Canucks: Where does the team go from here in the offseason?

With that said, the rebuild and solid drafting by the Benning regime have landed a young core to build around. The core-five, including Pettersson, Hughes, Brock Boeser, Bo Horvat, and goaltender Thatcher Demko is as good of a young core as any in the league. However, the organization must do better in surrounding them with enough talent. It is already bad enough they could not weaponize the cap space while their stars were on their entry-level contracts. But now that the duo of Pettersson and Hughes need extensions this summer, the team must surround them with players that can take the burden off of the young players’ shoulders.

The Canucks need to count on hitting on their later draft picks in order to have contributors that are not only still on entry-level contracts, but can also be used to build around the core. The team simply can’t afford to pay bottom-six forwards upwards of three million dollars annually on multi-year contracts and expect to have a balanced lineup with depth at all positions. When it comes to overall team construction, a team with their stars already paid, the front office must be creative when it comes to filling out the roster.

First, drafting and accumulating draft picks is essential. The more draft picks an organization has, the more likely the team can develop them into NHL contributors. Look no further than the Toronto Maple Leafs; young players like Zach Hyman, Pierre Engvall, Justin Holl, Travis Dermott, and Ilya Mikheyev surround their core with cheap contracts that mostly came up in the organization.

The 2016 and 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins are also a great example of this. With their core already in place, they had young players on entry-level contracts such as Jake Guentzel, Matt Murray, Conor Sheary and Bryan Rust contributing at high levels.

Lastly, going right back to last year’s Stanley Cup champion, the Tampa Bay Lightning enjoyed incredible contributions from players like Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergechev, Erik Cernak, Pat Maroon, Carter Verhaeghe, and Zach Bogosian while they were on entry-level contracts or league minimums. Gone are the days where Stanley cup contenders spend big money on bottom-six forwards. Cheap depth wins championships.

Whether or not Benning is the person at the helm this offseason, the Canucks must change their approach to roster construction. The fact is that the young stars need legitimate help, and the current construction of the roster just hasn’t gotten the job done. Losing key contributors like Toffoli and Tanev was a gut punch to the Canucks’ playoff hopes this season. There’s no sugar-coating is.

And as the team heads into the offseason, there isn’t much wiggle room to make drastic changes, but they can, however, still make smart changes.