This debate is borderline pointless though, there's an ownership group here that won't let a GM punt a season, let alone 3. There may be merits to tanking, and it certainly has helped some franchises, but if this ownership group won't greenlight 3 years without playoffs it's not going to happen here. And if it did, there would be pressure to move picks/prospects for immediate help.
Further to that, and I said this in another thread, I watch the team, post on message boards, engage on twitter about the Canucks, and get drunk with my dad and talk hockey because it's fun. There's nothing fun about losing on purpose. I mean, I'd rather this team get the number one pick through glaring incompetence and disaster, then through some sort of calculated decision not to compete for a year or three.
I look at Pittsburgh and still see a franchise that doesn't deserve a team because of the gross tank job for Mario, and the subsequent almost loss of a franchise and bailout by the league for Sid. It's an absolute joke that the city has a team.
The only way the McDavid dream lives is if we see Henrik tear an ACL in the first third of the season.
And besides, with the Canucks luck, they'll change the lottery system/rules the year that we are frontrunners for the #1 pick.