Free washer | Vancouver sweep

Just two years ago, the Vancouver Canucks were growing dangerously. Led by young emerging stars Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser, they even managed to knock out defending champions, the St. Louis Blues, to reach the second round.

Mathias Brunet
Press

Due to the youth and talent of their workforce, nothing foreshadowed what was going to happen today: a big clean-up within the management …

After their feat of 2020, in which the series in which the first center Elias Pettersson amassed 18 points in 17 games and defenseman Quinn Hughes 16 points, at 21 and 20 years old respectively, the Canucks fell miserably.

Vancouver finished seventh in the Canadian division last year, at 24^e rank overall and they obviously missed the heats. It was not progressing much better this season with a record of 8-15-2, at 28^e rank of the general classification.

The core however remained the same between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 season. Tyler Toffoli was not selected, but he joined the team at the end of the season as a rental player. Goalkeeper Jakob Markstrom also left as he was looking for a big contract, but young Thatcher Demko looked set to take over. Defensive back Chris Tanev also switched sides, but was replaced by Nate Schmidt.

The pandemic did not help. The Canucks were hit harder than anyone by COVID-19 last season. But they were already playing horribly before the virus arrived in their locker room. And the underperformance continued this year.

Coach Travis Green, the first man fired this weekend, must take a significant share of the blame. Some of his young stars are no longer producing. Pettersson, among others, is unrecognizable. The 23-year-old center has amassed 132 points in his first 137 games of his career, but 33 in his last 51. He has only obtained 12 points, including 4 goals, in 25 games this season.

Boeser, 24, 29 goals in just 62 games in his first season, 26 goals in 69 games in his second, has just 4 goals in 22 games.

Captain Horvat, 26, is heading for a 42-point season. He was producing at a rate of over 60 points a few years ago.

In short, among this core of young firsts, if we exclude JT Miller at 28, only Quinn Hughes is producing at an interesting rate.

Bruce Boudreau in reinforcement

We hope to revive this core by replacing a tough trainer like Travis Green with a cake dad like Bruce Boudreau, a decision after all surprising.

Decision surprising first by the fact that Boudreau, fired by the Minnesota Wild in 2020, won only five rounds of the playoffs in 12 seasons with powerful teams like Washington, Anaheim and the Wild. But the owner Francesco Aquilini wanted to go about it with a short-term electroshock and Boudreau’s contract does not extend beyond 2023.

A surprising decision as well as Boudreau was accused by the former goalkeeper José Théodore of insults of a racial nature. Boudreau was not shy, in Washington, to treat Theodore and a few teammates from frogs, according to the former guardian, in an interview with the podcast Cam and Strick. Theodore’s claims did not reach the ears of the Canucks, or else we decided to stop them …

Blame it on Jim Benning

GM Jim Benning may have felt a little too rushed to move the Canucks forward, perhaps at the owner’s suggestion, you never know.

He has spent fortunes on players who have never been up to it: Loui Eriksson, Tyler Myers, Sam Gagner, Michael Del Zotto, Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and Travis Hamonic.

His fatal decision was undoubtedly to give up first-round picks in 2021 (9^e in total) and second round in 2022 for defender Oliver Ekman-Larsson and striker Conor Garland… but also to get rid of the contracts of Roussel, Beagle and Loui Eriksson.

The Canucks are no further ahead today. Ekman-Larsson did not hurt, despite a now very modest attacking contribution, and Garland produced, but the team did not win. Ekman-Larsson, 30, will command an annual salary of 8.2 million for this season… and the next six.

The Canucks still have an interesting nucleus, to which were added young forwards Nils Hoglander and Vasili Podkolzkin.

For the moment, we do not yet know the direction the organization will take since the GM has been appointed on an interim basis and the coach in the short term …

Alain Vigneault falls in Philadelphia

Despite significant resources, including 196 million offered to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter at the time, Chuck Fletcher never knew how to make the Minnesota Wild a power. Driven out of Minneapolis a few years ago, he nevertheless returned by the front door to Philadelphia in 2018. He was opened the bank vaults there too and Fletcher happily took it in by offering a monstrous contract to Kevin Hayes and in acquiring big employees like Cam Atkinson, Rasmus Ristolainen and Ryan Ellis in return for young people and / or choices. The Flyers have been going around in circles since his arrival and coach Alain Vigneault has just paid the price: he was fired Monday morning by one of the most overrated GMs in the NHL.