{"id":360546,"date":"2025-12-21T22:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T22:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360546\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T22:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T22:49:07","slug":"has-the-canucks-tank-ended-before-it-even-began","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360546\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the Canucks\u2019 tank ended before it even began?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Vancouver Canucks<\/a> have done a very odd thing since they traded away their captain, Quinn Hughes<\/a>, and admitted they\u2019re entering a rebuild: they\u2019ve gone on a four-game winning streak to climb out of last place in the NHL.<\/p>\n

Now, still not even halfway through the 2025-26 season, the Canucks find themselves just four points out of a playoff spot, with at least one game in hand on each of the four teams ahead of them.<\/p>\n

So, uh, I guess congratulations are in order for a successful rebuild. Time to call off the tank and trade that first-round pick acquired in the Quinn Hughes deal for some immediate help, right?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a tad hyperbolic, of course. I don\u2019t think anyone is actually thinking that way, least of all the decision-makers in the Canucks\u2019 front office.<\/p>\n

After all, the Canucks may be four points back of a playoff spot, but they\u2019re also just one point out of last place. It will take a lot more than a four-game winning streak for them to escape the gravitational pull of the NHL\u2019s basement.<\/p>\n

Besides, the goal isn\u2019t making the playoffs \u2014 or, at least, it shouldn\u2019t be. The goal is to win the Stanley Cup, and the Canucks still have a lot of rebuilding to do before they can match up against the likes of the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

Still, if the Canucks extend this winning streak much further, they will do some damage to their tank treads.<\/p>\n

After trading Tyler Toffoli that season, the Canadiens went on a five-game winning streak and, furthermore, won seven of eight games. That streak pulled the Canadiens out of last place.<\/p>\n

Now, Toffoli isn\u2019t Quinn Hughes, and the winning streak came later in the season when the Canadiens were firmly entrenched in the NHL\u2019s basement, and it also coincided with a coaching change and other factors. But it\u2019s funny to look back at social media from that time, because you can find Canadiens fans concerned that the team was ruining the tank with their winning ways.<\/p>\n

Not to worry: the Canadiens lost 19 of their next 26 games, including a nine-game losing streak, to finish firmly in last place, after which they won the draft lottery and picked first overall.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying the Canucks\u2019 situation is like the Canadiens\u2019, but I think there\u2019s something illustrative about that team.<\/p>\n

The 2021-22 Canadiens were one season removed from going to the Stanley Cup Final. That gave them every reason to believe that they were a good team on the cusp of something great heading into the season. To explain their dreadful 2021-22 season, they could have pointed to devastating injuries and absences as an excuse, as they set an NHL record for the most man-games lost, with key players Carey Price and Joel Edmundson missing almost the entire season.<\/p>\n

Instead of making excuses, however, they committed to a rebuild and traded away as many veterans as they could to add prospects and picks.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t even that many trades, but it made a difference. Heading into the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, the Canadiens had two picks in each of the first three rounds. They would\u2019ve had three first-round picks if they hadn\u2019t made a panic trade in the offseason to add Christian Dvorak after Jesperi Kotkaniemi signed an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n

That draft epitomized the truth of Jason Botchford\u2019s exhortation, \u201cWe need picks\u2026We need an army<\/a>.\u201d The point of accumulating picks isn\u2019t the hope that each of those picks will turn into a quality NHL player, but that by giving yourself more darts to throw, you increase the chances that one of those picks will turn into something special.<\/p>\n

Late in the second round of the 2022 draft, with a pick acquired by trading Brett Kulak, the Canadiens selected Lane Hutson.<\/p>\n

Now, as the Canadiens lead the Atlantic Division three years after he was drafted, Hutson is averaging over 23 minutes per night and has 32 points through 35 games. It\u2019s pretty easy to make the argument that he\u2019s a lot more important to the Canadiens\u2019 success than the first-overall pick they got that year, Juraj Slavkosvky.<\/p>\n

All that is to say, whether or not the Canucks are successfully unsuccessful in their tanking efforts this season, the priority should still be to add more draft picks. Lots more. They need more darts to throw in hopes of hitting a Hutson.<\/p>\n

Right now, the Canucks have an extra first-round pick thanks to the Hughes trade, but that\u2019s their only extra pick in the draft, and they lack a third-round pick thanks to the Nikita Zadorov<\/a> trade a couple of seasons ago.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the Canucks still need to be shopping their veteran players \u2014 at least, for after the holiday roster freeze. And if moving out some of those veterans makes the team a little bit worse to get them closer to drafting Gavin McKenna, all the better.<\/p>\n

Sponsored by bet365<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vancouver Canucks have done a very odd thing since they traded away their captain, Quinn Hughes, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-360546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}