“Retool a little bit with a hybrid form.”
That was quote-of-the-season material from Patrik Allvin when he put the plight of the plodding Vancouver Canucks into peculiar perspective 10 days after the Quinn Hughes trade bomb dropped Dec. 12 with his club at bottom of the NHL standings.
“We felt the package that Minnesota delivered with the younger players gives us a chance to step back here and retool it a little bit with a hybrid form,” said the Canucks general manager.
What does that mean? A retool and rethink more than a rebuild?
Ownership has also been consumed by pursuit of a playoff position, and with an agreement to travel the rocky roster rebuild road, you just know at some point panic might set in to prop up the club. All those losses. All those empty seats. Maybe that’s why the hybrid assessment analogy lingers.
Getting younger means eventually getting better, but that will be a long and painful process. A hybrid is “combining two different elements — a mixture.”
It describes the remarkable Buffalo Sabres season and ending a league record 14-season playoff absence. They built around an impressive young core and high-octane offence with key trades for veterans to add support for more than a one-and-done post-season presence.
When rookie blueliner Tyler Myers won the Calder Trophy in 2010, the Sabres advanced to the post-season and then again the next spring. And then nothing until now. They were 11-14-4 in December and then won 10 straight to match a franchise mark and are flirting with the Atlantic Division lead.
Sabres defenceman Bowen Byram and Brock Boeser battle for puck possession on Nov. 29, 2024, in Buffalo, N.Y.
The streak included a 3-2 victory over the Canucks on Dec. 11 at Rogers Arena and the Sabres are on an amazing 35-9-4 roll after being last in the Eastern Conference in early December.
However, the Sabres have also gone a record 18 seasons without a playoff series victory, so perspective is everything on what this means in the big picture. And what can the Canucks can learn from their expansion cousins and apply it to their rebuild, retool, or whatever you want to call it?
The Sabres roster age averages in the mid-20s, with plus-30 veterans for stability, eight key players are locked up long term contractually, and there’s been a dramatic shift from hope to expectation.
“The one thing that I’ve noticed since we’ve had some success is that teams try to test us a little bit,” Sabres general manager Jarmo Kekalainen, who replaced the fired Kevyn Adams on Dec. 15 when the Sabres were 14-14-5, told reporters. “They’ve been trying to push us around, and I think we added some elements and that’s not going to happen so easily anymore.
“Everybody knows we have a lot of skill, but our guys compete and we’ve shown a lot of character throughout the season. And that’s part of the growth process.”
The Canucks are too easy to play against and that factored into the waiver-wire claim of towering winger Curtis Douglas, 26, an unrestricted Group 6 free agent who has fought nine times this season. That element of toughness can’t go unaddressed next season.
At the NHL trade deadline, Buffalo was on a playoff bound trajectory but added experience and bite in Sam Carrick, Logan Stanley, Luke Schenn and Tanner Pearson. They will protect the seventh-ranked offence, which will have six 20-goal scorers when the playoffs commence. Snipers Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch have 38 and 29 goals, respectively.
The Sabres are also playing harder and better defensively with the second-ranked penalty kill. And with more grit, they’ll be a tough post-season out.
The Sabres had a vision for the future by sending big scoring winger JJ Peterka to the Utah Mammoth last June for right-shot defenceman Michael Kesserling to address a need for an Owen Power partner. It added to previous moves to land centres Josh Norris from the Ottawa Senators and Ryan McLeod from the Edmonton Oilers to bolster the top-six mix and depth.
And the Sabres didn’t part with first-round draft picks in 2026, 2027 and 2028 in acquisitions to help the team now and in the future.
“The guys have worked so hard to get to this point,” said long-serving Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff. “Every month has been pretty darn consistent, and we played a good brand of hockey. We got rewarded.”
“Really proud of the group,” added Tuch, who set the NHL record for shot blocks by a forward with 113 in 2024-25, 10 more than Elias Pettersson has this season. “It’s been a long time coming. It’s my fifth year here and I’m a pretty happy guy.”
Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen denies Jake DeBrusk during the first period of NHL game on Jan. 6 at Buffalo.
Meanwhile, the Canucks have roster riddles to solve before next fall. They’ve scored the third-fewest goals, have allowed the most goals, and the penalty kill is dead last. They will set a franchise record for futility on home ice, where they need to make the most impact for fans to keep the faith as ticket-prices rise again.
So, where do you start? Scoring is of paramount importance, which brings us to Jake DeBrusk.
The streaky sniper has struck for five goals in his last seven games and 16 of 19 goals have come on the improving power play, to rank third overall. At 29, DeBrusk is a financial fit with five more years at an annual US$5.50 million hit. And the salary cap is rising to $104 million next season and $113.5 million in 2027-28.
However, there’s some sense that DeBrusk might benefit from a change of scenery in what he described as his most difficult season. All the losing and confidence-crushing goal droughts of eight and 10 games take a toll. He hit a career-high 28 goals last season and has flirted with the 30-goal plateau on four occasions.
DeBrusk would have trade value but how do you replace the goals in a plan to younger and potentially better? Would the Canucks part with draft picks in the off-season in a package to land a younger gunner? That would signal a rebuild but will there be more hybrid type retool moves to prop up the roster?
It won’t be a quiet off-season.