No NHL franchise inspires existential dread quite like the Vancouver Canucks.
I found myself banging my head against my desk, asking “Why, Vancouver?” as recently as Sunday, when the Canucks fell 5-2 to the then league-worst Flames.
It was their sixth loss in seven games, and their last opportunity to shut me up before American Thanksgiving.
They’ve only won twice in regulation in their past 17 games, and the nature of most of these losses is as Canucksy as you’d guess. Oh, you know exactly what that means? Isn’t that irredeemable in itself?
And do you know what this also means dear reader?
There’s a high probability Vancouver will trade Quinn Hughes.
Yes, that’s right. Quinn Hughes. The team captain and the winner of the 2024 Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman. He’s been long-rumored to be on the block – a reunion with brothers Jack and Luke in New Jersey has often been discussed – and the Canucks’ struggles appear to make that a likely outcome.
It’s a horrific reality that fans in Vancouver have to face. The 26-year-old is star defenseman, a game changer and a player that could be a missing piece to Cup contenders out there.
But wait, there’s more. Worse, though, is the demeanor of the team, the demeanor any fan of the Canucks has come to fear. The players are once again giving us postgame interviews, so haunting you’d think they’re auditioning for Wicked 3.
So, despite my best efforts to talk about and think about literally anything else, it’s officially time to clock in for my seasonal shift at the Yelling at the Vancouver Canucks Factory. Judging by their recent contract extension history, at least they might give me overtime pay – or maybe they’ll tell reporters that they’d be shocked at how no one else wants me. Tough to say.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a Canucks fan, and my issue isn’t with the losing. I consider myself the girlfriend who goes to a different school of the Canucks fanbase. I appreciate the intensity, wit, and self-deprecatory humor of the fanbase, and I’ve long appreciated the Canucks media contingent.
I care, but I’m not sitting here, banging my head against a desk because the team lost, or because the team keeps losing. It’s not even that the Canucks were supposed to be good this year – I could say that about the Leafs, or the Rangers, or even the Blues.
I am particularly frustrated with the Vancouver Canucks for employing a front office so incompetent that our hottest takes aren’t even hot enough. I am frustrated by how this franchise has turned that 2023-24 beacon of hope into a joke, a circus, and a complete nightmare.
No matter how I try to spin it, no matter how I’m trying to see the “greater good” of the situation, I simply cannot get over it: What do you mean I have to sit here and write about how the Canucks are probably going to trade Quinn Hughes?
I tried to reject this premise on absurdity alone, but at a certain point, I had to accept that the Canucks are likely going to trade Quinn freaking Hughes, completely due to the front office’s failings.
Again, this isn’t just a case of an underperforming team that was supposed to be good. This is the existential dread of the Canucks that has us groaning in a fetal position: Why?
It doesn’t help that the team president, Jim Rutherford, continues to talk about trading him, on top of the fact that he’s looking to trade anyone over 30.
Why have they lacked strategy and hoped for the best for the past few years when it comes to goaltender Thatcher Demko’s health? Demko is one of the best goaltenders in the league when he’s healthy, but his injury health is what it is, and the Canucks extended him as their No. 1 goalie for three more years. Early this season, he’s already endured some maintenance absences and now a lower-body injury that’ll keep him out for around three weeks. He has had injury issues for years, and it’s not his fault, but the front office is at fault for assuming the best and putting more pressure on him in the process.
Why did they let some thinly veiled beef between teammates end in trading away a 100-point scorer, J.T. Miller, in a disaster that should’ve been mitigated long before Miller and Elias Pettersson inked their contracts? If the two couldn’t get along to the extent of the team falling apart, why were both players extended in the first place?
Why did Rick Tocchet, a coach who won the Jack Adams award with the Canucks, leave and not sign an extension? Why did he enter last season as a lame-duck in the first place?
Why, I’m sorry, do you trade for a player like Evander Kane if you aren’t making the Stanley Cup tomorrow? Why are you clearing cap space for the Oilers and adding cap space (and controversy) to your roster?
Look, I could go on with the questions that are making us all bang our heads on our desks, but I think we’re all tired of it.
Why don’t we ask not what trading Quinn Hughes will do for the Canucks front office, but why the Canucks front office has to trade away the best defenseman in the NHL in the first place?
If the Canucks fumble Quinn Hughes — and it sure looks headed that way — it’ll be the worst thing that ever happened to this franchise. This time, they’ll have no one to blame but their own baffling decisions.
