Did Mike Keenan Destory what Could've been a superteam? Or was the situation doomed no matter what?

[bandwagonesque]

Keenan didn't destroy anything. The team was doomed no matter what. The team clearly need it some type of rebuild. Quinn ( rip ) drafting was horrible, his strategy bigger the better, drafted so many big players with no skill. Canucks didn't have that many young players. Even with Messier, Bure, Linden and Mogilny this team had many holes. No pp qb, not much toughness ON D, D was slow, Murzyn was always slow but that 1998 season, he was extra slow, McLean wasn't the
same goaltender after all the knee surgery and the Brown thing.

The bad drafting finally caught up, I think if Canucks won the cup in 1994, it might of been a record of having the least drafted players play in the playoffs. I believe only Bure, Linden and Antoski were the only drafted Canuucks that played in the playoffs. Slegr and Plavsic were on the team but never played.

The crazy thing is that Murzyn was a dominant offensive defenseman in junior. I've never understood how this was possible. He was slow, couldn't get a shot off quickly, was shaky making an outlet pass longer than 20 feet, and couldn't handle the puck.

 

[RandV]

I was never onboard that the team had to be dynamited, and outside of getting a complete gift horse from Mike Milbury that anything Keenan did was either necessary or productive. There weren't that many players left from '94, and a good bunch of the core pieces were already in place for Burke to build with. Now I'm not saying it shouldn't have been torn down, but if management could have played nice and not piss off Bure I think it would have been possible to turn things around.

So just for fun, let's look at the signings and trades that did happen that summer, assuming we had money to spend and comparable assets then using the great power of hindsight to quickly build a different non-Keenan team.

First these are the assets we had:

Offensive forwards: Bure, Mogilny, Linden, Naslund, Gelinas, Sillinger
Checking forwards: Scatchard, Noonan, Walker, Brashear, Staios*
Dmen: Lumme, Ohlund, Hedican, Murzyn, Aucoin, Staios*
Goalies: Irbe (UFA signing), MacLean, Hircsh

Prospects who would accomplish something in the NHL: Druken, Cooke, Schaefer, Sopel, Muckalt
Prospects that would bust but who were high picks and had value at the time: Ference, Holden, McAllister

Hindsight hijacking UFA signings:

Martin Straka (Pittsburgh)
Rick Tocchet (Phoenix)
Luke Richardson (Philly)

Hindsight hijacking trades:

To Vancouver: Steve Duchesne
To Ottawa: Jyrke Lumme, Brad Ference (was STL Igor Kravchuk)

To Vancouver: Andrew Cassels, JS Giguere
To Carolina: Alex Mogilny, Corey Hirsch (was CGY Gary Roberts, Trevor Kidd)
(would love to do Linden here instead of Mogilny but not sure if that would fly)

To Vancouver: Mariusz Czerkawski (+additional pick)
To Edmonton: Josh Holden (was Dan LaCouture, a high 2nd from Holden's draft who busted)

So my new Power of Hindsight! 1997-98 Lineup:

Bure-Cassels-Tocchet
Naslund-Straka-Czerkawski
Gelinas-Sillinger-Linden
Brashear-Scatchard-Walker/Noonan

Duchesne-Ohlund
Hedican-Murzyn
Richardson-Aucoin

Irbe
Giguere

 

[Star Ocean]

I believe the story on the Naslund deal was that Keenan had a trade worked out to send Naslund to Ottawa for a 4th round pick, but Bertuzzi broke his leg which caused Keenan to back out of it.

Naslund and alfredsson would of been scary in their prime.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Ehhhh ... I really don't like defending Keenan and it was a terrible, dark period for the franchise but the notion that he traded multiple quality veterans for bad returns is just false. Literally the only guy we moved who we would have wanted back in any way even a year later was Gelinas. And Sean Burke ... but he was acquired by Tambellini/Keenan in the first place. Guys like Babych, Ledyard, McLean, Odjick were basically done and it was a clearing-out of dead wood that needed to happen.

I think that is the bigger alarm bell. He was trigger happy. If we'd stuck with Burke and Sanderson after that trade, I think it could have ended up being pretty solid. Burke had several years as a starting netminder ahead of him, and was better than any goalie we had until we got Luongo; Sanderson still had a few 20-30 goal seasons ahead of him; and we dealt them for Snow and May. Mike Sillinger also had a ton of productive years left in him and we gave him away. And while Babych, Ledyard and McLean were done, Odjick still had productive years as an enforcer/grinder left in him as well.

With the exception of the Linden deal, Keenan seemed to lack patience to see if any of the moves he had made were going to bear any fruit anyway. And that was on top of him being a monumental asshole to everyone involved.

 

[MS]

I think that is the bigger alarm bell. He was trigger happy. If we'd stuck with Burke and Sanderson after that trade, I think it could have ended up being pretty solid. Burke had several years as a starting netminder ahead of him, and was better than any goalie we had until we got Luongo; Sanderson still had a few 20-30 goal seasons ahead of him; and we dealt them for Snow and May. Mike Sillinger also had a ton of productive years left in him and we gave him away. And while Babych, Ledyard and McLean were done, Odjick still had productive years as an enforcer/grinder left in him as well.

With the exception of the Linden deal, Keenan seemed to lack patience to see if any of the moves he had made were going to bear any fruit anyway. And that was on top of him being a monumental ******* to everyone involved.

Oh, there's no question he was trigger-happy.

If we'd stuck with Burke and Sanderson, the Gelinas deal would have been a huge win. Like, a landslide. Burke was a top-5 goalie in the NHL during the WCE era and having him on the team instead of Cloutier probably means a Cup or close to it. And Sanderson had multiple 30-goal seasons left in him. The problem wasn't trading the fan favourite Gelinas, it was the follow-up deals. In the end, we traded Gelinas for Brad May (loss, although May did have some utility here) and McLean for Snow (fairly significant win).

Odjick was done. Loved the guy, but he was not a very good player and a loose cannon having all kinds of trouble off the ice. Brashear came in and was a better player and a better fighter and Odjick basically lost his job. Strudwick was a serviceable depth player here for several years and that trade was a win.

Sillinger was a nothing. Scored 13 points the next year.

Like, there are a million things you can criticize Keenan for. Guy was awful. But his personnel moves - scatterbrained and impatient as they were - weren't all that bad and included one major win, and were mostly just culling dead wood.

 

[Canucks1096]

Keenan was nice to Bure. The 1998 season, his contract had a million dollar bonus if he gets 50 goals. Last few games Keenan told Bure, I will make sure you get your bonus. "I will give you more ice time"

Keenan had no respect for Linden, after a 4-1 loss to the Blues, Linden was trying to motivate the players and give speeches in the locker room. Keenan had some harsh words to say and said something like "who are you, you never won anything"

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

Oh, there's no question he was trigger-happy.

If we'd stuck with Burke and Sanderson, the Gelinas deal would have been a huge win. Like, a landslide. Burke was a top-5 goalie in the NHL during the WCE era and having him on the team instead of Cloutier probably means a Cup or close to it. And Sanderson had multiple 30-goal seasons left in him. The problem wasn't trading the fan favourite Gelinas, it was the follow-up deals. In the end, we traded Gelinas for Brad May (loss, although May did have some utility here) and McLean for Snow (fairly significant win).

Odjick was done. Loved the guy, but he was not a very good player and a loose cannon having all kinds of trouble off the ice. Brashear came in and was a better player and a better fighter and Odjick basically lost his job. Strudwick was a serviceable depth player here for several years and that trade was a win.

Sillinger was a nothing. Scored 13 points the next year.

Like, there are a million things you can criticize Keenan for. Guy was awful. But his personnel moves - scatterbrained and impatient as they were - weren't all that bad and included one major win, and were mostly just culling dead wood.

Gelinas for May is a major loss - and I'm a major May fan, too. I have a Canucks jersey with his name on it. And the fact is it wasn't McLean for Snow, it was McLean for Burke (which would have been an astounding victory), and then Burke for Snow (which is a devastating loss).

Long and short - the initial trade could well have been a major coup, but Keenan effed it all up with his impatience and incompetence.

You have solid points on Odjick - Brashear was a better player and a better fighter by that point. And I've got a soft spot for Struds; he was an honest, hard working player. Also have a big soft spot for Gino, too, of course. The deal itself just smacked of Keenan/Messier's politicking at the time.

 

[Canucks1096]

Keenan waited too long to let Irbe have more games. McLean was struggling so badly and Keenan kept playing him

 

[lawrence]

It was definitely Enrico Ciccone in that trade, not Huscroft. I can remember driving home on a Friday night hearing about the trade.

thanks! Ciccone was then traded for Huscroft, good ole days, or dark days. in those times.

The Burke-Snow shuffle was also weird, although Snow carved out a brief, OK career with Vancouver all things considered.

1-3rd of Snows wins were shut outs in Vancouver. He was so awesome at the time. I don't know why I just loved him as a young fan.

but I was a huge Sanderson fan. the young hockey fan me at the time saw that he was "their" Whalers best player for a few seasons in a row, so when we got him for Gelinas I liked the trade for whatever reason.

 

[deckercky]

Snow was alright, but Burke went on to break out as an elite starter in fairly short order (am I correct in remembering that the Coyotes set him up with a goalie coach for the first time in his career, or something like that?).

The fact that the team churned through two players who would each go on to play as solid starters for 5+ years after being traded, in an era where it was tough to find a solid starter, is mind blowing.

 

[Burke's Evil Spirit]

Oh, there's no question he was trigger-happy.

If we'd stuck with Burke and Sanderson, the Gelinas deal would have been a huge win.

Oof, that's a what-if I'd never considered. The WCE team with Burke in net (and Adrian Aucoin on the back end since presumably he'd never have been shipped out for Cloutier) would have been nuts.

 

[Askel]

Wasnt Quinn the one to blame with his handling of Bure and his weird phonecall that f***ed up the Gretsky signing ?

 

[Addison Rae]

Yeah, there are a few trades I remember hearing on the radio. Then I would sit around all day waiting for Sports Talk to talk about the trade.

Totally different time.

I did this with the Luongo trade. I was 9 at the time and I somehow knew pretty much every player in the NHL.

Listened to sports talk on 980 with Dan Russel to break down the trade. Crazy to think I’m only 22 and I still was part of this.

 

[F A N]

Oh, there's no question he was trigger-happy.

If we'd stuck with Burke and Sanderson, the Gelinas deal would have been a huge win. Like, a landslide. Burke was a top-5 goalie in the NHL during the WCE era and having him on the team instead of Cloutier probably means a Cup or close to it. And Sanderson had multiple 30-goal seasons left in him. The problem wasn't trading the fan favourite Gelinas, it was the follow-up deals. In the end, we traded Gelinas for Brad May (loss, although May did have some utility here) and McLean for Snow (fairly significant win).

Odjick was done. Loved the guy, but he was not a very good player and a loose cannon having all kinds of trouble off the ice. Brashear came in and was a better player and a better fighter and Odjick basically lost his job. Strudwick was a serviceable depth player here for several years and that trade was a win.

Sillinger was a nothing. Scored 13 points the next year.

Like, there are a million things you can criticize Keenan for. Guy was awful. But his personnel moves - scatterbrained and impatient as they were - weren't all that bad and included one major win, and were mostly just culling dead wood.

Hmm... Sanderson was super streaky. Like he's the type to score 30 goals if you have a bad team and he gets top line minutes. I never liked Sean Burke. I think he was overrated. But I agree with your overall points.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I find it hard to separate Keenan from Messier. I hate Messier so much that whatever things Keenan did pales in comparison. In fact, Messier basically brought Keenan onto the team, and whatever Keenan did I blame on Messier. In conclusion, I absolutely despise Messier.

Im the same.

I find it utterly incomprehensible that the Mark Messier Leadership Award is actually a thing.
If you act as the exact opposite of a leader when you get in to a tough situation (Vancouver definitely was a tough situation back then) I dont see how you can be considered a good enough leader to warrant an award named after you...

 

[dwarf]

The team was doomed until it had new ownership. Arthur Griffiths was out of cash, and letting players like Ronning and Larionov walk for nothing was indicative of this.

 

[ChilliBilly]

The team was doomed until it had new ownership. Arthur Griffiths was out of cash, and letting players like Ronning and Larionov walk for nothing was indicative of this.

You mis-remember what happened with Larionov. There was a very harsh financial penalty if he re-signed with VCR. Even Larionov agreed the Canucks were wiser to let him go. It was very unfortunate.

 

[MS]

Wasnt Quinn the one to blame with his handling of Bure and his weird phonecall that ****ed up the Gretsky signing ?

That was George McPhee.

And I still believe management was correct and Gretzky was playing us to get more money from the Rangers.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Keenan was a complete piece of crap but in hindsight exactly what was needed at the time to tear down the aging 1994 team and start a proper rebuild.

That team was going nowhere before he came.

that 94 core was exactly the kind of team that needed a push from below retool, not continually pick up ringers. that was an organizational deficiency from long before keenan, of which messier and keenan were the worst possible examples, not the instigators.

but look at how courtnall and ronning both had very good years left as high end second line point producers—if you could have salvaged the relationship with bure and maybe prevented linden from his career-crippling existential crisis, there was a team to be salvaged there with gelinss, keeping peca, scatchard, and scott walker, plus an eventual d core built around ohlund and aucoin.

but when you trade craven, you get back a young guy not christian ruuttu. ditto momesso; you don’t grab a mike ridley, and so on. you snag a goalie to replace mclean when they are basically there for free after the expansion drafts.

of course you also have to not bungle every first round pick of the decade not named nedved or ohlund. but still

 

[lawrence]

Wasnt Quinn the one to blame with his handling of Bure and his weird phonecall that ****ed up the Gretsky signing ?

It was either ownership or management (Quinn) that want Gretzky to sign Tommorow, but Wayne wanted a few more days but was gonna sign, but we wanted him to do it right away which pissed him off. Pavel bure is the only player Gretzky mentioned that he would have played another year in the if he had bure as a line mate. Those where dark days.

That aucoin trade pisses me off. Cloutier costed us a run to the cup finals 2003 with his sub par ways. Him getting injured in 2005 everyone was so happy.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

That was George McPhee.

And I still believe management was correct and Gretzky was playing us to get more money from the Rangers.

Quinn's camp pretty adamantly blamed Stan McCammon of Orca Bay for the "late night call to Gretzky" fiasco. There's a lot of finger pointing that goes around about that particular incident.

 

[MS]

that 94 core was exactly the kind of team that needed a push from below retool, not continually pick up ringers. that was an organizational deficiency from long before keenan, of which messier and keenan were the worst possible examples, not the instigators.

but look at how courtnall and ronning both had very good years left as high end second line point producers—if you could have salvaged the relationship with bure and maybe prevented linden from his career-crippling existential crisis, there was a team to be salvaged there with gelinss, keeping peca, scatchard, and scott walker, plus an eventual d core built around ohlund and aucoin.

but when you trade craven, you get back a young guy not christian ruuttu. ditto momesso; you don’t grab a mike ridley, and so on. you snag a goalie to replace mclean when they are basically there for free after the expansion drafts.

of course you also have to not bungle every first round pick of the decade not named nedved or ohlund. but still

Quinn did an absolutely exceptional job as GM from 1987-1994 but lost the plot - on two fronts - as the league transitioned into the Dead Puck Era and the UFA era of rising salaries.

1) part of this was Griffiths' situation after extending himself to build GM Place and buy the Grizzlies, but the team fell comically out-of-step with the financial realities of the time. What guys like Courtnall, Craven and a bit later Ronning required to stay was a pittance in hindsight. IIRC they lost Courtnall over a difference of $200k ($700k vs. his $900k ask) and then Courtnall was blown away when he got $6 million from St. Louis on the open market. Result was that the mid-level depth of the team was absolutely gutted in the couple years after 1994. By 1997 and the time of the Messier signing, the team was essentially Bure/Mogilny/Linden/Gelinas and Lumme/Hedican surrounded by an expansion team-level roster of fungible junk.

2) The 1991-94 Canucks were one of the heaviest teams in the NHL and a step ahead of the way the league moved in the 1995-2005 Dead Puck Era. But Quinn mis-judged things and zigged when the rest of the team was zagging, loading up the roster with soft skill players. Out went the Momessos and Diducks and Geoff Courtnalls and Mike Peca and in came Mogilny, Naslund (who worked out in the end, obviously), Belanger, Oksiuta, Beranek, Russ Courtnall. Result was a terrible defensive team with no identity completely out-of-step with the era and how the top squads were built.

There was other stuff, too, obviously. McLean was finished in 1995 but we kept throwing him out there 3 more years as one of the worst goalies in the league. Drafting wasn't good and identifying the quality players we did have was a problem - Jassen Cullimore, Scott Walker and Steve Staios went on to play a combined 2600 NHL games but couldn't get out of the press box on those awful teams. And of course the Bure injury wasted two seasons from him before he returned to form.

__________

As you say, if the team had retained Courtnall/Craven/Diduck types for another couple years, their competitive window would have been extended, and there should have been room for a gradual re-tool circa 1996-98 around Peca/Ohlund/Aucoin/Cullimore and others with Bure/Linden/Gelinas/Hedican all still well inside their primes. But instead the bottom just completely fell out and things were a mess by 1997.

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

It was either ownership or management (Quinn) that want Gretzky to sign Tommorow, but Wayne wanted a few more days but was gonna sign, but we wanted him to do it right away which pissed him off. Pavel bure is the only player Gretzky mentioned that he would have played another year in the if he had bure as a line mate. Those where dark days.

That aucoin trade pisses me off. Cloutier costed us a run to the cup finals 2003 with his sub par ways. Him getting injured in 2005 everyone was so happy.

In addition to not having to move Aucoin for Cloutier, the Scatchard/Muckalt for Potvin trade wouldn't have needed to occur either. Muckalt didn't amount to much, but Scatchard had a pretty good stretch as a very effective two-way player for the Islanders. An ideal 2nd/3rd line tweener that our team could have used in those 2003 and 2004 playoff seasons.

It's too bad that damn good depth was moved in an ongoing attempt to fill the goaltending void. We've really been enjoying a pretty damn good run in terms of goaltending ever since Nonis pulled the trigger on the Luongo trade - Luongo (and Schneider for a short term) provided us with a long tenure of elite goaltending, Ryan Miller did the job respectably during his time, and Markstrom has developed into a solid starter as well. Far cry from the late 90s/early 2000s.

 

[MS]

Quinn's camp pretty adamantly blamed Stan McCammon of Orca Bay for the "late night call to Gretzky" fiasco. There's a lot of finger pointing that goes around about that particular incident.

I don't believe for a second that Gretzky and his big ego and his actress wife were ever going to choose Vancouver over the bright lights of the Big Apple and a reunion with Messier.

I think he was using us for negotiating leverage with the Rangers and our management realized they weren't negotiating in good faith and that's why that phone call happened ... which Gretzky was then able to use as an excuse to make us look like the bad guys.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Jassen Cullimore, Scott Walker and Steve Staios went on to play a combined 2600 NHL games but couldn't get out of the press box on those awful teams.

iirc all three of them were shuffled btw their natural positions of D to LW/RW, stunting the development of staios and probably also cullimore. neither guy was a bona fide NHL calibre regular until long after they were gone. come to think of it, aucoin was aPP specialist and fourth line winger for a bit too right?

worked out for walker but again, not soon enough to be helpful to us.

i totally agree—those big pat quinn teams were why we were successful in the early 90s, and he got away from that. i still think the biggest lost opportunity in canucks history is quinn not letting momesso jump the boards after the messier/linden cheap shot to wreak havoc. we had the muscle to come back in game seven too—stack the top nine and roll hunter/antoski/gino as the fourth line for one or two shifts early to make brian leetch think.

i think even looking at the guys who didn’t work out longterm —tom fergus, ryan walter, dr gregg, dirk, sandlak, that’s a lot of beef to stand up to marty mcsorley or gary roberts or keith tkachuk. it still seems nuts that those guys are the young guys we gave up (cullimore, aucoin, scratch, walker). quinn was still drafting those guys; they just never got a fair shot. well tbf i think cullimore just sucked and actually oksiuta was fine as a sandpaper placement or even poor man’s momesso.

i remember these billboards from the beginning of the burke era, when there was precisely nothing to be excited about during training camp. “stevie and mo,” i.e. kariya’s even tinier brother and morrison. was like, are you fffffing kidding me?