The Canucks were already a dud. They wouldn't have been a playoff team last year without career years from JT Miller and Jacob Markstrom, and a calder-level campaign from Hughes. It's reasonable to expect Hughes to be really good next year, but it's not reasonable to expect JT Miller to be a point per game player. That was overachievement. Meanwhile, Markstrom isn't even there anymore.
Even if they'd kept Markstrom, you would have had to expect a step back in terms of goaltending performance because goalies don't typically experience a career year at age 30 only to improve yet again the following year. But instead, they're going with a tandem of a young goalie who might be good at some point, and an aging goalie who used to be good. I don't think it's any more realistic to expect Holtby to be as bad as he was last year than to expect a repeat performance from Markstrom, but he's clearly not who he once was.
Meanwhile their depth is worse everywhere as a result of losing Leivo, Stecher and Toffoli.
The Canadian division is weak and it's possible if the goaltending does perform adequately that they squeak into the playoffs again, I guess, but the Canucks won't be legitimately good unless they get another top 4 defenseman into the mix, and replace those bad contracts in the bottom six with actual positive GAR value at a low price.
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