The Vancouver Canucks Are in Trouble

The Vancouver Canucks' 2013–14 season was a disaster with the club missing the playoffs for the first time since 2007–2008. Putting out the fire former general manager Mike Gillis and head coach John Tortorella had left ablaze was the team's No. 1 priority. Vancouver upped fan optimism by bringing in Canucks legend Trevor Linden as new team president, announced former Bruins assistant general manager Jim Benning would take over as GM, while Willie Desjardins—one of the AHL's best coaches—would assume duties behind the bench.

The club quickly returned to the playoffs last season, finishing second in the Pacific Division with 101 points. While the Calgary Flames defeated the team in five games in the first round of the playoffs, it was still an important bounce-back season in Vancouver.

This offseason should have represented a potential building block for the team's turnaround, a chance for the Canucks to improve, but Benning seemingly didn't get the memo as the sophomore GM completely floundered. The worst move Benning made was inexplicably trading goalie Eddie Lack to the Carolina Hurricanes for a paltry return of a third and seventh-round draft pick—a move that has left the Canucks goaltending situation in dire straits.

Ryan Miller signed a mammoth three-year, $18 million deal in 2014 to be Vancouver's de facto starter, but Lack (a fan favourite in Van City) was the glue that held the Canucks together. He won 18 games and posted a sturdy .920 even strength save percentage in 43 starts. The 27-year-old Swede was young enough and played well enough to be considered the future solution between the pipes. The 34-year-old Miller regressed like many predicted he would, and posted spotty numbers despite a deceiving 29-15-1 record. Canucks goaltending combined to post a 91.60 five-on-five even strength save percentage (25th in the NHL) despite Lack's breakout.

Moving Miller would have been the smart play, but that would have been much harder to do given his age and contract—though Benning could have apparently done just that, admitting as much at a laughably bad Canucks summit event. Benning opted to keep the older, worse, much more expensive goaltender and basically gave away a potential starter in Lack. The move means Jacob Markstrom, a former top-rated goalie prospect who has been about as bad as you can be in 50 career NHL games, will be Miller's backup, which is a massive gamble.

"In a perfect world we would like to see Ryan play 55 to 60 games and Jacob the other 22 to 25 games," Benning told the CBC. "That will depend on how they're playing and injuries and all that. It's always been our philosophy that we want two real good goalies so in case one of them goes down the other one can carry the load."

His philosophy of carrying two 'real good goalies' makes sense, but the problem is he doesn't have them. The move makes goaltending the club's biggest question mark entering the season.

Benning made more questionable decisions, including the acquisition of centre Brandon Sutter and a third-round pick from the Pittsburgh Penguins for Nick Bonino, Adam Clendening and a second rounder. There's plenty of things that make this a bad trade—you could argue Bonino's the better player, the Canucks gave up an NHL-ready defenceman in the deal for no reason, or question why the Canucks gave up the better draft pick.

What's unforgivable, though, is Benning signed Sutter to a five-year, $21.875 million extension before he even made his debut. That's a lot of cheese to give a player who has never scored more than 40 points in a single season. As Canucks Army pointed out, that's Tyler Bozak money, and we all know how that turned out. Benning should take a long vacation from signing extensions.

Benning also traded 24-year-old Zack Kassian for enforcer Brandon Prust, and traded Kevin Bieksa for a second-round draft pick. None of these deals improved the Canucks in the present.

The moves leave the Canucks with an aging group. The Sedins can always be counted on, and Radim Vrbata can score, but who's going to light it up behind them? Sutter will be given a chance to be the second-line centre, but his production might not match his role. Alex Burrows had a bounce-back season, but is probably better suited for third-line duty at this point in his career.

The Canucks will get some much needed supplementary scoring from Jannik Hansen, Chris Higgins and Linden Vey, but what could help the team improve is the development of Bo Horvat or Sven Baertschi. Horvat exceeded expectations as a 19-year-old and could take another step forward, especially if he finds time with the Sedins, while Baertschi could finally showcase his skill given the right role. The Canucks could use the secondary offence since they are effectively making their fourth line a face-punchers club.

Vancouver could also inject some youth into this year's squad, although the impact wouldn't be massive. It wouldn't be surprising to see Jake Virtanen, Brendan Gaunce, Jared McCann, Cole Cassels or Hunter Shinkaruk find playing time in the NHL level this season.

There's not a star among the group, but the Canucks should field a competent defensive unit. Vancouver's top pair of Alexander Edler and Chris Tanev are both capable of playing big minutes in most situations and the two complement each other well. There's plenty of offence behind them, too, with Dan Hamhuis and Yannick Weber.

Vancouver has a good coach in Desjardins who will manage his players well. The Canucks aren't going to be lottery-level bad, but there's almost no way Vancouver pulls off two consecutive 100-point seasons with how the roster looks. The goaltending is below NHL replacement level and the forward group, especially the club's secondary scoring, is questionable at best. There could be some surprises that shift the trajectory of the club, but if a major injury occurs to a top player, this season could spell disaster.

The Canucks simply got worse this offseason and that will be reflected in the standings.