The trade winds are blowing through Vancouver, and while that might be a nice break from the rain, they can also have a dampening effect on the spirit. Especially when it sounds as though the Canucks are looking to trade off some of their most valuable and popular veterans for future-based assets that might not impact the team for years to come.President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford set off a speculative firestorm when he admitted that the Canucks had contacted the other 31 teams in the league and let them know that they were ready to start trading away some of their more seasoned players. And not merely, as has often been the case in the past, in the name of shaking things up and bringing in some other, different veterans. But for the express purpose of getting younger.Rutherford was careful to dance around the term ‘rebuild.’ But he did say “Whether it’s a younger player or a draft pick, that’s really the direction we need to go in,” and that’s a fairly clear statement of intent.
Rutherford himself hinted, and other sources around the team have mentioned, that the Canucks’ preference at this time is prospects over picks. As in, young players who have already been drafted and somewhat developed, and who might be ready to step into the NHL sooner rather than later.
But is that the right priority? As the Canucks look to build up their stocks of future-based assets, should they be focusing more on prospects, picks, or some blend thereof? That’s the question we are here to ponder today.
It’s not hard to see the Canucks’ perspective here. Given their hesitancy to commit to a full-blown tear-down rebuild, the alternate plan must be to get through that process a little bit quicker. It sounds as though the Canucks intend to sell off some parts, but not all, and attempt to develop a new core that might be ready to compete in about three-to-four years. And if that’s their intentions, players who will already be in the NHL and gaining experience within those three-to-four years have an obvious upside.
But accelerated plans rarely work out well in the sport of hockey. And there is almost always value to be had in taking a longer-term approach.
There are some notable downsides to trading for prospects. First and foremost is the fact that any prospect traded, by definition, is a prospect the original team was willing to give up. We realize there are exceptions here, where a team might give up a prospect it really, really values just to close a trade for a game-changing acquisition. But for the most part, when a prospect is traded, it’s because their original team has had a look at them over the course of their development and decided they could do without.
That’s a tough place to start from, and fans of the Canucks should understand that almost inherently by now. The Jim Benning Era was rife with the acquisitions of ‘reclamation projects’ in the form of young players and prospects who had somewhat worn out their welcome elsewhere. None of them ever really worked out.
There has been some talk of the Canucks having interest in some washed-out prospects already, like Winnipeg’s Brad Lambert. Here we have a 21-year-old that has already struggled to find a permanent spot in the NHL, and who has also struggled to put up consistent numbers at the AHL level. In other words, a player who has already demonstrated some traits that hurt their chances of ever making a long-term impact in the big leagues.
It seems as though the majority of the prospects available to the Canucks might fall into this category to varying degrees. After all, if a contending team had a prospect in their cupboard who looked ready and able to make an impact at the NHL level in the short-term future, why would they trade that prospect? Young players making an impact while still on their ELCs is absolute gold to a contending team.
Draft picks, on the other hand, arrive initially as fully unblemished assets, at their absolute peak of potential. Now, that is potential that can quickly be squandered by poor drafting or poor development or both, as the Vancouver franchise has proven in the past. But of late, that has not been the case for the Canucks.
Under GM Patrik Allvin, the Canucks have actually turned into a very competent team at the draft table. Since taking over, the Allvin Regime has drafted all of Jonathan Lekkerimäki (15th overall), Elias Pettersson (80th), Kirill Kudryavtsev (208th), Tom Willander (11th), and Braeden Cootes (15th), all of whom seem likely-to-very-likely to have long-term careers in the NHL. And that’s not even counting the likes of Ty Young (144th), Sawyer Mynio (89th), Ty Mueller (105th), Vilmer Alriksson (107th), and Alexei Medvedev (47th), who all have at least decent-to-good potential.
That’s an awful lot of future-based value to pull out of just four drafts and just 24 draft selections.
That’s also why we think the Canucks may be better off targeting draft picks over prospects as they begin to sell off veterans in the weeks and months to come. So long as Allvin and Co. remain at the helm through this upcoming re-whatever process, their track record demonstrates that they should be able to get the most long-term value out of those prospects that they scout, select, and then develop themselves.
To put it another way, the Canucks could use a few more Tom Willanders and Elias Pettersson II’s, and far more than they could use a Brad Lambert or two.
Of course, nothing is ever completely black-and-white. If the Canucks get offered some blue-chip pieces for their current slate of sellable veterans, then that’s probably an offer they should take.
But if we are talking general approaches, we think at least a slight preference for picks over draft picks is called for. Especially if the primary thinking on targeting prospects over picks is that they’ll arrive sooner. Short-term thinking has often been the bane of this franchise’s existence. As it finally shifts gears toward building for the future, a longer view is almost certainly better.
PRESENTED BY VIVID SEATS