2014-15 Vancouver Canucks Preview

Also gone from Vancouver is general manager Mike Gillis, the man who made the ill-fated decision to fire head coach Alain Vigneault after the 2013 campaign and replace him with Tortorella. All Vigneault did in 2013-14 was take over the reins for Torts with the New York Rangers and lead the Blueshirts to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Jim Benning, who replaced the fired Gillis, hopes he has done enough to retool the Canucks and get the club back to the postseason. The new GM finally pulled the trigger on a Ryan Kesler trade, sending the forward to Anaheim for depth and draft picks, while also signing star goaltender Ryan Miller to take over the No. 1 netminding position following Roberto Luongo’s trade at last season’s deadline.

Benning installed Willie Desjardins as Tortorella’s replacement behind the bench and the rookie NHL coach will be tasked with developing a cohesive unit from the new faces and the old standbys, including the Sedin twins, who are out to prove a down 2013-14 season was merely an aberration.

Desjardins expects to return the Canucks to a possession-based style of play similar to the one employed during the Vigneault era, which produced five straight division titles for Vancouver from 2009-13.

Vancouver missed the playoffs by eight points last season and with Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose installed as the top teams in the Pacific Division there’s a good chance the Canucks will have to land a wild card spot to make the postseason in 2015.

The Canucks could have opted to begin a full rebuilding project this offseason, but chose to tinker with the roster instead and gear up for another playoff run. But if 2014-15 turns sour like last season the club may have no chance but to blew the whole thing up.

FORWARDS – The Canucks averaged only 2.54 goals per game (19th in the NHL) during the lockout-shortened 2013 season, but the club managed to get even less productive last season, finishing 28th in the league with just 2.33 gpg.

Tortorella was rightfully blamed for the dismal offensive performance and so was Gillis, who for some reason thought the fiery head coach was a good fit for the Canucks. However, with both men no longer around to blame it will fall largely on Vancouver’s players, and in particular, the Sedin twins, to make sure the scoring problems don’t return in 2014-15.

Critics questioned Tortorella’s decision to play the Sedins over 20 minutes a night and overusing them in penalty-killing and defensive situations. As a result, Daniel Sedin had just 16 goals and 47 points over 73 games, while Henrik Sedin managed a team-high 50 points on 11 goals and 39 assists. Daniel’s point total was his lowest in a season (excluding the lockout year of 2013) since 2002-03 and Henrik had his worst offensive output since a 42-point campaign in 2003-04.

The Sedins, who are now 34 years of age, are not expected to be used on the penalty kill this season, as Desjardins tries to get the duo back to being the point-a-game type players they were for most of Vigneault’s tenure with the club. Hopefully, a return to form can help cure Vancouver’s ailing power play, which ranked 26th in the league last season.

Henrik will man the center spot on the top line with Daniel to his left, but free agent signee Radim Vrbata is set to become the duo’s new right winger. Vrbata was signed to a two-year, $5 million deal this summer after notching 20 goals and 51 points for the Coyotes in 2013-14.

With Vrbata likely taking the top right wing spot, it means Alexandre Burrows will drop to the second line where new addition Nick Bonino is set to take over for Kesler, the Canucks departed centerman. Bonino and defenseman Luca Sbisa came to Vancouver from Anaheim along with a pair of 2014 draft picks (first and third-round selections) in the deal that sent Kesler to the Ducks. Kesler, an excellent two-way forward who led Vancouver with 25 goals last season, will be missed, but the trade was one of the moves that helped the Canucks improve their depth.

“Our goal was to add depth so we weren’t relying on the same players,” Benning said. “We wanted to supplement our core players so all the pressure is not going to be on them, both minutes-wise plus the ability to produce.”

Bonino, 26, notched 22 goals and 27 assists in 77 games for Anaheim last season. In addition to Burrows, who had a dismal showing with just five goals and 10 assists in 49 games last season, the Canucks may also use winger Zack Kassian alongside Bonino. The 23-year-old Kassian turned in his best NHL showing with 14 goals and 15 assists in 73 games last season, and Vancouver is hoping he’s in line for a true breakout year in 2014-15.

Benning also traded for forwards Derek Dorsett and Linden Vey over the summer, giving the Canucks depth for their bottom-two lines. Dorsett and Vey, who played for the Rangers and Los Angeles Kings, respectively, in 2013-14, project as fourth-liners along with centerman Brad Richardson, while Chris Higgins, Shawn Matthias and Jannik Hansen are a good bet to make up the third line.

Young centerman Bo Horvat also has a chance to make the team out of training camp, especially if he can prove himself adept a playing the two-way game needed to excel on the third or fourth line. Horvat, 19, was the ninth overall pick of the 2013 draft, a selection acquired when the Canucks dealt goaltender Cory Schneider to New Jersey.

Another forward prospect, Hunter Shinkaruk, also has a chance to land playing time in 2013-14. The winger was the 24th overall pick of the 2013 draft and will turn 20 years old on Oct. 13.

DEFENSE – Tortorella’s style led to an awful season for Vancouver’s offense, and it didn’t work out too well for the defense either.

Although the Canucks finished a respectable 14th in the league by allowing 2.63 goals per game, Vancouver’s blueliners looked as lost as the forwards at times in 2013-14. That was certainly the case with Alexander Edler, who is looking to rebound after logging a league-worst minus-39 rating last season.

The Canucks also will have to compensate for the loss of Jason Garrison, who was dealt to Florida this summer after leading Vancouver’s defensemen with 33 points last season. Edler, who had seven goals and 22 points in 2013-14, could help make up for Garrison’s departure as could either Kevin Bieksa or Dan Hamhuis, the duo penciled in as Vancouver’s top defensive pairing this season.

Bieksa had four goals and 20 points last year. Hamhuis, who led the blue line with 23 minutes, 57 second of ice time per game, notched 22 points on five goals and 17 helpers.

Chris Tanev (6G, 11A in 2013-14) could make up the second pairing along with Edler, while Sbisa expects to slide into the third pairing with either Ryan Stanton or Yannick Weber as his partner. The 24-year-old Sbisa only suited up for 30 games for Anaheim in 2013-14, but he expects to take on a much bigger role with the Canucks.

GOALTENDING – One of Gillis’ many sins at the end of his tenure in Vancouver GM was his bungling of the Luongo/Schneider situation, but Benning did his best to make it right with the signing of Miller this summer.

Vancouver once had a logjam of quality goaltenders thanks to the presence of Luongo and Schneider, but Gillis wound up trading both netminders in the span of less than a year. Schneider was shipped off to New Jersey in the summer of 2013 (even though Luongo was the guy most people expected to be dealt at the time) and Luongo was traded to Florida in March of last season. That left Eddie Lack as the No. 1 in Vancouver before Benning wisely chose to bring in the veteran Miller as the top option for this season.

Lack, 26, did perform well in his rookie season, going 16-17-5 with a .912 save percentage and 2.41 goals against average in 2013-14, but with Vancouver expecting to challenge for a playoff spot this year, the decision to bring in a known commodity like the 34-year-old Miller makes sense.

Miller, of course, spent his entire career with Buffalo before getting dealt to St. Louis at last season’s trade deadline. The Blues were already one of the best defensive teams in the NHL and they hoped they could ride Miller to a Stanley Cup, but it was not to be. Although Miller went 7-0-1 over his first eight games with St. Louis, the rental did not pay dividends in the playoffs as the Blues fell in six games to Chicago in Round 1.

All told, Miller went 25-30-4 with a 2.64 GAA and .918 save percentage in 59 regular-season games with Buffalo and the Blues in 2013-14.

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE – Benning’s decision to try and rebuild Vancouver on the fly seems like a sound decision because last season’s trying season could easily be chalked up to a bad fit behind the bench. And just because the days when the Canucks were counted as perennial Cup contenders seem to be gone, there is a good chance this club could sneak into the playoffs as one of the bottoms seeds in the West. For that to happen, however, the Sedins need to prove last year’s down season was just a blip and not the first warning of their decline.

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