The Sins Of The (Vancouver) Father

You can rarely judge a team on its pre-season performances, but it's fair to say that things at the Rogers Arena are looking shaky. The Canucks are currently 1/4 on their pre-season games, not a great start for new coach John Tortorella.

Former coach Alain Vigneault was fired after the team failed to progress past the the first round of the last two playoffs, along with two assistants. Since joining the NHL in 1970, the Canucks have failed to lift the Stanley Cup.

It's a regular occurrence than coaches are fired long before the GMs who brought them in. You can't browse the internet without tripping over people questioning Mike Gillis' decision. This season past has included plenty of questionable moments, including Vigneault's firing, Tortorella's hiring, Luongo-Gate and Cory Schneider's trade to the New Jersey Devils. 

Vigneault's firing was an odd move, to fire the coach who'd won more games at the Canucks than any other coach seemed to smack of cup desperation. Vigneault finished his Vancouver tenure on 313-170-57, having taken the team to all but one post-season in his time. That's pretty good by anyone's standards.

Bringing in Tortorella as replacement is a risky move, he's a fiery individual and does not have a one-size-fits-all personality. This will either make or break the team. He's had success with the New York Rangers and lifted the Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning so he certainly has the pedigree for success.

In addition to the replacement of Vigneault, Gillis has also been responsible for some questionable trades. Offering Mats Sundin a $10 million a season was crazy money. Sundin was of course a great player but to offer such a huge amount of money to a player old enough to have actually considered retiring was crazy.

Sundin eventually accepted a lower contract but in his injury prone 44 games, only clocked 36 points. Not exactly great value for money. You can't help but think that the money could have been better spent.

There's also questions about how the Canucks' goaltending situation was handled. Towards the end of last season, Luongo had become very vocal about how unhappy he was with his contract, he wanted out of Vancouver and the team had been trying to trade him for a while. The problem lay with his hefty contract. A contract negotiated by Gillis. This effectively made Luongo untradable.

Last season, Schneider had effectively become Vancouver's number one choice between the sticks, but as history has taught us, you can't have two number one goalies on your books. The fact that no other GM wanted to take on Luongo left Gillis with two options, either trade Schneider or buy out Luongo.

So the first choice goalie who was happy at Vancouver gets to watch Martin Brodeur from the New Jersey Devils' bench and the goalie who wanted out is staying. To their credit, both goalies have remained professional but it looks like they both got screwed by that trade.

The above issues, and probably more, have damaged the team. Not irreparably but definitely negatively. The main thing that I see is that non of the above issues were caused by Vigneault. Change needs to come to Vancouver, but it's not behind the bench, it's at a GM level. Whether this means that Gillis goes or just changes his mindset remains to be seen but things cannot continue this way. GMs need to be held to the same level of accountability as the coaches they hire and the trades they arrange.

Alex's Edit: As a avid Canucks fan, I feel I should add my two cents to this piece. Mike Gillis is man who has a chequered history with this franchise and frankly after two underperforming seasons his trades are beginning to put a strain on the fans patience. Cory Schneider was without a doubt the future goalie of the franchise- but to trade him away for young Bo Horvat is just daft personified!

His handling of Roberto Luongo and his public outcries of dismay frankly deserves a hard slap! We have a goalie on a $64 million contract who doesnt want to play for his team! Trading him or buying his contract would have solved a lot of issues and brought us less unwanted media coverage on this one! 

Hiring Tortorella as far as I'm concerned is a step backwards and I understand you shouldnt judge a book by its cover- but losing 3 out 4 pre season games has alarm bells ringing all round. But last nights 6-1 win at home to Phoenix has rested a few nerves.

The season ahead will no doubt be hard to predict, all I can hope is that stability comes soon because the Sedins can't run this side alone!