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Originally Posted by Vinny01
Is there some credit that should be given to AV here? Under him the Canucks were always a top team. He leaves they go to pure crap and in his first year with the rangers he gets them to the finals.
I am guilty of being a hater but having said that I have never been overly impressed with the Canucks roster. The twins, Kelser, Luongo etc were lights out in 2011 that is hard to argue but for the most part I felt it was a roster that overachieved for the past few years.
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Not really. In the last 2 years under Vigneault the team relied on elite goaltending for pretty much all the success that they had. You give the 11-12 and 12-13 teams the goaltending that the 13-14 team had and they'd have finished far lower.
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Many Canuck fans would tell me Kesler was their best player and the heart of the team. Replacing him with lesser pieces and signing a couple UFA's is not going to bring the team from the gutter to contention.
Benning made some big changes but at the end of the day of there are not multiple bounce back years (Twins, burrows, Edler) then this team is 10-14th in the west
From 10-12 there was always the "bounce back" hopes that is flames fans would cling to in order to believe we had a shot at the dance. Didn't work out here and doubtful of works out in Van considering the twins are older than our core in the 10-12 years
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Anyone saying Kesler was the heart of the team was simply wrong. The Sedins (Henrik in particular) are what drives the Canucks. Kesler missed most of 12-13 and the team didn't miss a beat even though they replaced him with junk like Lapierre, Schroeder, and Ebbett. Henrik goes down to injury in the 2nd half of 13-14 with Kesler there to replace him and they turn into the worst team in hockey. That said I absolutely agree that the Canucks don't have a hope in hell of competing. Too many holes and the players that drive their team are too old to do that anymore. They'd be much better served to focus on the long term but it sounds like ownership has other ideas.
The only solace for Canucks fans vis a vis the Flames comparison is that they've been better with their future assets than the Flames were in that period. The first year the Flames missed the playoffs they'd traded away their 1st and 2nd round picks. The Canucks on the other hand have had four 1st round picks in the last 2 years. Whether that'll have a material difference remains to be seen, but I certainly like the Canucks' current prospect pool far more than I did the Flames one coming out of the 2010 draft, even if it is lacking in high end talent.