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We all know Brock loves it here. He's been upset in the past when asked about trade rumours.
Actually, we don't all know Brock loves it in Vancouver. Even if it were true earlier, it may not be true now.
When he started his career, there were some things to really like. Benning pursued him, burned a year off his elc and he was effective immediately. He'd been given a great chance and made good use of it.
Since the summer of 2020 I doubt very many Canucks have liked it in Vancouver. As a group they seemed downheartened when the team lost Tanev, Markstrom, Toffoli and Stecher all for nothing, in some cases reportedly without any offers being made. The players, imo, saw the situation for what it was, saw that the team management was incompetent and they were looking at a bad future.
That became somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When a team is down and feeling like things are hopeless, they are hopeless. Of course, they may have been right anway.
The change in management and coaching spurred a turn-around, but realistically, from Boeser's perspective:
-things aren't going well for him in Vancouver
-it wouldn't be surprising to see the team lose it's best forward this summer
-Horvat hasn't been playing with the interest he showed in previous seasons, ditto for Boeser, ditto for EP. While there was a bump after the changeover, after the 1-0 loss to a tired Flames team in which the team looked disinterested and Boudreau openly criticized Miller's effort on the losing goal as unacceptable, is there any reason to think any of them really want to be here?
I don't think so.
On a completely separate point (so not in response to the post I quoted above) I also don't think it is realistic, as some posters have suggested, to view 2023 as a contending year for the Canucks. That just seems like Benning Koolaid, ya know-2 years. Unless Rutherford and Allvin get very lucky indeed, it is going to be longer than that before the Canucks can contend, possibly much, much longer. It seems to me there are quite a few posters underestimating, by a lot, the damage that has been done by the Canucks' management the past few years.
And, on a completely different point, when I was a kid in the 1960's, a hockey trade gave you the player for the rest of the player's career. There was no free agency and salaries were relatively low. A trade could be effectively analyzed without regard to the contract the player was on at the time, at least before the WHA opened for business in 1972. Things are different now. You don't trade for the right to have the player toil underpaid for the rest of his career. You acquire the player's contract.
That requires a different analysis. Some still judge contracts solely by the usefulness of a player on the ice, when in most cases the player's contract is at least as important as his play. The trade value of a player depends on team circumstances but starts with the value of the player's contribution relative to his contract.
With Boeser being paid $7.5 million and guaranteed $7.5 million or able to go to free agency this summer, his contract really isn't worth much to an acquiring team. It seems the Canucks have an unpalatable choice-trade Boeser's contract for what it is worth-which is very, very little, gamble on him making a comeback and give him $7.5 million for a year, or let him go elsewhere for no return.
The previous management has really left a horrid choice for the new management team, which is facing a tough decision and potential public relations nightmare.
