Who are you mad at?
That’s the simple, pointed question that Patrick Johnston threw out there Monday afternoon on the Province Sports Twitter account.
I like the question. After all, it doesn’t make the assumption that all of you are mad. Especially when one of the four answers is “No one, I’m good.”
This is how it looked before I left the newsroom last night:
It was not a good day.
Look at it this way. You get to watch Dan Hamhuis finish the season as a Canuck. And you get to watch Radim Vrbata score maybe one more goal as a Canuck.
Vrbata. Thirty-one goals last season. Money with the Sedins.
Is that what it is? Guys who play with the Sedins are money? And guys who play anywhere else aren’t?
You know where this is going. Next year, Jannik Hansen — he of a career-high 19 goals — will be moved back down the lineup. It will be a disaster, playing with fourth-liners Derek Dorsett and Owen Nolan, who comes out of retirement and is added to a young, rebuilding club as a mentor. And with just the 2017-18 season left on his contract, Hansen will be a prime candidate to be moved at the 2017 trade deadline. Everyone around the league will talk about all the goals he scored with the Sedins. And there won’t be a single offer.
That couldn’t possibly happen, could it?
The Home Team
Man, at some point we’ll have to move past this. Here’s how it appears things shook down in the leadup to the trade deadline, according to Jason Botchford:
A deal similar to the one the Flames got for Kris Russell was on the table for the Canucks.
The Stars had moved on to Hamhuis, thinking the Russell asking price was too high.
There have been reports that Calgary even thought their deal was dead.
Then, the Stars thought they had a trade for Hamhuis.
But Vancouver came back, asking for more. Dallas then essentially flipped the Canucks the bird, took their offers and went to Calgary.
There will be plenty of people reporting the reason the Canucks asked for more was ownership.
It’s believed Canucks owners were reluctant to trade Hamhuis to Dallas. Would they do it for a premium? Sure.
Whatever went down, in the end nothing went down for the Canucks, and as Botch mentions in a video, this will haunt them. They waived Adam Cracknell and actually played him before he got picked up by the Edmonton Oilers. In the meantime, none of the other members of the Garage Sale Seven went anywhere, returned nothing. And Ed Willes wonders at the mystery of it all:
The organization is in full rebuild mode. They’ve accumulated some nice young assets who could form the nucleus of a competitive team in the near future.
A trade involving Hamhuis and, to a lesser extent, Radim Vrbata represented an opportunity to add draft picks or prospects to that young nucleus.
And they ended up with nothing, which is bad enough. But what’s just as bad is the deals that were made in and around the deadline and the returns teams got for players similar to or lesser than Hamhuis.
Ah, yes, Vrbata. You know, he was sort of lost in all the endless hubbub recently surrounding Hamhuis. Yesterday afternoon, when the deadline came and went with a whimper and Ben Kuzma brought up Vrbata’s name, I said, “Do that story, Kuz. The guy was a star just one year ago. Now he can’t get a bag of pucks.” I mean, seriously. Does the Vrbata situation not symbolize the Canucks’ troubles as much as Hamhuis’s? Kuz’s piece is excellent. Here’s how it starts. Love the visual:
The hat-trick puck still sits in Radim Vrbata’s stall. The white tape wrapping it with the inscription of his rare Dec. 7 accomplishment is faded and frayed. Kind of like his season. Kind of like his mind.
So, 21 long games left in the season, starting with tonight at the Rog against the New York Islanders (Sportsnet Pacific, TSN 1040, 7 p.m.). Will we see less Vrbata, less Hamhuis, less other veterans in the final quarter? Will Brendan Gaunce or Cole Cassels or Hunter Shinkaruk or Jordan Subban or Andrey Pedan get a shot at playing in the NHL — you know, really playing? Will those young Canucks, and the older ones, be encouraged to play for fun, like they have nothing to lose, give the fans their money’s worth?
The Islanders, for their part, will look the same tonight as they would have on the weekend in Alberta. They gave up a third-round pick for 23-year-old Ottawa Senators rookie Shane Prince, who has 12 points in 42 games. Islanders GM Garth Snow is sticking with his crew, which looks like it will be in a dogfight to hold onto the final playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division. According to Newsday, Snow wasn’t willing to part with 18-year-old Coquitlam product Mathew Barzal, the 16th overall pick in 2015 who has 77 points in 50 games for the Seattle Thunderbirds; with Anthony Beauvillier, last year’s 28th overall pick, the captain of the Quebec league’s Shawinigan Cataractes, who has 63 points in 40 games; with Michael Dal Colle, the fifth overall pick in 2014 who has 93 points in 56 games for the Kingston Frontenacs; or with Josh Ho-Sang, the 28th overall pick in 2014 who has 81 points in 60 games for the Niagara IceDogs.
The Islanders have some serious prospects.
Around the NHL
Look, the deadline has passed. Now it’s all about the future. And in a brilliant bit of scheduling, Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel meet for the first time as NHLers tonight in Buffalo. Think McDavid, last year’s draft No. 1, has any extra motivation in facing the No. 2? Or the other way around?
“It’s tough to say,” McDavid told the Buffalo News. “I’ve never talked to him about it or anything like that, so I don’t really know his feeling. For me personally, it’s not really too much of a big deal.
“We got drafted together, sure, but other than that we don’t really share that much in common. He plays in the East, I play in the West. He went to school, I played in junior. So we’re basically opposites in that sense. So for us personally, it’s not much to it.”
More from the Buffalo News’ Bucky Gleason here.
An emotional deal went down on Monday when Joe Sakic and the Colorado Avalanche parted ways with Alex Tanguay (above centre), who spent nine seasons in Denver in two different stints. They landed Mikkel Boedker from the Arizona Coyotes, a 26-year-old Dane who should top his career-high of 51 points. The Denver Post’s Mark Kiszla applauded the move, but reminded readers that the weekend’s Stadium Series only pointed to the Avalanche’s best years being well in the past — and that there are serious warning signs about the future:
Have the Avs sold fans a bill of goods by stubbornly insisting the best years for this roster are yet to come?
While it’s true that center Nathan MacKinnon (age 20), defenceman Tyson Barrie (24) and captain Gabriel Landeskog (23) make up a promising young core, here’s a fact that might readjust your thinking:
Chicago has hoisted the Stanley Cup in three of the past six NHL seasons. During the same time frame, Colorado has won a grand total of zero playoff series. Now examine the top 18 players on the rosters for the Avalanche and Blackhawks. For Chicago, the average age is 28. Even after dumping Tanguay in a trade with Arizona, the average age for the Avs is 27.7. There’s no real significant difference.
The truth is the Avs are not a young team. In fact, in many key positions, Colorado shows signs of grey.
‘You Will Never, Ever Wear This Hat!’
As promotions go, this one is, um, unique. Friday night at the Time Warner Cable Arena:
Not safe for work!
Bostonians “Wear Undershirts and Cargo Shorts in Public”
By the way, it’s fantastic that Spotlight won the best picture Oscar. Strangely enough, my children would still rather see Eddie the Eagle.
Check out this fantastic mock-trailer called Spawtlight. Now this would be a movie:
Imagine if we’d had that in the spring of 2011?
Speaking of not safe for work, my NFL combine-loving colleague Paul Chapman loves this video of Mississippi State defensive lineman Chris Jones struggling to keep himself put together during a sprint.
All right, folks, on with your day. Get back to work. I’ll be here a bit later with your Afternoon Skate — and then, on Wednesday, Erik Rolfsen has what has to be a more entertaining Morning Skate.
