Vancouver Canucks gameday: Putting the 'Flow' in Florida

The Vancouver Canucks lost to the NHL’s best team on Saturday but Calder Trophy candidate Brock Boeser – the Flow, as he is coming to be known – scored a thrilling third period goal to give his team a chance. For some fans, it was the best-case scenario.

Even the true believers can’t sing “Don’t Stop Believing” with much gusto these days. The Vancouver Canucks are not a contender; they’re barely even an also-ran. Thirteen points out of a playoff spot, this is a team that would be staring down the barrel of a last place finish if not for the ongoing disasters in Buffalo and Arizona.

At this stage, Canucks fans should limit their hopes to three things: 1) deadline moves that ship out tradeable vets for picks and prospects, 2) a Calder Trophy for Brock Boeser, and 3) the best possible odds of landing Rasmus Dahlin in the 2018 Draft.

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None of these will be easy to accomplish. Vancouver Canucks management has inexplicably signaled an intent to re-sign their tradeable players, especially Thomas Vanek but also Erik Gudbranson.

Boeser can’t seem to make a dent in Calder predictions, perhaps as an unfair consequence of the glut of east coast voters who don’t see him play very often. As for Dahlin, even when the Canucks have well-and-truly tanked, Canuck Luck has dictated that the team inevitably cannot win the lottery.

And so, another dismal season rolls on, as the Canucks visit Florida for a matchup against a Panthers team that, like Vancouver, cannot seem to get on the right track. A highly-anticipated heavyweight duel, this is not. But these games matter, in their own way, so let’s take a look at three key storylines to follow on Tuesday night.

The Repatriation of Erik Gudbranson

The Vancouver Canucks and Florida Panthers have a history of big trades, which is interesting, given the mediocrity in which both franchises appear to be mired. Among the players facing their former teams on Tuesday are both likely goaltenders – Roberto Luongo and Jacob Markstrom – and Canucks’ former first-round pick Jared McCann and the ship that passed him in the night (and stared menacingly, we presume) Erik Gudbranson.

The latter deal is still an ugly looking thing from the standpoint of the Canucks. With McCann settling into a depth scoring role for the Panthers, typically centering Florida’s third line, Gudbranson is arguably Vancouver’s worst regular defender and would be a candidate for a healthy scratch if the team weren’t so desperate to showcase him in advance of a trade.

Or so we thought.

Now it seems general manager Jim Benning wants to keep Gudbranson. As my colleague Alex Hoegler reported, this is a very bad idea.

It’s hard to know whether Benning is posturing to try to raise the price of an asset that, frankly, isn’t in demand, or whether the Canucks’ GM really believes the team needs an old, slow, expensive defender that even many of the old-school pundits are calling a ‘depth’ player. Much ado is made in Vancouver about Gudbranson’s size, but few who have watched the team this year have been wowed by his big hits (they are rare) or his ability to clear the front of the net (uncommonly sighted).

So what will happen with Guddy?

One team that he has been regularly linked with is – you guessed it – the Florida Panthers. Gudbranson goes back with Panthers GM Dale Tallon, an old-school guy who likes Guddy’s grit (and allowed both Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith to go to Vegas, where they have combined for 91 points, oops).

Canucks fans can only hope Gudbranson comes out truculent on Tuesday and puts on a gritty display of bangers and grits while gritting his teeth directly at Dale Tallon, otherwise it could be a very unhappy trade deadline in Vancouver.

Picks and prospects, please, unless Jonathan Huberdeau is available.

Measuring Sticks

Saturday night in Vancouver, the Canucks hosted the best team in the NHL, the Tampa Bay Lightning. They had an almost fully-healthy roster, and played a pretty good game. At no point could you say they weren’t going full tilt, playing to the top of their capacity. And they lost.

The Bolts didn’t have their best game, but even on an off-day, they are a better team than the Canucks. It was a clearer sign of the times than a big blowout might have been. A blowout can be blamed on lack of effort, the game getting away, etc. But in this case, the Vancouver Canucks really put together a decent game, and it just wasn’t enough to compete with the best.

It was the sort of game that should have laid bare the desperate need to accelerate the rebuild.

I like Vanek a lot. I love the little things he does to make plays. I appreciate the positive impact he has had on young players like Boeser, and I like the fact that he took an active role in re-orienting the Canucks powerplay. I absolutely love watching him take a slap shot from the hash marks on a breakaway and mutter to himself all the way to the bench.

I also think the Canucks need to trade him and get as good a return as possible, in picks and prospects. Some contender will take a chance on him and it is the Canucks’ best opportunity to add assets.

Vanek, Gudbranson, Chris Tanev, and any other veteran players who can be moved at the deadline must be dealt, and young players with real potential need to be given an extended opportunity to grow into NHL players. Jake Virtanen, Nikolay Goldobin, and the AHL’s leading goal scorer Reid Boucher should all be getting consistent minutes with the Canucks over known quantities like Nic Dowd and Brendan Gaunce, and even ahead of mediocre vets like Brandon Sutter, Loui Eriksson, and Sam Gagner.

This team is a long way from where it needs to be, and Saturday night proved that. It cannot compete in 2018. It should be doing everything – everything – it can to build a team that can compete in 2020.

When Calder Comes Callin’

It wasn’t so long ago that the Florida Panthers had a Calder Trophy winner of their own. In 2015, Aaron Ekblad won the honours, and the future looked bright for the Big Cats. Just a few seasons later, the Panthers are mired, seemingly unable to take the next step forward. To be sure, Tallon’s massive mistake in losing Marchessault and Smith to Vegas was a significant blow. It’s no mystery why they’ve had such a hard time putting together a second scoring line: they gave away two-thirds of it.

Nevertheless, it still seems hard to believe the Panthers are so far out of contention. After all, this is a team that last month beat those same Vegas Golden Knights and then lost by just one goal to the Nashville Predators the next night. The Panthers have shown signs of life; they just can’t seem to string it together.

That being said, they have won their last three games – albeit against the Islanders, Red Wings and Sabres – and though they don’t pose the same challenge that Tampa Bay did, the Canucks can’t afford to take any team lightly.

Of course, at this point in the season, there are certainly Canucks fans who have committed to “team tank,” the community of fans who prefer to take a longer view of what success looks like. To these fans, winning a meaningless game against the Florida Panthers in a forgettable losing season is less important than securing the best odds of winning the draft lottery.

It may go against the natural instincts to cheer for a loss, but team tank has a point. Still, there are reasons to actively cheer for the Canucks, and one of them is our own Calder Trophy candidate Brock Boeser. Since Boeser typically plays on the west coast, sportswriters out east rarely stay up to watch him play. This helps explain why Matthew Barzal still has a commanding lead in the Calder race.

But Boeser turned heads at the All-Star Game, winning both the accuracy shootout and the game MVP award, and his rookie season continues to keep pace with some of the greatest rookie seasons in the modern era. He may not be able to keep it up, but he almost certainly deserves to win the Calder, and that makes every game on the east coast important.

On Saturday, with the Canucks down by two to the best team in the league, Boeser went end-to-end and buried a wrist shot behind a Vezina candidate goaltender with no screen. It was a goal scorer’s goal, as pure as anything you will see in today’s NHL.

So there are still reasons to cheer for the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. I mean, unless you want to cheer for a Boeser hat trick in a 4-3 loss. I’m not gonna step in front of the tank.

Predictions

Alex: 4-3 Canucks

The Panthers passed on a chance to bring back Jaromir Jagr off waivers. What goes around comes around.

Scott: 5-2 Panthers

Boeser gets 2 while Nilsson plays an awful game. The Canucks predictable system will be picked apart by Barkov, Huberdaeu and Ekblad. And just to rub salt in the wound, Vrbata and McCann get goals.

Andrew: 3-1 Canucks

The Canucks are having their fun in the sun, which lead to some more inspired performances! Granlund will score, and Marky Mark will get the start against his former team.

Chris: 3-2 Canucks

The Canucks have looked pretty good since becoming fully healthy. Horvat has gotten fully up to NHL speed now and will score. Expect a goal from a defenceman like Stecher or Edler and a decent game from Markstrom.

Next: Vancouver Canucks top prospects of week 16

Tyler: 4-2 Panthers

The long lurch towards the end of the season has begun and the Canucks will find it hard to get much mojo going in these games. Bo and the Flow will play well again and each will score in a losing effort. The best news of the night is that Gudbranson gets a big hit in on one of Florida’s forwards and Tallon notices.

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