5. Vancouver Canucks
I’ll say one thing for the Canucks – at least they actually went and fired Jim Benning. It should’ve been done years ago, but better late than never, as they say.
It seems like the Canucks are close to done their rebuild, but still need another piece or two plus they need time for their young players to mature. Jim Benning made a mess of the roster, but at least it’s not as bad as his counterpart Dean Lombardi did in San Jose prior to Mike Grier taking over.
In the offseason they beat out a number of other teams – including the Oilers – for the services of Russian Andrei Kuzmenko.
As always we’ll start with their forward lines. The first line of Nils Hoglander flanked by two great vets in Bo Horvat and JT Miller looks like it will be a pretty good one eventually. Horvat and Miller are off to their usual good starts, with 14 and 12 points respectively in 12 games. Hoglander is proving to be the achilles heel on the line in the early going only mustering up two assists in nine games. However, he is a tender 21 years old and has a mere 125 NHL games to his name, so he doesn’t have a lot of experience. A former second round pick, the Canucks are obviously high on Hoglander or they wouldn’t be playing him so high up the lineup.
The second line consists of the aforementioned Kuzmenko, Elias Pettersson, and rescue dog Ilya Mikheyev plucked from the toxic TO Maple Laffs. Kuzmenko is already paying dividends for the Canucks, putting up 11 points in 12 games, including seven goals. Pettersson actually leads the Canucks in points, with 15 in 12. Mikheyev has seven points in nine games, which has pushed top six staple Conor Garland to the bottom six.
Playing with Garland is some random named Sheldon Dries, who hasn’t done much of anything in the league, he has a single assist in four games. There’s also Tanner Pearson, who has five points in 12 games. Garland has six points in 11, both reasonable for bottom six players.
Hampering Vancouver right now is there are five players currently injured for them, including top sixer Brock Boeser.
This means that to an extent the bottom six is in flux as guys who wouldn’t normally be there are there. That would explain why the fourth line center is Nils Aman, a nobody AHL bubble player who is surprisingly doing well with three points in 12 games. His linemates are Dakota Joshua, who has the same three points in 12 games, and Jack Studnicka, another AHL bubble player who a single assist in three games.
On D is really where you can see Jim Benning’s legacy of incompetence and is an area that will haunt the Canucks for a long time.
But it certainly is not because of superstar Quinn Hughes, who broke through last year with 68 points in 76 games and is well on his way to besting that total from last year with 10 points in eight games. His partner is NHL journeyman veteran of 875 NHL games, 33 year old Luke Schenn.
The second pairing is Oliver Ekman-Larsson, the worst contract in hockey that Benning stupidly acquired and sent out a bunch of contracts set to expire by last season’s end. If it weren’t for this trade the Canucks would’ve had an additional $10 million in cap space to play with last offseason. Instead they will have to pay Oliver Ekman-Larsson $7.26 million to underachieve for this season plus the next four more. Ouch.
OEL’s partner is ex-Oiler Ethan Bear, who was recently acquired for Vancouver to provide more depth on the blueline so they could push Tyler Myers down to the bottom pairing where he belongs right now. So far Bear has put up no offence in three games.
The bottom pairing consists of left shooter Ryan Stillman (no offence in 8 games) and Tyler Myers, another monument to Jim Benning’s incompetency.
Myers is being paid $6 million for this season and next to underacheive – and Benning gave him a Modified NTC to boot, which makes him even harder to trade. Not quite as bad as the OEL contract, but I’m willing to bet Allvin will be happy when both of these contracts have expired and the Canucks have an extra $13 million plus in cap space.
In goal the Canucks already have a starter calibre guy in Thatcher Demko, but he’s not off to a great start as he sports an .879 sv% and a 3.9 GAA. Ouch.
Backing him up is trade acquisition Spencer Martin. Martin has a mere 12 NHL games to his name so he’s incredibly raw. Expect this tandem to get better as the season gets better.
All Vancouver has to do at this point is two things: 1) Get healthy and 2) Keep drafting and developing. No one in Lotusland should harbour any illusions about making the playoffs, just keep doing what you’re doing. In a way, a lot of losing this season from the health of the team would be a good thing as it would help your draft position and you could get a better player in the draft.
If nothing else at least you fired Jim Benning, you can always comfort yourselves with that.