Great article by Boy Genius who nicely breaks down a big picture view of the franchise. What we are seeing now is a day of reckoning for the cumulative effects of seven years of rudderless roster building. Bit of a depressing read because the Canucks actually have something special with this core. When you’ve done the hard work of assembling elite talent, you should do everything in your power not just to build a good team but to work towards a powerhouse. The Canucks can still get there, they just need to first commit to a vision/blueprint of how they’re going to do it and then stick to that plan. Everyone know this is going to only be accomplished with new management.
For those who don't subscribe to the Athletic, I've pulled some highlights of the article for convenience.
https://theathletic.com/2373679/2021/02 ... ess-dayal/Quote:
For the last seven years, the Canucks have had one toe dipped into mortgaging future assets for short-term fixes while simultaneously dipping the other toe into constructing for the future. The organization’s played it by ear rather than sticking to a consistent plan and the contradictory direction the last two years is the most recent example of that.
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The alternative is that they saw this coming and decided to be aggressive anyway to try making the playoffs. That means they willingly pushed on the accelerator, mortgaging long-term cap flexibility, draft picks and prospects knowing that they would have to take a step back in their endeavour to construct a contender at some point. That would indicate an organization that has a muddled vision. The Canucks are staring at the opportunity cost of that today.
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The Canucks have an incredible competitive advantage with how cheap their best players are. If they hadn’t been impatient with the long-term picture and handcuffed themselves with bad contracts, they would have had the flexibility to be more serious Cup contenders already.
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The inefficient bottom-six contracts will expire in a couple of years and free the team up, but just as the bad deals slide off, the Canucks will simultaneously have to start paying their top players more. It’s not just Pettersson and Hughes this summer — Boeser’s up for renewal in 2022 while Horvat and Miller only have two more seasons after this one before they become unrestricted free agents. Vancouver obviously still has a path to building a durable contender — how could they not with the core group of players have they have? But navigating that path to the finish line won’t be a cakewalk and will take longer than it should have.
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That matters because if Stanley Cup winners like Tampa Bay and Washington have taught us anything, it’s that it can sometimes take nearly a decade for a core to break through and win it all. It’s rare to go all-in for one, two or three years and win the Cup, you typically have to carve out a long runway for yourself as a sustainable contender.
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Since reconstructing their front office in 2014, the Canucks have consistently cut corners on a traditional rebuild in the pursuit of a quick turnaround. That lack of commitment to a long-term plan is why the team still has a ways to go to build the kind of formidable roster that can realistically contend for a Stanley Cup.