Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks have had a disastrous season. They've had to deal with the Elias Pettersson and JT Miller situation which led to the eventual Miller trade out of Vancouver to the Rangers. Thatcher Demko continues to battle through injuries, Quinn Hughes is currently out of the lineup due to injury and the Brock Boeser contract negotiations seem to be going nowhere.
Although they're in the Wild Card race, it seems like nothing has gone right in Vancouver at this trade deadline was no different.
Vancouver made two moves at the deadline. They traded away Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers in exchange for a 2025 third-round pick. The other move was trading Mark Friedman to Nashville in exchange for future considerations.
I wanted to see more from Vancouver at the deadline and I don't mean buying. It feels like that toxic situation between Pettersson and Vancouver needs to come to an end and if they can't get anywhere with Boeser on an extension, they need to get assets for him.
Elliotte Friedman reported that Vancouver wasn't offered a first-round pick for Boeser which is unbelievably shocking to me. This market was so seller-friendly that Kyle Dubas got a second-round pick for Anthony Beauvillier and Vancouver couldn't get at least a first out of anybody.
I don't think the organization wants to, but I think they should start the rebuild now. The demise of this version of the Canucks is shocking.
They had elite forwards, arguably the best defenseman in the NHL and a Vezina-caliber goalie. They have traded one of those elite forwards, Pettersson looks nothing like the player he used to be and now Boeser looks like he's leaving. Demko can't stay healthy and when he does play, he doesn't look like himself. That leaves Hughes and Jim Rutherford said earlier in the season that if they start a rebuild, Hughes will leave too. It's a disaster and I don't know how they can salvage anything from this group.
They need to pick a direction this offseason and decide if they're going to commit to the group or not. I just feel this was a huge missed opportunity to take advantage of high prices in a year where they don't look like they will do any damage in the playoffs and are struggling with multiple situations on the roster.