Vancouver Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher has been the subject of trade rumours on Twitter. Here’s 51 (Stecher’s jersey number) reasons the Canucks won’t move on from the Richmond, B.C. native.
First and foremost, the main reason Troy Stecher probably won’t be traded by the Vancouver Canucks is because these rumours are nothing new. TSN’s Bob McKenzie went on TSN1040 Tuesday morning and said that he had heard “the same low rumblings” about the Stecher trade rumours that started in June at the draft, and the same low rumblings that he says everybody has already heard. That just doesn’t sound like much of a big deal to me.
A quick little disclaimer. You may find yourself getting irrationally upset at some of these reasons. About 10-20 of these reasons are legitimate reasons why the Canucks shouldn’t trade Stecher; now it’s up to you to decide which those are. Also wanted to give a quick little shoutout to the Vancouver Courier’s Daniel Wagner for his assistance on this article.
Again, the first reason the Canucks probably won’t trade Stecher is that these “trade rumours” are not new. That alone should be enough to convince you that Stecher shouldn’t be traded by the Canucks, but if that’s not enough, here’s 50 more reasons why.
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2. He’s a hometown kid. How many teams can boast success stories of having players who grew up cheering for the team they play on? How many can boast having players who grew up in their city? Not many.
3. He’s a fan favourite. I sympathize with you if you checked Twitter on Tuesday morning. Not only was it the day after a federal election, but people were also going nuts about the prospect of Stecher being traded. It just goes to show you how much fans love this player.
4. He’s a dog person. You can never have enough dog lovers on a team. The more the merrier. You know who else was a dog person? Bobby Orr.
5. He’s underrated. Analytics would suggest that Stecher is actually one of the Canucks’ best defencemen, and the eye test would show you that he hustles harder than almost any member of the Canucks’ defence corps.
6. His trade value is low. Being an underrated and undersized defenceman, Stecher likely won’t hold much value on the trade market. Erik Gudbranson was traded for Tanner Pearson, but it’s highly unlikely that Stecher would yield the same kind of return value in a trade.
7. The Canucks almost certainly get worse if a trade happened. If the Canucks pull the trigger on trading Stecher, they are either getting a third-pairing defenceman back in return, and if they don’t, they would be extremely confident in a defenceman currently in Utica. Maybe Olli Juolevi? Jordie Benn is comfortable playing both sides, after all. But is Juolevi really a huge improvement over Stecher on a team that’s made it clear their goal is to make a playoff push?
8. He’s valuable to the Canucks. The Canucks have been lucky that they haven’t been hit with the injury bug so far this season, but it feels like injuries plaguing the Canucks’ defence is an annual occurrence. Thankfully, they’re better equipped to handle said injuries thanks to the offseason acquisitions by general manager Jim Benning, but Stecher will still be valuable in the event an injury does occur.
9. He can play top pairing minutes. Speaking of annual occurrences, it feels more and more like Stecher working his way up to the first pair happens every year, and every year, Stecher is up to the task. Talk about value.