End of an era!

[DL44]

Of the core I think Kesler, Burrows, Bieksa, Hamhuis stay... better off to keep Luongo imo ... move Schneider.

Look to re-group for 2-4 years from now.

The Canucks would definitely be better off keeping Luongo...
But i hope he gets moved... he deserved better than what he's gone thru the last 12.5 months. I don't think any of it can be wiped away... even with a new coach and new GM... its still the same media and fanbase.

I also think its important for fans to regain proper prospective of what life is like again without an all-time great backing us up. There is a HUGE portion of this fanbase which will finally get their wish of driving Luongo to airport... and I can't wait to see the reaction to the results over the next 2-3 yrs.

 

[garbageteam]

The "era" to me is the core of the Sedins, Kesler, Burrows, Bieksa and Luongo. As long as those guys are still around, and I imagine they probably will all be sans Luongo, it will still be the same era. The rest have always been spare parts to me, the only other player I'd really like to keep is Hamuis.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

I wouldn't say the end of an era, so much as a time to retool. Players to move, and other teams will certainly be potential trade partners.

Sedins, Kesler, Burrows, Edler, Hamhuis, Garrison, Schneider will all be back I think. Anyone else, it's wild-card season.

Time to trim the fat. We forfeit nearly $14M in cap to 3 players that are quite underwhelming in their roles. Start there.

 

[Win One Before I Die]

We won't win **** until the Sedins are gone. If they didn't drop off the map from getting older and slower, what is the reason they sucked horribly this year? Was it because everyone figured out how to own them in the playoffs? Time to move on. We are better off to miss the playoffs than struggle to win a single game with the sisters. Ya the sisters are back.

I am sick of all these emotionless Swedes. And I am talking playoff emotion, not 'whack Couture with the top of my stick because I am getting easily rattled and thrown off my game' emotion.

 

[solitary]

We won't win **** until the Sedins are gone. If they didn't drop off the map from getting older and slower, what is the reason they sucked horribly this year? Was it because everyone figured out how to own them in the playoffs? Time to move on. We are better off to miss the playoffs than struggle to win a single game with the sisters. Ya the sisters are back.

I am sick of all these emotionless Swedes. And I am talking playoff emotion, not 'whack Couture with the top of my stick because I am getting easily rattled and thrown off my game' emotion.

Have you ever played on any sort of team? Winning cultivates a winning atmosphere/culture. I'd rather see our players see the playoffs every year instead dumping players for higher draft picks, Detroit is a prime example of this. Henrik Zetterberg had 3 points in 5 playoff games last year... he's still in Detroit. The Sedins will be back next season, they won't be traded, they most likely will be resigned when their contracts are up.

 

[Smokey McCanucks]

How is it the end of an era, that is just silly. If we are going to do better next season then the major players from this season and the past few seasons are gonna be the ones doing it. We have no blue-chip prospects, we have no cap space. The Sedins will still be here, Kesler will still be here, most or all of the big four on the current blueline will be here. One of the goalies will be here. Burrows and Higgins will be here.

Maybe the coach will be out. Maybe the GM. Raymond, Roy, Malhotra, Alberts, and some fourth-line guys will probably not be back, Booth and Ballard, when were they ever playing anyways? That's the "end of an era"? Don't be thinking there will be major changes, that's not what is going to happen.

 

[y2kcanucks]

Have you ever played on any sort of team? Winning cultivates a winning atmosphere/culture. I'd rather see our players see the playoffs every year instead dumping players for higher draft picks, Detroit is a prime example of this. Henrik Zetterberg had 3 points in 5 playoff games last year... he's still in Detroit. The Sedins will be back next season, they won't be traded, they most likely will be resigned when their contracts are up.

Then I don't see how this team will improve. Same old culture, same old ****** results.

 

[MajorCanuck]

Have you ever played on any sort of team? Winning cultivates a winning atmosphere/culture. I'd rather see our players see the playoffs every year instead dumping players for higher draft picks, Detroit is a prime example of this. Henrik Zetterberg had 3 points in 5 playoff games last year... he's still in Detroit. The Sedins will be back next season, they won't be traded, they most likely will be resigned when their contracts are up.

You know what the playoff record is over the last 3 series? 4 wins in 16 games. Take out the first 2 games against boston and we have 2 wins and 12 losses in last 14 games. A stretch like that in teh reg season gets people gets fired.

 

[iFan]

Sedins post game interview is kinda embarrassing, talking about being nice to refs so that they will give you calls in the future? Really? That's not the smartest thing to say in an interview, now it comes off as a game why your being nice to them, should be done in a genuine way.

 

[me2]

Lol not all of us will miss them.

What sucks is we played 4 more games than colorado this year and they get Seth Jones. Their season was actually more fruitful than ours.

And the oilers last 4 years have been too by that measure. You might call them "more fruitful" but you didn't have to sit through them as a fan watching futile garbage from day 1 of the reg season.

Come back when the Canucks rebuild that hard and stink that hard. You'll long for the days these days again. I'm just glad at the knowledge a whole lot of band wagoners will be disappear from here when the rebuild starts.

 

[digger18]

That's the reason a partial rebuild needs to happen now. You don't need to go all in, so to speak, where you see your team struggle for half a decade. But you replace 3-4 vets now, with young guys, and then you do the same thing in two, or three years....(once the first wave of youth matures.) IMO the young kids in Edmonton haven't been the problem, it's the likes of Khabibulin, Horcoff, and Hemsky (the veterans) who haven't produced enough to lead the way. The key is to keep enough producing quality vets around to show the youth how to win. The Sedins could be traded for youth this offseason and the Canucks would still be a playoff team IMO.....And they would play with much more heart and determination as a group once those playoffs began. I want to see this team go down with a fight if they're going to lose....With the twins leading the way, history has seen them go down with a whimper time, and again!!!!

 

[CanaFan]

Have you ever played on any sort of team? Winning cultivates a winning atmosphere/culture. I'd rather see our players see the playoffs every year instead dumping players for higher draft picks, Detroit is a prime example of this. Henrik Zetterberg had 3 points in 5 playoff games last year... he's still in Detroit. The Sedins will be back next season, they won't be traded, they most likely will be resigned when their contracts are up.

Totally agree, but what "winning culture" have the Canucks developed with the Sedins at the core? 2 1st round losses, 2 2nd round losses, and 1 cup loss in the past 5 years. Not too bad I'll grant you, but compare that to Detroit's 2 cups, 1 cup loss, and 1 3rd round loss in the past 11 years and you are talking apples and oranges. With that success - and success that Zetterberg with his Conn Smythe has been at the absolute CORE of - you can understand why they won't blow it up easily. If the Sedin's had a cup or a Conn Smythe or had a least been to the conference finals more than the 1 time, I would totally be on board with you. But we haven't and based on the past two playoffs I don't understand where this sense of "imminent success" is coming from ...

 

[King of the ES*]

Thought we should have a thread recognizing that this is the end of a very special era. Easily the greatest and most successful team in the history of the franchise. Major changes are coming but damn, we had it good for quite a while.

Somewhat oddly, my favourite version of this era was 2008-09. I really liked the additions of Bernier & Wellwood, and I loved that we were in the mix for Sundin. I recall being bullish on the team, while most other people were bearish, and I recall blasting Calgary 5 or 6-0 on opening night with Bernier (and Burrows) playing the game of his life.

When we got Sundin, I was ecstatic. I thought it was a fantastic signing. Incredibly, he mostly forgot how to play the game of hockey between the finish of the 07-08 season and that first game he laced up for us against the Oilers, but I thought the idea was great, and I don't for one second blame Gillis for wanting Mats on the team. I thought it made a lot of sense.

I think that was also the year where we could've gone up 3 - 2 on the Hawks had Mitchell not made that defensive zone clearing error, right to Havlat's stick.

Anyway, that team was the most exciting, IMO. That was also the year that both Kesler and Burrows really established themselves as good NHL players.

 

[iFan]

Totally agree, but what "winning culture" have the Canucks developed with the Sedins at the core? 2 1st round losses, 2 2nd round losses, and 1 cup loss in the past 5 years. Not too bad I'll grant you, but compare that to Detroit's 2 cups, 1 cup loss, and 1 3rd round loss in the past 11 years and you are talking apples and oranges. With that success - and success that Zetterberg with his Conn Smythe has been at the absolute CORE of - you can understand why they won't blow it up easily. If the Sedin's had a cup or a Conn Smythe or had a least been to the conference finals more than the 1 time, I would totally be on board with you. But we haven't and based on the past two playoffs I don't understand where this sense of "imminent success" is coming from ...

Making the playoffs how many times in the last 10 years? Is a winning culture, being a top team in the league for awhile and being among the leagues elite for a few years is a winning culture, not many teams have the wings track record.

 

[CanaFan]

Making the playoffs how many times in the last 10 years? Is a winning culture, being a top team in the league for awhile and being among the leagues elite for a few years is a winning culture, not many teams have the wings track record.

I agree no team has the Wings winning culture, which is why I objected to the posters use of the Wings/Zetterberg as an example of not blowing up a winning team. Comparing us to the wings is dumb.

And no, I don't agree that making the playoffs for 5 years and 1 trip to the finals constitutes a "winning culture". Looking at the *way* we lost to Chicago in 2009 and 2010, then Boston in SCF and then the last two years I'd argue we DON'T have a winning culture. What we have is an entitled culture, that plays hard enough in the regular season then seems to think they can flip a switch in playoffs. The meltdowns against Chicago and Boston aren't the *way* you like to lose. I can respect a good effort and maybe a 1 goal loss. But in all of those series we absolutely fell apart in all key games, not to mention the lacklustre showing this year and last in the first round.

No, I'd argue our winning culture is a very thin one and largely based in regular season ...

 

[Frankiedarling]

Winning culture is a team that expects to win and won't accept anything less than a strong effort towards that goal.

Problem is, only one team ever wins. It's not like they're the only ones with a winning culture.

I really like the atmosphere and attitude around our team. Changes can be made, but our general culture is fine.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Absolutely agree. That's why I fully expect to either get bounced early again next year, or miss the playoffs completely. Same old team, same old garbage results.

I'll never understand how you can believe, even for an instant, we won't qualify for the playoffs. Let's see the new alignment.

Anaheim = Playoffs
Calgary = Trash
Colorado = Bubble team
Edmonton = Will compete... for first overall again
LA = Playoffs
Phoenix = On the decline
San Jose = Likely Playoffs

Chicago = Playoffs
Columbus = Bubble team
Dallas = Bubble team
Detroit = Bubble team on a decline
Minnesota = Will find a new way to fail
Nashville = On the decline
St. Louis = Playoffs
Winnipeg = Bubble team

Three from each division qualify, then two additional from the conference. We would have to worse than two of Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville and Winnipeg. It's just not happening.

 

[Frankiedarling]

I think people get overexcited about failure, which is natural. You can make strong arguments about how we won't win the cup, but teams like ours generally don't miss the playoffs. Just the fact that we have a strong goalie gives us a bloody good chance, look at Columbus. Add that we spend to the cap and have a relatively solid D core, we're not missing anything.

 

[Aphid Attraction]

Im going to go with start of a new chapter, my 2 cents.

 

[Virtanen2Horvat]

Alright so pretty much this is next years roster currently:

Sedin-Sedin-Burrows
Higgins-Kesler-Booth
???-???-Hansen
???-???-Kassian

Hamhuis-Bieksa
Edler-Garrison
Corrado-??? (Need to re-sign Tanev)

Schneider
Lack (or Veteran backup)

Overall we need to build up our bottom six and drop Booth maybe and replace him with a good scoring 2nd liner. I would build up the bottom six with some young veterans maybe a rookie center on the 4th like Schroeder/Gaunce/Lain.

Guance: Depends how he plays in the pre-season I don't think he will be ready and I think almost everyone agrees.

Schroeder: He is starting to gain NHL experience and get better but may need some more work in the minors.

Lain: He can win faceoffs and is big so he would fit the 4th line to start but then again we can re-sign Lapierre I don't mind if hes there but it would be nice to have a 6'6" centerman on the 4th.

 

[Tirefire]

Not much of an era. Lots and lots of regular season success, nothing to show for it.

Pretty sad that it was the best we've ever had, too. Speaks volumes about this team's history.

Truthspeak! The Canucks are in trouble in the new league, they don't get to feast on lousy teams anymore.

 

[Freakshow]

The need for change/a new era has to happen because the Canucks are going into a division next year that includes big skilled hockey teams, Anaheim, Los Angeles & San Jose. The league is forcing Mike Gillis's hand here, and it's about time! He preaches skill and up tempo hockey when they in fact really only have two skilled players in Henrik and Daniel.

Over the past five seasons the Canucks have won 225 of a possible 376 hockey games, that is outstanding and I don't know if many teams can match that? BUT...times are changing!

Edler, Kesler, Higgins, Bieksa, Hansen & Schneider should all be on the block to change to team. Lets hope it happens!

 

[y2kcanucks]

I'll never understand how you can believe, even for an instant, we won't qualify for the playoffs. Let's see the new alignment.

Anaheim = Playoffs
Calgary = Trash
Colorado = Bubble team
Edmonton = Will compete... for first overall again
LA = Playoffs
Phoenix = On the decline
San Jose = Likely Playoffs

Chicago = Playoffs
Columbus = Bubble team
Dallas = Bubble team
Detroit = Bubble team on a decline
Minnesota = Will find a new way to fail
Nashville = On the decline
St. Louis = Playoffs
Winnipeg = Bubble team

Three from each division qualify, then two additional from the conference. We would have to worse than two of Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville and Winnipeg. It's just not happening.

Bolded are teams I expect will make the playoffs next year. Of course it all depends on what happens in the off-season so it's way too early to make an accurate prediction, and as you mention there are a number of other bubble teams, but I don't think it'll be as easy as it has been. Don't forget, based on our divisions we end up playing tougher competition than someone like Detroit who is in a weaker division. Where we benefitted from a weak division this season, we will be equally held back by a hard division next year.