Vancouver Canucks Tanking 101: A Coach’s Tale
How much more painful can the Vancouver Canucks be to watch?
The Vancouver Canucks seem like they have nothing more to lose. Maybe that is because they actually have nothing more to lose. The way the team has been playing, they deserve the second overall pick — a pity pick. You know, maybe the John Tortorella hiring was to prepare Vancouver of a greater pain — this year’s pain. If the Lost Season still feels worse than how this year does, check again. You are wrong.
In this fourth episode of Tanking 101, the question arises as to how much more painful this season could get. Would everything be alright by drafting in the top-five on June 23rd, 2016 at the NHL Entry Draft? Does tanking, actively or passively, just hurt when the team is actually carrying out? Does it have future repercussions?
After all, Tortorella did fetch the Canucks a Columbus Blue Jacket second-round pick in the near future. One can only hope that this season fetches a high-end prospect. And plus, there is this to consider when looking at the Lost Tortz year:
Was just thinking this feels like the Torts year. Just checked though, Canucks had 63 pts after 56 games with Torts. 7 pts better than this
— Blake Price (@justBlakePrice) February 19, 2016
So the Canucks have played a more painful brand of hockey, but they didn’t make the fans feel as much pain as they did two years ago. If that is true, then the Canucks have set themselves up nicely to tank rather painlessly for the rest of the season. I would attribute this to the youth movement and the veteran presence and performance of the Sedins.
So isn’t that what a nice rebuild is? To inject and nurture youth while the veterans lead the way, making the rebuild not seem as painful as it really should be?
But really, does tanking exist?
To tackle that one crucial question, here it is, the Tanking 101 edition of the Canucklehead Lament, recapping this week’s Tanking 101 and answering the question if tanking really exists.
Next: Defining the Pains of Tanking
Tanking is Painful
The players are not tanking. A $72.5 million payroll is not a tank job by the management or the owners. Then who is the one doing the tanking? How can a team “tank”?
Well, let’s define tanking.
Tanking, in my dictionary, is the act of purposefully losing despite having the ability to win. The result may be a high draft pick depending on the odds, but for sure will be a loss of fans and franchise value. It is painful to tank. Just for example, look at Ryan Miller‘s situation.
G – Ryan Miller
- 35 years old, 12-17-8 record
- .915 save percentage, 2.64 goals against average
- One more year left on a three-year, $18 million contract
He has done tremendously in the past couple of months when the team was struggling the most. Now he is caving in himself, unable to contain the mess that the Canucks have amassed in front of him.
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Aging past his prime, Miller knows that he is not the franchise netminder in Vancouver. The job is Jacob Markstrom‘s to take as soon as Miller’s contract expires, but Miller dare not ask to be traded this season. With the extra year left on his contract, his modified no-trade clause almost becomes redundant for Miller. Just have to wonder if he wants out from Van City after going through a tough period of rebuilding already in Buffalo.
So he can’t be traded, he is getting all the hate from the youth movement folks for going 1-5-2 in his last eight starts while Markstrom has gone 5-2-1 in his last seven, and he still has to play knowing that he is going to be shown the door (or the boot out the door) as soon as next season is over. Heck, he might not last the year if the Canucks plan to trade him as a pending unrestricted free agent!
So you know that Miller won’t be tanking. Not for his own sake. The youth has nothing to tank for, too. They want to grow in the NHL by playing well and earning minutes. The Sedins are too classy to put on a tank job.
Jim Benning even has expressed that he may consider adding pieces at the deadline if the team is still in the running for the playoffs. The owners will never tank unless the management suggests such thing.
So who is going to lead a tank? Who has the ability to lose despite having the ability to win?
Next: Tanking: A Willie Tale
Tanking 101: The Final Verdict
Alright. So if you were following closely the past week, Tanking 101 has gone through everything that I could think of about tanking. Throughout the week, hopefully, I made myself clear that I was not going to take sides in order to give the most objective verdict on “tanking” at the end.
Let us recap before the final verdict.
A true organizational tank would start with selling the pending free agents. Ship out Radim Vrbata, Dan Hamhuis, Matt Bartkowski, Yannick Weber, and Brandon Prust. That gives Vancouver a lot of cap space to go work around names like Milan Lucic, Keith Yandle, Loui Eriksson, and potentially Steven Stamkos. Jim Benning would make himself a tanker if he trades Ryan Miller, Alex Burrows, and Jannik Hansen, adding, even more, space to the offseason cap.
The Edmonton model lacked defense and veteran presence and is taking forever. The Chicago model is a quick turn-around that was lucky. The Florida model was very organic. Veterans, defence — they had it all, and patience was a key to success. Vancouver needs to be patient, take advantage with the luck of Ben Hutton, and start building the core from the backend out.
The true solution to the issue might not be Auston Matthews. It might be Matthew Tkachuk. Luck is great, and tanking doesn’t guarantee anything in the lottery. The odds are just so close to making the Matthews pitch. Just give it luck and time. Hopefully.
Now, Willie Desjardins is the culprit. He is the tanking leader in the organization. Whether he means it or not, I do not know. But he is wasting the winning talent and using a four-line equality that is resulting in a loss of winnable games.
Next: The Top Five Prospects of the 2016 NHL Draft
You know what I say in this Canucklehead Lament? Tanking is for losers. Even if the Canucks had a valid NHL superstar, what will Willie do? Roll four lines, lose more games, and essentially tank. I say no Willie is no tank. And though this season might be almost in the side mirrors, Vancouver, Willie is the root of your problems.