Vancouver Canucks: Dahlin sweepstakes going down to the wire
Following their dismantling of the Dallas Stars on Sunday, the Vancouver Canucks have only made the chase for the best draft lottery odds much more interesting and down to the wire.
The Vancouver Canucks haven’t had many positives this season, but perhaps putting the final dagger in the Dallas Stars playoff hopes on Sunday will bring them some form of joy.
A 4-1 victory means Vancouver took the season series, outscoring Dallas 10-1 over their two meetings in Texas. Remember, this Stars team won 10 consecutive games over the Canucks between 2013-16.
Though the Canucks tuned in another fine effort and won their second game on this road trip, the talk is going to be about how they failed to tank. They’re now five points clear of the last-placed Buffalo Sabres, two up on the Arizona Coyotes and are now tied with the 28th-place Ottawa Senators.
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For the fans on team tank, it gets a tad bit scarier. Vancouver is just two points behind the Detroit Red Wings, and they trail the Montreal Canadiens by three. In short, the Canucks may slowly be creeping their way out of the bottom-five.
And as I detailed here, finishing last isn’t just about having the best odds at landing Rasmus Dahlin. It’s also about ensuring the Canucks pick in the top-four.
But with where they are right now, the Canucks are more likely than not to actually fall down in the draft order once again.
These two Canuck victories over the past four days come while the Sabres have lost six of their last seven, the Coyotes have lost four of their last six, the Sens four in a row, the Red Wings 12 o their last 13, and the Habs 10 of their last 12.
How convenient for the Canucks. Just as they string together a couple of big road victories, the rest of the bottom feeders have to unravel in awful, dreadful slumps this late in the season.
We know the Canucks have way too much pride to tank, like all NHL teams. But we can’t deny how much this team is really hurting itself with these two meaningless victories. The odds of them landing Dahlin are very low if they’re not a bottom-three team.
Not only that, but falling out of the top five on draft day means they will also likely miss out on other franchise blueliners in Adam Boqvist and Quinton Hughes, or big-time scorers in Andrei Svechnikov and Filip Zadina.
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But all eyes are on Dahlin, who will most definitely go first overall in this year’s draft. The Canucks last two victories — coupled with major slumps from the other five bottom teams — mean that the Dahlin sweepstakes will totally go down to the wire.