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Vancouver Canucks
Overall: 23
Northwest Division: 3
When your
team has no proven goaltender, your best player demands to
be traded, your captain is too old to play shuffleboard and
your roster includes five rookies, you're in need of
comfort. Perhaps that's why Mike Keenan, coach of the
hapless Canucks, has turned
to history for solace. "When I coached the Flyers in
'84, there wasn't one person who thought we'd make the
playoffs," he says. "Bobby Clarke had retired and
Pelle Lindbergh was a goaltender nobody had reason to
believe in, but we made it to the
Stanley Cup finals. When I coached the Rangers, they hadn't made
the playoffs the season before. Then we won the
Cup."
Keenan insists this isn't cockiness, simply motivation for
a team that needs it. Not long after last season's disaster
(25-43-14), star right wing Pavel Bure said he would never
again play in Vancouver. "Pavel's agent assures me,
hell or high water, he
won't put on our uniform," says Brian Burke, the team's
new
general manager. Until Burke unloads the game's fastest
skater for, presumably, a slew of young talent, Vancouver
takes the ice with one of the league's thinnest rosters.
The most glaring
weakness is in goal, where Garth Snow and Corey Hirsch will
attempt to stop what should be, thanks to a dismal defense,
an ungodly number of shots. "Coming into camp, I felt
we needed to get a starting goaltender," says Burke.
"I still feel that way, but both
of our guys have shown in the preseason they're very
capable."
Maybe so, but even if Snow morphs into the next Dominik
Hasek, the Canucks will be hurting. Last year at this time,
then general
manager Pat Quinn was hailed as a savior, having lured Mark
Messier from New York. That thrill lasted about a week,
until
fans realized that the 37-year-old center had lost his spunk.
Messier had a measly 22 goals, and unless Keenan is right
(he says nagging injuries, not age, slowed his captain),
Messier might go down as a Godzilla-sized waste of money
(three years, $20
million). "My job isn't to make the playoffs this
season," says Burke, who differs
strongly with Keenan on that point. "My job is to
build a team in the long term. We're not interested in
Band-Aids."
Too bad. Vancouver will need
'em.
—By Jeff Pearlman
Fast Fact
After being acquired from the Islanders
at midseason, left wing Todd Bertuzzi nearly doubled his
points-per-game production, from 0.35 to
0.68.
Keys To Success
- General manager Brian Burke must acquire a quality goaltender
for Vancouver to have any chance of making the playoffs.
- The Canucks need to improve their not-so-special teams, which
were ranked 21st and 24th in the league in power play and penalty
killing, respectively.
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