just don’t trade for rentals to make the playoffs.

Continue to draft and develop, sign quality ufa’s to short term contracts to add skill and mentor the younger players.

There is no guaranteed plan to a rebuild. and now with the draft lottery, no guaranteed picks for tanking.

I just want a team that is entertaining and hopefully brings a little more grit. continue restocking the cupboards with good young talent (drafting + college ufa’s), develop the talent in Utica. no quick fixes

With Rodin coming over, an unknown in Larsen, a full season of Tryamkin, and the potential for fewer injuries, I don’t know that we’ll have a shot at being in the bottom 5 again, but that also depends on whether some of our divisional rivals can finally take a step forward.

I don’t think it’s ever time to stop ‘building’, but the rebuild is in progress. If you mean “should we sign a high-priced UFA?” I was torn on it, but I think it’s still premature. We have enough randomness in the roster without adding to the odd, untested logjam.

If you mean “should we gut out the remainder of the 2011 crew?”, then I would say that we need to continue on he path we started: as hard as it may be, we need to clear out the Higgins’, the Burrows’, and the Hamhuis’ (unless we get a bargain basement deal). I would even take it one step further and attempt to move Edler, but I would keep the Sedins for as long as they want to be here.

After that, we just have to keep moving with that model: refreshing aging assets before they lose their value to create the “sustainable winning” Benning referred to.

The Canucks are already at the bottom of the league and will probably be there for a couple more years, so in my opinion this question has already been answered.

Long Game, rebuild.

I would do the exact same thing the Leafs did this year. – Sign useful players to cheap-ish one year deals that you can try to flip at the deadline for picks – Pump up the value of your players by putting them in spots to succeed like the Leafs did with Phaneuf and then trade them. I don’t know if they could convince anyone to take Doresett and Sbisa, but ‘Hodgsining’ them would be a good start. – Don’t buyout burrows, do your best to pump his value – his actual salary next couple years is less than the cap hit. – No matter who you draft, do not put them in the NHL – don’t let them near this tire fire of a team. – Don’t even think about signing Lucic

Basically, full on rebuild with an eye to getting a lot of draft picks and maximizing the trade value of the current roster.

I say you make the team as good as you can make, as fast as you can make it. That takes equal doses of luck and skill.

For instance, a top 3 pick in this draft accelerates the re-build by adding a high-end NHL-ready offensive talent. A 4-6 pick likely doesn’t.

That means keeping and playing the best players you have in your organization and system, regardless of their age – no free rides for youth and no automatic flushing of vets, except on expiring contracts or those who have been played off the team.

It means building through the draft and developing players in the AHL with patience. It means players like Jake Virtanen and Jared McCann should only be on the Canucks roster next year if they have earned it and it means they should be in Utica if they haven’t – and fans shouldn’t lose their minds either way.

Planning to be bad for an extended period of time in the hopes of a savior is a really, really stupid idea IMHO.

in a rational world, whether they make the playoffs next year should not matter so long as the pieces are falling in place. they should focus on developing players instead of shortening their bench. assuming they make the playoffs they will not be contenders so it’s really not a big deal. the franchise does not need the revenue

but this is a canadian hockey market, not the rational world, so i’d like to see it happen to avoid benning having to manage with hellhounds on his trail and to generally delay the inevitable blood sacrifice ritual. in other words, i’d like to see him get lucky and therefore have a fair chance to do his job.

as difficult as it is to rebuild an nhl franchise quickly, it’s worse in canada due to too many impatient fans and too much media scrutiny tying management’s hands. when you are micromanaged and second-guessed and not allowed to have mistakes, you spend too much time justifying your actions and you make decisions to avoid controversy and not because it is what you want to do.

as to whether the canucks can make the playoffs, that depends on injuries and the timeliness of development of prospects. so it’s a complete crap shoot. which is exactly as it should be if management and coaching are doing their job and developing prospects.

This is largely semantics.

The actions by management so far make it clear that they know turning over a large part of the roster was/is necessary.

The team will organically contend again when the time is right.

Anyone who has played the draft simulator knows that it is impossible to do what Pittsburgh & Edmonton did to build their cores without getting ridiculously lucky.

Buffalo tanked hard last year and it got them second under the old draft rules.

Toronto tanked hard this season and they only have a 20% chance of getting the first overall pick.

Even if tanking was once a viable strategy, it really isn’t anymore.

I believe trying to contend for the playoffs every year is the way to go.

Successful franchises consistently,simultaneously build and compete.

We witnessed five years of compete and one year of building with Gillis and Gilman.

We saw Benning compete his first year but rebuild heavily both years.

Not sure what else there is but slowly,competently build and remain competitive-unless you want to risk destroying your club,fan base and franchise.