BEST OF THE REST
Let’s look at Vancouver’s first half of the season with rose-coloured glasses
After a relaxing, funfilled Sunday spent on Twitter, here are the Monday-morning musings and meditations on the world of sports:
■ When Trevor Linden was fired last summer, it seemed to mark a clear repudiation of his vision for the Vancouver Canucks.
True, the precise nature of that vision was sometimes fuzzy, but, over the last couple of years, Linden had come to embrace the rebuild. Veterans Jannik Hansen and Alex Burrows were traded at the 2017 deadline for future assets. Marquee free agents were eschewed for players on short-term deals.
At the conclusion of last season, Linden also presented ownership with his take on four different rebuilds — the Winnipeg Jets being the most notable — and said these are the models the Canucks should follow. He then estimated four years was a realistic time line for the team to become competitive.
For this he was fired, suggesting ownership wasn’t in complete agreement with Linden’s plan.
But here’s the thing. Seven months after the fact, the Canucks seem to be following the same template Linden laid out. During last Wednesday’s game with Carolina, Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini tweeted out: “Sure would be great to make playoffs, but not at the expense of our long-term plan. We want to build a team that challenges for the Cup year-after-year. Like we had in 2008, 9/10/11. That’s the path we’re on.”
General manager Jim Benning has also restated the purpose, saying the Canucks’ future won’t be mortgaged to chase a playoff spot this season. It’s the same thing Linden had been saying for a while.
So what changed?
In two words, Elias Pettersson.
When Linden made his presentation this off-season, he didn’t figure the Swedish rookie would change the entire conversation around the Canucks. Then again no one in the organization did. They knew he was a talent and, in time, would likely develop into a difference-maker. But no one saw a player who would step into the lineup and average over a point a game while completely changing the look and the feel of the franchise.
In one short season Pettersson has helped transform the Canucks into a playoff contender. It might not happen this season, but, given a logical developmental arc, it looks like this team will arrive a lot sooner than four years.
Would Linden have saved his job if he would have shortened the Canucks’ ETA? Maybe. But that’s also irrelevant now. The job of taking this franchise to the next level falls to the Aquilini ownership group, Benning and John Weisbrod, which, as it happens, represents the wildest wild card in the Canucks’ deck.
As we’ve stated a couple of times, being crummy every year and accumulating high draft picks is the easy part to any rebuild. The hard part — ask Florida, Carolina, Arizona and others — is developing those players and moulding them into a cohesive group while building the rest of the roster and creating depth in the organization.
The Aquilinis, Benning and Weisbrod now have that chance and a pretty clear idea of how long it should take. We’ll know soon enough if they’re the right people for the job.
■ It shouldn’t work that way, but the NHL supplied a groundbreaking moment when they put Kendall Coyne Schofield and Brianna Decker in the Skills Competition over the weekend.
With their cameos at the all-star game, Coyne Schofield and Decker gave women’s hockey a shot of adrenalin it has struggled to find elsewhere. They led sportscasts. They got people talking. They were showcased in the best possible light.
It wasn’t exactly Billie Jean King versus Bobby Riggs, but, in time, it will be comparable with Annika Sorenstam’s participation in the 2003 Colonial. The women’s game has undergone tremendous growth in the last 20 years, but they’ve struggled to establish their place on the sports landscape. One clip on a highlight reel shouldn’t change that, but the right one does.
■ Justin Rose isn’t the most charismatic, the most powerful or the most talented guy on the PGA Tour. But, as he proved again this weekend at Torrey Pines, he’s the best player.
In a game that’s trending more and more toward length, it’s refreshing to see precision and consistency still counts for something. Rose might give up a bit in other areas, but it’s those attributes that set him apart.
■ And finally, talked with Travis Lulay over the phone on the weekend and the Lions quarterback is still undecided about his future.
He’s also in an awkward situation. The Lions are pursuing Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly, who’s one of Lulay’s closest friends, but, unless Lulay is willing to take a significant pay cut, it’s hard to envision a world where both fit under the CFL cap.
Then again, it’s hard to envision a CFL team turning its starting job over to Lulay. He’s been a great Lion and a first-class ambassador for the Canadian game. Just hope he gets to choose the next stage of his career, whatever that is.