NFITO
hockeyinsanity*****
first of all, I didn't call the Kings or Hawks "perennial" great teams.. I called them great teams right now. Just like the Devils were back 10 years ago or so.... or the Avs were around then as well (and could be again)... those teams all had the same thing in common as the Kings and Hawks do now - great drafting and player development. That is all apparent with those organizations then, and the Kings, Hawks (and Blues, Sharks and Bruins) now.
Secondly, we haven't been pushing for the Cup since 2000. We've pushed for the Cup in about 2 of those years. Outside of that, we were constantly a 3rd place conference team, with early playoff exits. We've also missed the playoffs in a few of those years. Didn't make the playoffs till 2001, and then in 02, barely making the playoffs as the 8th seed and losing the top seed and eventual Cup champs both years. Made the playoffs in 03 and 04, only to lose in the 2nd and then 1st round. Then missed the playoffs in 06, made it in 07, missed it in 08, made it in 09 and 10, with 1st round loses.
That's not the recipe of a team that has been "pushing for the Cup since early 2000s" ... that looks more like an inconsistent team that is a long-shot more so than a contender in any given year.
Thirdly, we definitely have been "afforded" the right to draft the same type of talent as those top teams. As I mentioned all those players were drafted in the 2nd round or later, so all of them were available when the Canucks first pick came up. And what's worse is that in pretty much every season the player we've taken in the 1st round has been worse than players taken after (often right after or soon after) in the 1st round. Maybe that speaks to the incompetence of our scouting staff, or maybe it's the player development side of things... likely it's a combination of both. Either way, it clearly shows that this organization is handicapped from the get-go - we start every season with fewer overall asset quality throughout the organization because they simply don't bring in as much talent as their counterparts. It's like going to a poker table with less than half the chips of your opponents, or starting a business in a competitive market with less money than your competitors to spend on marketing and other resources. The Canucks always start the race from behind, and doing it year after year just compounds the problem further.
Fourtly, yes Chicago and LA were bad for years, but they used their picks - and not just their top pick, but picks throughout the draft, to assemble talent. They could use this talent to acquire other assets. They were able to have top end talents on their 3rd line because of this. They could trade Ruutu for Ladd because they had enough talent throughout their lineup to make a trade like that. They could have a guy like Byfuglien on their 3rd line because they drafted him in the 8th round. They could draft a Norris winner in the 2nd round. They had Bolland on the 3rd line, or Hjarlmarsson on their 2nd pairing shutdown role because they could draft these guys later in the draft.
The Canucks can't do this because we haven't built up enough talent in our organization to move talent around. We can't trade a Burrows or Hansen because our overall organizational depth sucks so much we can't replace these pieces internally. We don't even have depth guys like Bickell or Kruger or Smith etc coming up that we can move a player like Bolland to replenish our cupboards for future picks. And we don't have guys like Voynov, not because we don't have high enough 2nd round picks, but because when we do, we waste it on picks like Ellington, while other teams find the Voynov's, or Weber's, or Bergerons, etc in the 2nd round. Who has been this organization's best 2nd round pick? In the last 20 years, our best 2nd round pick has been Mason Raymond!
Finally, the Canucks can't be compared to the Sharks here either. "Yea Hertl is good" ... he's making an impact at the NHL, and we're again left with "hope" with Horvat or Shinkaruk... see the difference? The last 1st round pick we had that's made an impact at the NHL is Cory Schneider - from 10 years ago (with all due respect to Bourdon). Their top picks have been better, where guys like Couture is making a huge impact, while the guy who was apparently our own Couture (assuming you're referring to Hodgson) was not only a player that didn't develop properly here and wanted out, but also has many more flaws in his game than Couture does. But it goes well beyond that. They can acquire a talent like Burns because they had other talent to trade for him (Setoguichi, Coyle)... and Edler isn't our Pavelski - Pavelski was a 7th round pick - he's more comparable to Hansen, Edler is more comparable to Vlasic, a 2nd round pick who proved to have pretty immediate impact on their team... and then you have several others beyond that, drafted players playing regular roles for them - Nieto, Greiss, Demers, Braun, Wingels.. and have been able to deal others for asset value elsewhere - like McGinn.
Assets are what defines the strength of every organization in the league. The more drafted players you can turn into NHL talent, either in your own lineup or as assets to use as trade chips, the stronger overall your organization can be. The organizations that do this well will always be better then those that can't. The Canucks unfortuntely are just a bad organization when it comes to drafting.
So really why should we have any more hope now for guys like Horvat or Shinkaruk being those shining stars now, when for the entire history of this organization it's basically been the same thing over and over - lots of hope every year with the shinny new young prospects coming in, only to see that hope fade after time. Even under the current regime we've seen the same thing. Forget Hodgson, remember the hype even after his first draft with the later picks. Sauve, former top pick in the QMJHL, steal in the 2nd round.. the talent that guys like Rai or Froshaug had.. then Schroeder, Rodin, Connauton, then McNally, Hutton, Cannata, etc. It's the same song and dance every single season. All of these prospects get overhyped when they haven't yet had a chance to fail (or the organization hasn't had a chance to fail in their development).
That's not to say that Horvat and/or Shinkaruk won't turn out to be talented contributors, but even if they do, we'll still be behind the curve as we'll still have far more misses than the other top organizations seem to have.
Having followed this organization since the 70s, this is a common theme that I've seen for way too long, and it stands out to me as the key reason why we're worse than other organizations. Through every regime change here, this seems to be a common theme. Organizations like the Kings or Hawks, they may have sucked with past regimes, but it seems that they have been able to recognize this shortcoming and have improved in this area, and we've seen these improvements take them to new heights. The Canucks are still stuck in the same suckage which has enveloped this team for decades. And as much hope as I had of Gillis turning that around (and maybe one day he still can), all that talk about new focus on scouting and drafting and development hasn't shown up at all. 4 and 5 years after his first 2 drafts, it all still looks the same to me - lots of hype about change and new focus right after the drafts, and years later the results are still the same.
As mentioned, the key to every successful organization - and it's a common theme throughout NHL history - has been the organization's ability to increase it's own asset value. This is true for pretty much every area of business in any line of work. The top organizations in finance, marketing, sales, manufacturing, etc, all rely on the strength of their staff and equipment assets to lead their industry. In the NHL that's the pipeline of prospects coming through. And in this area the Canucks are well behind. You don't become the leader in your class in any line of work by having fewer quality assets to leverage your company on. Until the Canucks can realize this (or if they realize this as they should - change it), I don't see their longterm fortunes changing.
