Should The Vancouver Canucks Blow It Up? | SDP

Should The Vancouver Canucks Blow It Up? | SDP

So, what do we think about Jim Rutherford sending out a memo to NHL team saying there are veteran forwards available on the Vancouver Conucks currently? Now, Rick Dollywal uh of Donnie and Dolly in Vancouver drilled down on this a little bit more and it seems like the Evander Kane experience in Vancouver is almost over. Uh he’s got five to six goals in his last like 50 to 60 games. Um and remember, they had to move guys out to bring that salary in. Mhm. Uh Kefir Sherwood is on fire and he’s great. He’s been great and he’s a forward that’s a UFA that makes less than $2 million. But is he? Yeah. Yeah. He’s a UFA makes less than 2 mil and he’s had the start that he’s had and he’s almost Oh my god. Here’s the thing though, balancing that, you have Jim Rutherford talking about Quinn Hughes and his agent, what the Conucks want. The Canucks are like, “Well, we know what we want.” And he’s like, “Quinn knows what we want, but you know, people make decisions.” Oh, dear. And you know, I’m hearing Yeah, I’ve seen some Vancouver shows today say that anybody else, anybody around Quinn right now is saying he’s committed to Vancouver, doesn’t want to go anywhere. But as we know, uh, if Vancouver starts trading too many vets, uh, we’re in a retool scenario and does Quinn want that? And so I’m curious to think or curious to know what you guys think about the Vancouver Conucks currently? I I I want to reiterate that on Monday I mentioned two seasons ago they had Miller, Horvat, and Elias Patterson down the middle. They now have one of those guys and he’s the least performing one. Well, actually, no, he’s doing better than Miller this year. He’s doing better than Miller. Horvat’s going off. Horvat’s amazing. I I I can’t remember. Horvat was traded because he didn’t get along with Miller, too. Like, was that what There was a fight there. There was That was I mean, that was the rumor. Um, well, with Vancouver there, there are a lot of rumors about what goes on in the room and not a ton confirmed. So, if you’re Quinn Hughes and you look at that roster two years ago that took Edmonton, eventual Stanley Cup finalist, to seven games, I swear to God, if Brock Besser had been playing in game seven, they might have won. That’s a big what if. Um, you look at that roster and you go, look at that compared to what I have today. This is the same management group. We’ve now lost our our head coach uh who I really loved, Rick Tockett, who didn’t want to be there. It wasn’t that they fired Rick Tocket. Rick to Target was just like, “No, I don’t think so.” I’m curious about how this all plays out. How does Vancouver, Jesse, and Steve spin this mini selloff, if it is in fact happening? I mean, he sent out the damn memo. How do they spin this into a good thing for Quinn Hughes and keeping him around long term? Uh lying if you like want the literal answer like well I mean like winning trades is it like you know what what do you do here? Cuz a Vander Kane can’t have a ton of value. He for sure would definitely would but I would have questions about Ke for Sherwood outside of the system he’s playing in. Is he going to be able to replicate that on another team? He was a crazy hitter in Nashville and then I think he just got a better opportunity, continued to be a crazy hitter and scored more goals, right? So I think that’s a pretty repeatable skill um that he could do pretty much anywhere. Like that’s exactly the kind of guy NHL GMs will line up to overpay for. And you better hope someone overpays for him because everyone else has no moves. You’re screwed, right? I don’t I don’t see them being in rebuild territory, though. Like, this has been the frustrating thing with the Canucks for the last half decade plus is I don’t think they’ve ever been bad enough or even close to bad enough to really consider a full-blown rebuild. They’ve had the talent. Listen to the guys you just mentioned, Horvat, Miller, and Person. And I’m not even sure they made the playoffs every year. Look at I don’t think they did. Look at the the list of injuries. Heedel’s out. Forbert’s out. Holander’s out. Uh blue. Let’s back up and do this slowly because Okay, I have something to say. Philiped is out. That’s the free space. He’s always out. When the Flyers got Ryan Ellis, what did I say? I was like, I’m I feel horrible for the guy that he got hurt again, but as of late, the thing he does most in his career is get hurt. Philip Heedle didn’t ask to be like crushed a couple times, but he’s prone. He’s prone. This happens. Oh, we’re, you know, this guy, this guy who doesn’t play a full season in the NHL is not playing a full season in the NHL and now we’re without. And we just lost Pew Sudter, which was a pretty big loss for us. Yeah, man. That’s poor planning. This was always going to happen. For Okay. Uh, Hoglander. Okay. Well, that’s a guy you wanted to pitch out the door anyway. Bluger. That hurts. Demco and Lincolnin. Yeah, that’s devastating. And you don’t have Archer Seavs backing them up anymore. Completely devastating. Yeah, that’s tough. That’s bad. So, I’m I’m I’m just like, listen, if he’s saying this, who the hell is a net? Uh, who is a net? I’ll give you the names in just a second. I know Lincoln has gone to Peter. Uh, you could do worse. Like, I don’t know in terms of third stringers, you could do worse. But you’ve got I some of the guys I look at at this roster and I’m like, well, that’s there’s some value here, right? like there’s good players and and you know I know Allan was tweeting this weekend about um I think there was a reference to Philip Ronic made and he was like he’s got a no move guys he’s not waving it right right right u now you can have guys wave no move clauses I just don’t get the sense that Ronic is uh I think Allan tweeted that I didn’t even ask Allan um but I’m making the assumption Tyler Myers is a name teams would sign up for a a gigantic rightot tree Right. You got to preface it with that’s a name. That’s a name. It’s probably not the best. Yeah. K there Pierre Dorian. Uh there’s the other Elias Patterson. The Elias Niels Patterson who is a left shot defenseman on your bottom pair. I think they got to trade him enough. I’m sick of there being two on the same team. Could that’s the only reason by the way. He’s a fine player. Could Connor Garland’s name be out there? Like I’m trying to say like if they’re going to talk about is David Comp on the trading block. I’m like you know what if we’ve if this is what they’re really going to do Besser just signed to stay. Patterson’s locked in. I have a hard time thinking they would trade Jake De Brusk because that was a big get for that organization. Yeah. So that leaves Camp or sorry Camp Kane Garland uh Kefir Sherwood Drew O’ Connor like who are you moving? I mean, Sherwood’s the If you wanna if you I I think you have you have two missions here because you don’t got to pitch everyone out the door. Yep. And we spend the hockey world spends an inordinate amount of time talking about the guys the Canucks are going to trade and then they don’t. Mhm. You know what I mean? So, I think there’s two things you got to do if you’re going to accept that this is a retool year. Get Kane out the door somehow. Maximize what you get for Sherwood. Everything else beyond that, I don’t know. Don’t get shitty value to get a guy to wave his no move. If you get good value, fine, right? Your team won the Calder Cup last year. Um, I’m sure you could, you know, graduate guys around the edges. Don’t go sell on the farm, though. I I don’t think they’re in that position. Okay. I I’m just I’m confused at what they’re trying to do. I don’t know. I don’t know what they want. I have no idea. I think that’s where I think the conversation should go with the Vancouver Conucks is the confusion of what they’re supposed to do and the fact that I don’t think Francesco Aqualini is a great owner. I think he’s meddling in every single part of this organization. Bleacher Report, it’s actually like on his Wikipedia page. I was reading about him yesterday. on his Wikipedia page is a Bleacher Report article where he’s listed as one of the seven most meddling owners in pro sports. He’s on this list with like Dolan and Jerry Jones, which I think is appropriate for him to be all pro sports. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. In North American pro sports, he’s one of seven on that list. appropriate ways and how much he’s involved and what from the top down to the players, how much chaos there has been within the Vancouver Conucks. Here’s Sorry, go ahead. And I think that also uh bleeds into Jim Rutherford and how he’s run this team. Cuz you look at Jim Rutherford, he’s been there since the end of 2021. What has he done other than had a really good 24 season where everything worked in that 24 season? They got 51 starts out of Thatcher Demco. That’s probably never going to happen again just based on Thatcher Demco’s track record. As soon as he signed that deal, I was like, “Are you sure?” These all these players played 80 games or more for the Canucks. Hoglander, Garland, Hronic, Besser, Person, Hughes, and Miller. Damn. Extremely healthy. They win the division. They have a good 24 season. They beat up on a Nashville team that we now know are paper tigers and they lose to the Edmonton Oilers in seven games. I don’t know about beat up. Na Nashville like outshot them most nights, right? Uh they won. Adam had to stream that godforsaken series. That’s why I looked at it. It was the worst. Adam hated it. And yes, I think Nashville somehow did. But the Canucks would win like three nothing on 12 shots. Right. So they were like Carolina but bad. Yeah. And and Nashville couldn’t score. They just had no finish. So, they have that really good 24. Outside of that, Jim Rutherford’s been there for a couple seasons. Uh, in those seasons, he’s missed the playoffs, missed the playoffs, missed the playoffs. And then we look at how the organization has been run since he’s been there. It’s been chaos from the players in locker room to on the ice and everything. I don’t trust the Aqualinis or Rutherford to write this ship. And I don’t think the decisions that they’re going to make here are going to move this franchise forward because in the long term I don’t trust these guys to put this franchise in a good position to win. I’ll stick up for Rutherford. Uh and but while agreeing with you that he hasn’t done the best job, uh I think he’s done the best job he can because if we’re to believe everything that we hear about the Aqualinis, yeah, they’re in they’re in trouble. You bring in uh an executive I mean he’s in the Hall of Fame already. M you bring in an executive like Jim Rutherford to keep ownership at bay and he managed for a bit. He did and he has gotten them to open their wallets, you know, in in certain situations. The Demco deal and they they never getting with betting too like they always spent. They’re just on the wrong people. They always want to spend. Yeah. I like Jay Beagle at three and a half. They want to spend sometimes when it comes to like building a practice rink. They are the only team in the league without a what is that doesn’t even make sense. And your specialty, the way you made your money is real estate. You build [ __ ] for a living. You’re an NHL team without a facility to practice at. And the expansion PWHL team has one. Yeah. If things seem as volatile and chaotic as they did before Rutherford even got there, well, what’s the common denominator? The common denominator is ownership. And it’s the worst position to be in because like we’ll sit here and talk about the sabers sometimes and we’re like well what if they and the conclusion we usually get to at the end of the conversation is it’s a waste of breath because it all comes back to ownership. Yeah. And this is how a lot of leave conversations go. Like my frustration with well I want them to change this. Well this is how MLSSE does things and at least there’s a bit of a track record of like well the Raptors are doing well. Hey, the only and the Blue Jays are doing well. Blue Jays are doing well. And the Blue Jays aren’t part of MLSSE, but yes, they are. The only time that I’ve heard of Ed getting involved was that he thought Messiah Jury was making too much money. Like other than that, he doesn’t and it’s the first opportunity they got to fire him, they did. And look at the team now. Great decision, Rogers. He’s great stuff. I don’t like for the lease, I don’t think it’s on ownership and their decision-making. I blame the front office a lot for that stuff like the president. But with the Canucks, I think you can directly point to ownership and look at a lot of this chaos. Not having a practice facility is one. And I think that’s a large reason like your head coach wants to willingly leave. And I’m glad you brought that up, Adam. And it like I don’t want to start the Quinn Hughes leaving stuff, but people have already started it. And that’s how you lose franchise players where they look at their the place they’re going to settle down for the entirety of their lives and they’re like, I don’t really want to be here. And there’s a lot of other options to play professional hockey and and you got to be really worried about losing Quinn Hughes. You can ch change a coach. You can fire a general manager. Pretty hard to fire an owner. Mhm. Pretty hard to fire an owner and or while the owner is there, change the owner’s ways. You could be an executive in the NHL for 50 years and not get a player like Quinn Hughes. Yeah. He’s the second best defenseman in the NHL. uh behind Matthew Schaefer behind no behind Matia Samson according to the analyst. Uh no actually he’s you know it’s Kale Mar and then everybody else but Quinn is the second you don’t get many guys who are in the Norris conversation every year and he’s worthy of it. Don’t give him an excuse to go. Yeah. And that’s that’s the thing. So, okay, if you if you’ve been bitten hard by the injury bug, and they have been, and it’s a retool year, then then make that clear to Quinn, and you better be good next October. Can I also say Jim Rutherford needs to wear some of this because he might be outside of Barry Trotz, the worst talker in the media every time he’s in front of a microphone, which seems so often. Why is he talking so much? Vancouver’s a hot market for media. Like, they demand that. They really get mad. Say no. You know, like, but and whenever he’s in front of a mic, he always says a ridiculous thing like, “Oh, Quinton might leave.” And like, why are you saying that? For all the talk of how ravenous Canadians are and how ravenous the Canadian hockey media is, executives across this country try to talk their way out of a lot of problems. And like blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And you’re like, “Oh boy, Don Maloney showed up for some reason to chat.” Burjan did it for a while there in Montreal. Um, oh man, Pierre Dorian and and oh my god, they tried to talk there now. Like, listen, I know he’s dead, but every time Eugene Melik spoke, it was worse. Even Michael Anlau, I’m going to get those draft picks back. They really [ __ ] us with that one. Gary, shut up. Gary’s not going to give you anything if you’re talking about him in the media. You know who got his pick back? Lou. because he because he knows how to play the game and and he found out something probably and was able to use that as leverage. I think Lou did. Yeah. No, Michael sent a picture and said, “Are these your size?” And it was just a pair of concrete shoes. Um all of these executives talking like Jim Rothford should know better. Calgary uh Edmonton for a while. They’re not quite as bad as it as no Edmonton’s pretty well. Vancouver, man. They try to talk their they’ve for like all the way back to Benning like they try to talk their way out of everything. Yeah. And we we don’t even realize like we don’t it’s not a it’s not a note when he talks that he’s not even the general manager and he like Jim Rutherford. Oh, I know. But that should be like a footnote on all the things. This is the president talking, not the guy who’s supposed to be making the actual transactions, but we clearly know he is the general manager with the president uh title. It’s ridiculous. Their social media throws me off too because they begin every tweet with Kuck’s general manager Patrick Alvine has announced and I go so and so has been sent down and I’m like what? That’s not by the way that’s not how you begin a tweet about someone was sent down in the minor. Also, nobody nobody talks like that. Like Jacob Quillin was just sent down by the Leafs like right now and it just appeared on the Leafs roster page. Like Brad Living is not announcing that. Like what are we doing? Yeah. Here ye, here ye town crier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m tired of thinking a blockbuster trade happened and all you did was call up nil zaman. It pisses me off. It pisses me off. That second line rightwinger to Leas Patterson in the playoffs, Nils Aman to you. Oh, I know. I’m not criticizing him, but I’m like I thought something juicy was happening and it’s just you called a guy up. Stop saying [ __ ] Forgive me for having no faith in the current Canucks regime to get these things done appropriately and turn this around for this season. I don’t think this is a playoff team right now. And if I’m them, you got to really sell off Kane, who’s going to be UFA, and anything else you can’t that’s not nailed down. And you got to really think about if we’re going to lose Quinn Hughes or not. What are you gonna I think you’re gonna like are people going to pay for a Vander Keane? No. Five million bucks. How many teams? Well, here’s the thing. Uh yeah, like a non playoff team that’s either rebuilding or retool. Oh wait, that’s you. So it’s not going to be So if there’s a team looking for a power forward with some salary retained, I guess cuz he can be a real factor when he wants to be, man. He can. Yeah, but he’s had so many injuries. When the hell is he ever going to want to be? And you know what? You have no idea. There there are guys where it’s like you’ve been on a lot of teams. I don’t know what that means, but you’ve been on a lot of teams. Jim to Washington and can be near his buddy. Who’s his buddy? Cash Patel. Oh, political, which is insane. Um, also, Michael Bubé was commenting on Kuck’s post this weekend. I don’t know if you guys saw that. Man, that guy, he he’s a big Canucks fan, but I actually disagree with him on this. He said, um, reading comments like these, you disagree with my personal friend, Michael. What a [ __ ] fan base we are with fans like us. Karma will always give us what he deserves. Mike, you’re supposed to make the playoffs this year and fans are pissed. They’re allowed to vent. Yeah, but that’s him. That’s him venting, right? He’s pissed. That guy. But he’s mad. He’s not mad at the team that management put together. He’s mad at the fans for being upset that they’ve disappointed. I think that’s Mike talking about what he can control, which is like I think he’s connected to to management there probably and has friends there and is sticking up for them. And that’s fine, but like dude, come on. But fans got to be fans. That is I’m not that type of fan. Uh but a lot of people are. And they’re like, listen, let’s control what we can control, which is our attitude towards the team. Yeah. We can help. And when we get skunked, you need to be positive about it. Some people think that way, man. Lee fans love to tell me that. Oh, I know. Hey, why? Oh, you’re Oh, they’re only seven points out of first place. Yeah, we haven’t even played 30 games yet. Seven points. That’s kind of a lot. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I I know, man. I know. Come on. I’m allowed to I’m allowed to say bad is bad, and I’m not a shitty person for doing that. I don’t like blaming the fans, but like a lot of people think that way. Okay, good for them. Now, stick up for my close personal friend. I think he’s wrong on this one. British Columbia. He could be wrong. I’m I’m your close personal friend. I’m wrong all the time. Do you stick up for me? No. We’ll see. No.

Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde and Jesse Blake discuss the imminent fire sale in Vancouver and who they believe they should move and whether or not it’s time to go full rebuild. ontreal Canadiens and share thri thoughts on what they believe needs to change.

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