Sports Chew

The Boston Bruins of 2011 have greatly affected the Canucks of 2012 and beyond. 

You, as the Vancouver Canucks, are a favorite to win the Stanley Cup. You have potential Calder Candidate (Cody Hodgson) who is producing at a high level from a 3rd line role. Granted, he isn’t the 3rd line guy you would ideally want to shut down the opposing players’ top lines, but he gives you great depth in case one of your top 6 players struggles or gets injured. At worst, you get solid point production from three lines, and hyper-focus your 4th line with your top shut down guys since most teams aren’t rolling two lines deep with elite scoring talent. Even if they do, you counter balance it anyway with three lines who can score at a good pace.

But, most teams don’t win without unsung heroes coming from anywhere beyond your top line right? Sammy Pahlsson was an absolute beast … five years ago in 2007. He is now 34. It would seem Gillis watched the Ducks run in ’07 and absolutely needed to get him. I don’t mind the trade, gives fine depth, but he shouldn’t be someone you want to come in and replace or even come close to Hodgson’s point per game total. 

Teams who have unsung heroes have them because they don’t have the established depth already in place. To feel that you need those guys to step up is a fallacy when you’ve already got it. Mike Gillis absolutely out-thought himself on his trade deadline this year. Say what you will, while the Canucks were not physically imposing, it is not even close to the reason they lost. They lost because they didn’t capitalize on their powerplay chances, or scoring chances in general, in a lot of those games. Adding a offensive weapon like Hodgson this year, as he wasn’t even playing in the finals last year, in itself is as good as a great deadline deal that upgades your team vastly from last year to this. 

Zach Kassian is a project. He won’t make an impact on your roster for at least a year, maybe two. Power Forwards who are rookies are often like shutdown defencemen: it takes a bit to get there. It’s not a matter of will, and sometimes, not even skill; the physical maturity is just not there yet. There are exceptions, such as Lucic, but he is a freak of nature. Do you really want Kassian squaring off with Lucic at this point in his career? He would be annihilated, and that isn’t Kassian’s fault, he just isn’t ready yet. He couldn’t crack Buffalo’s lineup, so why expect to put him in anywhere and have him be effective? He isn’t sound enough in his own end to play a shut down role. He doesn’t fit anywhere else and is nothing more than a plug on the 4th line. Gillis easily could have traded for Pahlsson, made sure you have someone to compliment Malhotra, and that’s it.

Gillis tried to build to the future when the present is their chance to win. While Hodgson had issues with the coach, and his agent is a complete joke, he came in every game and played very well, regardless of personal unhappiness. Trade him after this year’s Cup run. If it’s not broke, don’t attempt to fix it. The Canucks were crushing the league for a while, and Hodgson was playing a vital role. There is no evidence to suggest that would have slowed down. In fact, he picked up his game considerably between the start of the year and the day he was traded.

The trade made for Kassian isn’t specifically to blame, not entirely. But, how much more comfortable do you think the Canucks are with someone who can get points on the board like Hodgson, compared to Pahlsson needing to rekindle his 5 year old magic, and Kassian getting less than 4 minutes per game? Losing your top scorer is hard to predict, but the teams who stay the healthiest usually win, and if they’re not healthy, they have scoring depth. To take out a solid offensive contributor in lieu of a long term project who is anything but a sure thing, when your time to win is today, is a losing philosophy. Gillis saw something that wasn’t there; it was the ghost of the big bad Bruins punishing the Canucks.

The toughness and lack of response on the scoresheet in the Stanley Cup finals ultimately pushed this deal to happen. The hopes that Kassian would magically find a game he doesn’t yet posses to replicate when Hodgson was putting out was an incredibly long shot. Adding grit to your lineup is great, but it doesn’t automtically replace offense. If the Canucks fired at their season average of roughly 25% on the PP opposed to 6% during the last Cup finals, there would be no urgency and overreaction of dropping a “weak” Hodgson and adding someone to protect the team but still score like they wanted Kassian to do. Just because you want someone to be something doesn’t mean they will be. 

Very dissapointing post season for Vancouver, and there is no way to tell if Hodgson would have made any difference. However, against a shutdown team like the Kings, you need every bit of scoring you can get and when you lose someone who was a .52 PPG and replace it with someone who is a .17 PPG player, it is a gigantic difference. Not to mention the ice time difference, or how much of a help Hodgson could have been with Daniel out for 3 games of the playoffs. All because Gillis believed his team wasn’t tough enough to win, when the real issue was the 6% powerplay percentage. Sure, Daniel Sedin could have not taken 9 punches to the face and begged the ref to stop it, but if the Canucks punished the Bruins on the PP, that wouldn’t have happened. Their goal scoring prowess should have enforced the game enough. For this season, and many seasons beyond, they have sacraficed a talented offensive playmaker for a potential no better than 3rd line power forward with a low ceiling.

Big Bad Bruins, wreaking havoc on the Canucks since 2011.