Canucks Acquire New Lunchbucket
February 26th, 2008, 5 Comments »
Every year at the NHL trade deadline, I get excited. And every year, I’m disappointed. It’s 20 minutes past the noon PST deadline, and the only deal the Canucks have made is this one:
- Matt Cooke for Matt Pettinger
There’s still time to announce a splashy deal, and I hope I’m wrong, but whiskey tango foxtrot, Dave Nonis? Have you not been paying attention to your team this season?
What’s the knock against the current version of the Canucks? They can’t score enough goals. They couldn’t do it last season, and they can’t do it this season. Of the teams currently in the playoffs, they are among the lowest in team scoring.
So what does GM Dave Nonis do? He subtracts five goals from the team. Cooke has scored seven thus far this season, and Pettinger has scored two. There were plenty of scorers on the table, and he hasn’t landed any of them.
We’ve heard the excuses year after year: the price is too high, he doesn’t want to mortgage the team’s future, deadline trades rarely have impact and so forth. Bollocks, I say, and here’s why:
- Sooner or later, you’ve got to take a chance and roll the dice.
- Any team that has Roberto Luongo always has a chance in the post-season.
- A trade is an important gesture to the team and the fans–it’s a tactical demonstration of dedication to improvement. The team is in good shape financially, so maybe they’re under-motivated to improve?
I don’t pretend to be a hockey genius, and I know about 5% of what Nonis knows about his industry. Still, as a fan, I’m tired of being consistently disappointed at the deadline.
I hope I’m wrong, and that the Canucks announce a deal in the next hour or two. Heck, Olli Jokinen hasn’t left Florida yet. I fear, however, that the team will suffer another early departure from the playoffs after a lot of 2-1 losses.
That said, I am happy to see the end of Matt Cooke. He’s been overpaid and keeping a roster spot from a younger player for years.