“If you’re looking at it from a perspective of ‘are the Canucks going to get into the playoffs?’, if that’s the question you are posing to me, then I don’t need to look…I squarely look at number 40. Can he will this team anywhere? Because without a number one center, you’re not getting there. It’s that simple. As good as it was to see Chytil score two goals against Calgary, without a true number one center, you’re just not getting in there. So you can look at Petey and say, can Petey pull this team in the direction it needs to, we’ll have enough depth scoring, we’ll have enough penalty killing attributes, hopefully the power play can click, hopefully DeBrusk & Boeser will score their 25-30 goals each, then that should be enough to get Vancouver there, if they have a number one center.” Hansen said.
He added, “After three games, they don’t. And that’s very harsh because it’s only three games in and I started out by saying ‘why are we doing this already?’, but the sample size we have from last year, the year prior is more of the same right now. That’s the part that’s a little bit worrying.”