There needs to be accountability

    

Garth McLennan
sports editor

t started out with such promise.

The 2009-10 regular season was

one that elicited a sense of great
excitement among the Vancouver
Canucks fan base. Heading into their
second round post-season battle
against the Chicago Blackhawks,
the Canucks had every reason to be
confident. They had defeated the
pesky L.A. Kings in the opening
round of the playoffs, had won
the Northwest Division title in
convincing fashion, had the league’s
Art Ross scoring champion on their
first line, a Selke Trophy finalist on
their second, perhaps the best bargain
in the last five years as their leading
goal scorer and the starting goaltender
for Team Canada’s gold medal-
winning Olympic effort between the
pipes.

Sure, the defence was a concern,
but the Canucks were lining up
against the Blackhawks, and surely
head coach Alain Vigneault had
figured out a way to circumnavigate
the ending of last season, right? You
know, the one where the Canucks
lost in six games and were clearly
outclassed by a much younger, faster
and obviously tougher Blackhawks
squad?

Well, as it turns out, Vigneault
wasn’t able to find a way to beat
Chicago, team GM Mike Gillis
couldn’t upgrade a blue-line that
by the end of the rematch with
the Blackhawks looked more
war-torn than Baghdad. There are
plenty of areas to lay blame for
another disastrous playoff, but the
accountability process needs to start
at the top. :

Big mistakes by Gillis

Gillis needs to answer for this. After
all, he was the one who doled out

$8 million over the past two seasons
for Pavol Demitra, and while we’ll
get to him in a minute, it’s safe to
say that wasn’t the brightest decision
in the world. Gillis was the one

who opted to pay Steve Bernier

two million dollars to play fourth

line minutes. Gillis was the one

who signed Roberto Luongo to a
mammoth 12-year contract that now
has to have fans of the team shuffling
nervously. Despite a brilliant trade

at the beginning of the campaign for
Christian Ehrhoff, Gillis was the one
who severely misjudged the ability of
his defence corps at the trade deadline
and who picked up just Andrew
Alberts (who hurt the team and didn’t
come close to helping). He knew

that Willie Mitchell was out with a
Grade 2 concussion and was unlikely
to return for the playoffs, which was
ultimately the case. Why didn’t Gillis
have any semblance of a back-up
plan?

Gillis was the one who refused
to reconcile with Mathieu Schneider
even when his defensemen were
dropping like flies. He let Mattias
Ohlund walk away to Tampa Bay this
summer for nothing, while assuring
the city that the blue-line was deep
enough to sustain the loss. We now
know that wasn’t the case.

But the players that Gillis did
assemble are just as responsible for
a season that has proven to be a step
sideways at best. Gillis did make
several brilliant moves. Locking
up the Sedin twins, Alex Burrows
and Ryan Kesler, all of whom had
outstanding regular seasons, for
bargain rates will help the long term
future of this team. However, in the
here and the now question about some
of those players need to be answered.

Disappearing acts?

Burrows and Kesler combined for 60
goals in the regular season. Together
in the playoffs, they amassed just
four between them, and three of
those were empty netters, including
Kesler’s only tally of the playoffs.
Plain and simple, that just isn’t good
enough. Yes, Kesler was superb
defensively, but a player that is about
to pull down $5 million annually has
to provide more offensive output than
that. The injury excuse has also worn
more than thin as well. The fact is,
everyone is injured in the playoffs in
some form or another, and the teams
that win are defined by their best
players being able to overcome that.

 

Kesler didn’t play with his trademark
edge and Burrows was harder to find
than a Democrat in Texas.

Those two certainly weren’t the
only ones who didn’t show up this
post-season though. Pavol Demitra
was beyond abysmal, and it now
seems set in stone that he has played
his last game in a Canucks uniform,
and you’d be hard pressed to find
anyone in this market upset with
that revelation. As John Shorthouse
so aptly described the Slovakian
after he was solely responsible for a
stupid blue-line pass on the power
play that was easily picked off by
Dave Bolland and resulted in a back-
breaking shorthanded breakaway
goal, Demitra has been nothing more
than a $4-million bust. Throughout
his two-year tenure in Vancouver, but
particularly this season, he played
with zero passion, played soft, was
ridiculously injury-prone and could
never deliver when he was needed.
When someone you sign to such a
lucrative contract spends the bulk
of the playoffs sitting on the bench,
skating with the fourth line or sitting
in the press box, the best you can say
is that he was a managerial blunder of
epic proportions.

As has been well documented,
the defence was hurting for a long
time, but that doesn’t excuse the
horrendous play of Kevin Bieksa,
who, despite an excellent Game
Five looked for the vast majority
of the year like he didn’t belong in
the AHL, let alone with a supposed
playoff contender. Can anyone please
explain what happened to the feisty
defenseman who could skate, score,
hit and fight? I think he was last seen
two years ago. The shell currently
drifting around in his number three
jersey and who scored just two goals
this year and made countless glaring
errors at the most key moments in the
post-season is nothing more than a
weak shadow of that guy.

Roberto Luongo wasn’t the main
problem in the deciding game (you
could have had Patrick Roy in net,
the fact still remains that Vancouver
couldn’t manage to score a single
goal, not one, that wasn’t an empty
netter by their forwards in games five

 

   

or six), but he wasn’t good either. He
was a major reason why the Canucks
penalty kill was dead last among

all 16 playoff teams and clicked at
an abysmal 68.5 percent. He failed
once again to take a leadership role
when he was needed most and needs
to seriously consider giving back

the captaincy of this club. Roberto
Luongo is not a leader—this much
has been made painfully clear.

Steve Bernier and Mikael
Samuelsson were both tremendous in
the opening round against the Kings,
but both of them vanished off the face
of the Earth against the Blackhawks.
It’s tough knock Samuelsson after he
posted 15 points and eight goals, but
still, he wasn’t a difference maker
against Chicago.

A few bright spots

The Sedin twins, Christian Ehrhoff,
Kyle Wellwood, Shane O’Brien

and to a lesser extent Michael
Grabner were the only Canucks who
consistently came to play when the
games mattered the most. The entire
season came crashing down in a very
similar fashion to the way it ended
last year. Vancouver, across the board,
wasn’t good enough. That has to
change. This team needs to have a
long, hard look taken at it by the guys
in charge, and there needs to be an
assessment on the will and drive of
this squad. It has been far too long
since the Canucks were a legitimate
Stanley Cup contender. Bowing out
meekly in the second round just isn’t
good enough any more.

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