Canucks 2021 Season

It seems to me that the Canuck owner has given up on trying to build a contender/cup winning team. For some years they seem to be trying to build a mush team. A team that has no hope of winning a cup but does manage to barely make it into the playoffs most years and then gets bounced in the first or second round. I understand they can make about $5 million for each playoff home game. Granted that is a step up from a team that usually does not make it to the playoffs. To accomplish this low expectation, they constantly trade off the prospect of being a contender team for short term gains towards the mush team development and in doing so end up with the worst cap space management in the NHL. I don't see how they will ever become a contender team by trading off a great many draft picks and paying way to much for once decent players that are past their prime and giving them over priced and over lengthy contracts.
The current management team is at least trying to go younger. They have had management changes, they have had how many coaching changes? At some point you reach the conclusion that it is not the management or the coaching that has been the major problem, it is the owner pushing for short term gain to try and squeak into the playoff and sacrificing the future to do so. After this many decades of never winning the cup, long suffering Canucks fans like myself are in a torches and pitchforks mood.
 
It seems to me that the Canuck owner has given up on trying to build a contender/cup winning team. For some years they seem to be trying to build a mush team. A team that has no hope of winning a cup but does manage to barely make it into the playoffs most years and then gets bounced in the first or second round. I understand they can make about $5 million for each playoff home game. Granted that is a step up from a team that usually does not make it to the playoffs. To accomplish this low expectation, they constantly trade off the prospect of being a contender team for short term gains towards the mush team development and in doing so end up with the worst cap space management in the NHL. I don't see how they will ever become a contender team by trading off a great many draft picks and paying way to much for once decent players that are past their prime and giving them over priced and over lengthy contracts.
The current management team is at least trying to go younger. They have had management changes, they have had how many coaching changes? At some point you reach the conclusion that it is not the management or the coaching that has been the major problem, it is the owner pushing for short term gain to try and squeak into the playoff and sacrificing the future to do so. After this many decades of never winning the cup, long suffering Canucks fans like myself are in a torches and pitchforks mood.
Thanks for writing this. I've started to write similar comments illustrating the sames points a few times already, and ended up quitting after a few lines, saying 'what's the use?' with a big sigh. I completely agree with what you are saying. Maybe local boy Ryan Reynolds can buy the team?
 
It seems to me that the Canuck owner has given up on trying to build a contender/cup winning team. For some years they seem to be trying to build a mush team. A team that has no hope of winning a cup but does manage to barely make it into the playoffs most years and then gets bounced in the first or second round. I understand they can make about $5 million for each playoff home game. Granted that is a step up from a team that usually does not make it to the playoffs. To accomplish this low expectation, they constantly trade off the prospect of being a contender team for short term gains towards the mush team development and in doing so end up with the worst cap space management in the NHL. I don't see how they will ever become a contender team by trading off a great many draft picks and paying way to much for once decent players that are past their prime and giving them over priced and over lengthy contracts.
The current management team is at least trying to go younger. They have had management changes, they have had how many coaching changes? At some point you reach the conclusion that it is not the management or the coaching that has been the major problem, it is the owner pushing for short term gain to try and squeak into the playoff and sacrificing the future to do so. After this many decades of never winning the cup, long suffering Canucks fans like myself are in a torches and pitchforks mood.
This
 
yyep. 75-85 k per seat on a minimum three year term and also plans for a private restaurant for just that section. Aquilini is so out of touch with his real fans it’s actually laughable.

Just an absolutely terrible owner. worst thing that’s ever happened to this franchise is the day he got the keys to gm place
 
The luxury conversions seem to be trending in major leagues lately. See what's happening in baseball with the Blue Jays and the Oakland A's.
 
Actually the worst part is that the Stanley Cup chase requires GMs and coaches to build two separate teams, one for the reg season and one for playoffs. Play entertaining high scoring hockey from October to April to put bums in seats and attract sponsors, then transform into a defensive machine for May and June. Put the teams through a meat grinder where the marquee players are targeted so fiercely that almost every one of them is playing injured and the Cup goes to the team with an in form goalie and the best fourth line.

I don't deny that physical and mental toughness are admirable traits in athletes, but the NHL has elevated these above all else. The game it markets and the game actually played to win the Stanley Cup are completely different.
The easy season and the real season.

The easy season is for the star players, they get the team to be in the top 50%. They will still be important in the real season but you can look at it like this.
Easy season is the top six, the real season the bottom six.

In a league where 50% are almost rewarded with a participation award, the playoffs, the game is for Janes, pygmies.
In the real season the game is for Tarzan's, large individuals.

Small teams rarely make a dent, Tampa enlarged itself twice, Pittsburgh and Chicago also.

The fallacy that "anything can happen" is fodder for marketing. Florida was the best team in the league last year, St Louis was a powerhouse the year before, even the 94 Canuck run where they barely made it they were a top team the year before and one of the biggest teams in the league too. If "anything can happen" then Vegas bookies would have every team at even odds at the beginning of the season but they don't.

The more a team in Canada loses the more educated fans become making it harder to sucker them into all these repeated cliques of false hope or outright lies.
 
It seems to me that the Canuck owner has given up on trying to build a contender/cup winning team. For some years they seem to be trying to build a mush team. A team that has no hope of winning a cup but does manage to barely make it into the playoffs most years and then gets bounced in the first or second round. I understand they can make about $5 million for each playoff home game. Granted that is a step up from a team that usually does not make it to the playoffs. To accomplish this low expectation, they constantly trade off the prospect of being a contender team for short term gains towards the mush team development and in doing so end up with the worst cap space management in the NHL. I don't see how they will ever become a contender team by trading off a great many draft picks and paying way to much for once decent players that are past their prime and giving them over priced and over lengthy contracts.
The current management team is at least trying to go younger. They have had management changes, they have had how many coaching changes? At some point you reach the conclusion that it is not the management or the coaching that has been the major problem, it is the owner pushing for short term gain to try and squeak into the playoff and sacrificing the future to do so. After this many decades of never winning the cup, long suffering Canucks fans like myself are in a torches and pitchforks mood.
A conspiracy theorist might say it is the NHL's plan.
Keep milking the cash cows of the staunchest fan bases with snippets of playoff hopes. The odds of not one Canadian team not winning a cup in 30 years is beyond the requirement of matching DNA in a court case.
It is almost a 14+ year cycle of each Canadian to have a one or two year "window" whereas the big US markets and new teams or those just purchased seem to be winners in short order.

Why would Canadian team owner's go along with this, franchise values for one. As bad as the Canucks have been and the franchise value has dropped, it is still deemed worth 800 million, it should be well over a billion but losing does take it's toll and one good year will increase it's worth by a huge margin.

Look at the big plan, with the exception of Arizona, which contrary what many think, is still owned by the league, loans set up by and backed by the NHL. Players paid by the NHL and allowed to have a 39 million dollar pay roll thanks to LTIR and to have fewer than 1/3 the requirement of season tickets to qualify for the equalization payments, the rest of the league operate as a single entity, just like what Bettman testified to in the bankruptcy hearing while under oath.

The odds of not winning the cup? 7 Canadian clubs out of 32, almost 22% of the league so a one in five chance each year, now do that 30 times, a one out of five chance times 30 is 6 times a Canadian team should have won the cup all things being equal but even bring that just once is approaching 13 digits that it should have happened once.

Just about every Canadian club makes a showing at a cup every 12 to 16 years, usually just once and then back to hype and hope for a decade and longer.

Viewed as individual teams is seems to make sense but viewed as a group it doesn't.
As a group it would be like one of the divisions has been in existence for 30 years and never won a cup, it is almost the same odds as not one Canadian team not winning. The entire Pacific or Metro never winning
 
The easy season and the real season.

The easy season is for the star players, they get the team to be in the top 50%. They will still be important in the real season but you can look at it like this.
Easy season is the top six, the real season the bottom six.

In a league where 50% are almost rewarded with a participation award, the playoffs, the game is for Janes, pygmies.
In the real season the game is for Tarzan's, large individuals.

Small teams rarely make a dent, Tampa enlarged itself twice, Pittsburgh and Chicago also.

What you say is true, but it's garbage. GMs shouldn't have to build two teams in one. Fans want to see the hottest players at their very best, playing all out for the Cup, and the league hypes it that way. Instead we get unlimited OT and the bottom 6 beating the hell out of the opposing top 6, the Cup goes to the last gorillas standing. It's a shell game.

If the league really did want 'anything can happen' hockey, we'd play an olympic style one-and-done knockout tournament with the Cup being handed out on a predetermined day with way more media focus. Not some tuesday night in June, oops maybe it will be thursday now. If done right and properly promoted, the media buy would offset the fewer games played.

The NHL holds in its hands the fastest, most skillful hockey players on the planet, but squanders these riches by pursuing an anachronistic endurance contest instead. They have no clue about promoting the sport itself, and barely bother to try. Their self interest and shortsightedness is going to cost them as their old white market base steadily ages out.
 
The easy season and the real season.

The easy season is for the star players, they get the team to be in the top 50%. They will still be important in the real season but you can look at it like this.
Easy season is the top six, the real season the bottom six.

In a league where 50% are almost rewarded with a participation award, the playoffs, the game is for Janes, pygmies.
In the real season the game is for Tarzan's, large individuals.

Small teams rarely make a dent, Tampa enlarged itself twice, Pittsburgh and Chicago also.

The fallacy that "anything can happen" is fodder for marketing. Florida was the best team in the league last year, St Louis was a powerhouse the year before, even the 94 Canuck run where they barely made it they were a top team the year before and one of the biggest teams in the league too. If "anything can happen" then Vegas bookies would have every team at even odds at the beginning of the season but they don't.

The more a team in Canada loses the more educated fans become making it harder to sucker them into all these repeated cliques of false hope or outright lies.
True story
 
What you say is true, but it's garbage. GMs shouldn't have to build two teams in one. Fans want to see the hottest players at their very best, playing all out for the Cup, and the league hypes it that way. Instead we get unlimited OT and the bottom 6 beating the hell out of the opposing top 6, the Cup goes to the last gorillas standing. It's a shell game.

If the league really did want 'anything can happen' hockey, we'd play an olympic style one-and-done knockout tournament with the Cup being handed out on a predetermined day with way more media focus. Not some tuesday night in June, oops maybe it will be thursday now. If done right and properly promoted, the media buy would offset the fewer games played.

The NHL holds in its hands the fastest, most skillful hockey players on the planet, but squanders these riches by pursuing an anachronistic endurance contest instead. They have no clue about promoting the sport itself, and barely bother to try. Their self interest and shortsightedness is going to cost them as their old white market base steadily ages out.
But then the NBA would dominate.

The Stanley Cup is touted THE hardest championship to win. A seven game series insures an equal chance rather than a one time one and done.
A series is about TEAM not one outstanding individual effort.

The only reason for the way it is with the two season build is to put bums in seats.

The lengthy build time is because the teams all work together under the umbrella of the NHL to increase franchise values. There seems to be a formula of one or two star players with a couple more being sold as such.

One thing the NHL has stopped is reporting on the standings during most of the year. Since the loser point they have fooled many fans into thinking that being a .500 team is success whereas a .500 team is usually around 24th in the league, even wins are tainted with SO's during the regular season.

As an example, not likely but, a team could make the playoffs and only needs to win 10 or 11 games all year if they lost the rest in OT or SO. 72 TO losses equal 72 points and 10 wins equals 20 points so a 92 point season with only 10 wins. A phony standing for marketing. That is why Vegas bookies can be very accurate at the start of a season.

Star level players used have huge impacts in the playoffs then rules changed to make bottom six players, the shadows, become much bigger impacts in the game. There have always been those players that excel in the playoffs like Lemieux but the stars usually had a bigger impact.

Small teams are for selling the regular season, large teams can do both it is just easier to find smaller players than the really big good ones.

In Hockey Canada they used to say find players that had to duck going through the doorway, they can be taught to skate and since they did that they have had big success, just look at the Swedish teams, very large individuals and a couple of decades of winning in the divisional standings.

The league wants to sell the "anything can happen" during the regular season
 
But then the NBA would dominate.

The Stanley Cup is touted THE hardest championship to win. A seven game series insures an equal chance rather than a one time one and done.

Memorial Cup and Centennial Cups wave hello. We put juniors through the same meat grinder, plus a ten day tournament at the end. But where does the media focus go? On the World Juniors, actual "anything can happen" hockey - because it's more attractive.
 
First week of June and the NHL playoff final series is just starting. 10 month season for these players starting with mini cap etc?
All about quantity over quality. Owners unwilling to take a chance on a shorter more intense reg and post season that, if properly marketed, would yield them more revenue per game than now.
 
yep that was big boy hockey with big towering d men that aren’t afraid to clear the net and possibly chip a nail.

when i see hockey like this it reminds me just how far away the canucks are from winning.

vegas had i believe like, 15 Canadians on the roster
 
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