Vancouver Canucks Tanking 101: A Plan of Action

The Vancouver Canucks got a taste of what tanking is when the Toronto Maple Leafs handed them a 5-2 loss last weekend.

The biggest debate amidst a Vancouver Canucks season marked by an appreciable youth movement, stellar goaltending performance, and a couple of broken jaws is… tanking for Auston Matthews?

Well, that’s sad. What happened to the half of the city that thought that the kids had to grow in a safe, winning environment?

Well, the way the Canucks have been playing lately, you can’t blame anyone who wants to tank. I don’t either.

As I kick off this week that will try to unfold everything there is to tanking, I encourage you to comment below as everyone has something to say about tanking. I will try to answer them all by the end of the week!

Back to tanking, we all saw how the Toronto Marlie Leafs are handling the tank: with a win over the Canucks that seemed to shy away from playing their best players in Daniel and Henrik Sedin.

I don’t blame the Canucks much either. Bo Horvat got injured that game, Alex Edler and Brandon Sutter got injured in the past week. Virtually the entire core this season has been hurt some point in the season.

Ryan Miller was out with cramps. Jacob Markstrom was out to begin the season. Henrik was out over two injuries, resulting in Linden Vey making the team. Chris Tanev’s hand has kept him out frequently, making way for Andrey Pedan and Alex Biega.

Dan Hamhuis was out with the facial fracture, too. Sutter was out with a sports hernia and now is pretty much done for the season after sustaining a broken jaw — leading to Alex Friesen’s call up.

Not to mention, Luca Sbisa was hurt for a large portion of the first half, and Chris Higgins was out alongside Brandon Prust for much of the season. Now both find themselves with the AHL Utica Comets. Now add to the list Edler.

So before any actual analysis about tanking, may I suggest that this may be a divine will of the hockey gods that the Canucks should tank? I think Willie Desjardins may be receiving sacred instructions from the hockey spirits. Just look at this ridiculous ice-time distribution.

To kick off #TankNation week while the loss to Toronto is still freshly engraved on our minds here is an overview of what tanking would look like in Vancouver. Enjoy.

Next: Start with the Obvious Names

Start with the Obvious Names

With just five games to go until the NHL Trade Deadline, we all know who is going to be on the market — the veteran pending free agents. Radim Vrbata, Dan Hamhuis, Matt Bartkowski, Yannick Weber, and Brandon Prust are all going to be on GM Jim Benning‘s “To Trade” list.

Now, whether they get any value in return or not is a question for another day. In a nutshell, Hamhuis is worth a first-round pick as a rental, Vrbata is worth a second-round pick, and the rest… what can I say? Weber cleared waivers, Prust cleared waivers… They aren’t worth much.

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This is obviously going to be the first step to tanking, to get the lose-for-nothing players out of Van City for anything in return. This will catalyze the youth movement and the tanking — at least in Hammer’s case. Trading away Bartkowski might actually stall the tanking, and the same for Weber.

This frees up almost $15 million in cap space for the Canucks. The Canucks have some re-signing to do, though, before licking their chops at a potential Keith Yandle, Milan Lucic, or even Steven Stamkos. We will touch on this at the end.

Without those names mentioned as pending free agents this offseason, the Canucks’ lineup will look like this.

Daniel – Henrik – Hansen
Baertschi – Horvat – Virtanen
Burrows – Vey – Etem
Cracknell – McCann – Dorsett

Hutton – Tanev
Sbisa – Bartkowski
Biega – Pedan

You can make the call on how much disparity that is from the Maple Leafs’ lineup as shown below.

Grabner – Kadri – Komarov
Holland – Arcobello – Parenteau
Winnik – Spaling – Greening
Clune – Froese – Boyes

Hunwick – Rielly
Gardiner – Polak
Marincin – Corrado

Firstly, I am not sure who will win. In fact, if the Canucks couldn’t win on Satruday, they probably won’t be able to win without Hamhuis. So there it is, it’s a tanking lineup. But secondly, that is actually not much different from the Canucks’ current lineup, one that already has Vrbata demoted to the fourth line. Bottomline?

The Canucks don’t have enough left in them to “tank” the easy way, by simply off-loading the pending free agents and giving up on just this year’s playoffs. There needs to be a bigger effort than that.

Let’s take it to the next level, shall we?

Next: The Next Level: True Tanking

The Next Level: True Tanking

Shipping out the pending UFAs is not enough to tank properly. Adam Cracknell would draw into the lineup, and he has got to be an upgrade to Radim Vrbata, the way Vrbata has been playing lately. Pedan might be an upgrade to Bartkowski and Weber!

Motivated kids and veterans like Cracknell who is trying to find the second prime of their careers can be really tough to win against, you know.

So what do the Canucks do if they truly need to tank? Ship out more veterans. Hopefully, everyone agrees that shipping out the kids is not an option.

Here we go.

1. Alex Burrows

Burrows is the most natural option to consider trading away. After the no-trade-clause rumbling over the weekend, his name should have surfaced on a few of the GMs’ minds around the league. And especially after this, the 34-year-old and his $4.5 million contract might be up for grabs.

This is an obvious choice. I have felt that Burrows has backed away from the gritty part of the game this season following the Patrick O’Sullivan allegations. In fact, after averaging two minutes of penalty each game from about 2007 to 2010, his past few seasons have plateaued to average just one minute a penalty each game.

This year, Burrows now has 32 penalty minutes in 54 games. That is less than .60 penalty minutes per game. Seems that dropping production isn’t the only reason that Burrows has got to go.

2. Ryan Miller

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This is also a common thought that has surfaced on Twitter a few times this season. With Markstrom making a strong case for the starting role and Miller being equal to the task, one has got to go sometime. That was going to be the summer of 2017 after Miller’s six million dollar contract wears off.

But with Markstrom seemingly ready to handle the number one job already, isn’t selling high on Miller this season the best thing to do?

The Canucks would get even more cap space for this summer and give Markstrom more minutes. No need to worry about a poor goaltending performance to be the cause of an early playoff exit — there will be no playoffs if this is the course of action that Vancouver takes.

3. Jannik Hansen

Now this is where the real pain comes to tanking.

When all these names are gone, Vancouver has just one valuable name not spelled Sedin left on the Canucks that is on the wrong side of 27. And off-loading Hansen makes sense, given how poorly the team would need to play in order to lose the most. Take out the best player that you can touch!

That player on the offence is Jannik Hansen. To be honest, who would be the one name that gets traded to spell “TANK” in Vancouver? The Honeybadger, right? 16 goals and 28 points sure sounds like some trade value to me.

If the Canucks trade all these names in addition to the pending free agents, they would have almost $30 million in cap space for this offseason.

Imagine what $30 million could do.

So what does real tanking bring to the Canucks? An accelerated learning curve for Jacob Markstrom, a lost honeybadger, and not much more. Again, not much left of the Vancouver Canucks to actually try to tank out.

On the other hand, a lot of cash to spend for Mr. Jim Benning and his over-the-top free agent deals.

Next: Day One Bottomline