Canucks Live: Toothless show against Detroit raises red flags

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Shut out on home ice. Never a good thing. But the Canucks have the fewest wins on home ice this season. Only the New York Rangers have a worse record in the last 10 games. And yeah, they’re one point ahead of Nashville in the turtle derby for last place but the Predators have two games in hand. Even the Flames, who we all started the season laughing at, are pulling away. They’ve won three in a row and are 7-2-1 in the last 10 games while the Canucks are 2-7-1. It’s getting worse.

What’s the remedy? Getting Demko back? Trading Kiefer Sherwood? He’s the one player who brings energy, lights a spark. It’s torture for Canucks fans to have to hear about trading their best player every day, but what other way is there out of this mess?

And when you hear Quinn Hughes speak these days, it’s hard not to read between the lines. Here’s what Ben Kuzma heard from Hughes last night post-game.

As for the continuous trade noise that keeps getting louder, Hughes put it in perspective.

“It’s difficult because I want to win and where we’re at in the standings,” said the captain. “Credit to them (Wings). They have some really good players and have done a good job through the draft and you see it come to fruition now. But it’s not like that’s a top-three team. We played them well tonight and just didn’t capitalize.

“As far as the other things (trade speculation), I’m doing everything I can and playing as well as I can. If it wasn’t like that for me and my standards, that would be a problem.”

Ring any alarm bells that he’s lauding how the Red Wings have drafted? Or that he talks about how well they were beat against a team that’s “not like a top-three team”?

Here’s how Ben graded some of the Canucks:

Evander Kane (C-)

Drove the neutral zone on one good foray, had two shots, six attempts, minus-2 rating.

Nils Hoglander (C+)

Hard to play catch up in first game of the season. But plenty of hustle, desire.

Quinn Hughes (B+)

Did what he could. Dangerous end-to-end rushes, four shots, seven attempts.

Hoglander’s return should help a bit, but it’s not like you’re getting prime Pavel Bure back. Ben will be writing a story on Thatcher Demko who has been rumoured to be coming back for a couple of weeks now, is quietly being mentioned as a possible starter Thursday against Buffalo.

It’s just awful looking through the national hockey media’s lens on the Canucks. ESPN did a feature on trends for each team. This really couldn’t get much worse.

Vancouver Canucks
The trend: The end of the Quinn Hughes era in Vancouver

When word got out that the Canucks had alerted the rest of the NHL that they were seeking to make deals, speculation immediately went to the future of star defenceman Quinn Hughes. When it was clarified that the team was mostly seeking to trade some of its pending free agents … speculation still went to the future of star defenceman Quinn Hughes, who is signed through 2026-27.

Hughes’ future with the franchise has been uncertain for quite a while, especially after team president Jim Rutherford said Hughes wanted to play with his brothers Jack and Luke of the New Jersey Devils, and they made it no secret that they’d like to play with Quinn, too. But given that Vancouver is near the bottom of the NHL standings, the chatter around the Canucks’ Hughes has only increased.

Could he end up with his brothers on the Devils? With his beloved former coach Rick Tocchet with the Flyers? With the Red Wings in Michigan, where the Hughes Bros. grew up and Quinn and Luke played college hockey? Could Vancouver still convince him to stick around on a contract extension with a solid plan for future contention? Heck, Rutherford seemed to indicate the Hughes reunion could happen in Vancouver.

Whatever the case, this situation seems like it’s reaching its boiling point unless the Canucks can contend this season.

Trend-o-meter rating: 8 

Everyone’s in on the act, TSN has two separate videos, one with their insiders, one with Craig Button, examining if the Canucks should trade Hughes. Sigh.

If you’re looking for something the Canucks actually score high in, The Athletic do their anonymous player poll and ask who has the most ‘punchable face in the NHL‘. Or course there’s no room for anyone at the top other than Canucks villain Brad Marchand. They do have two players named though, Conor Garland who was fourth with almost five per cent of respondents. And trade target Sherwood who made the list.

Kiefer Sherwood (1.9 per cent)
“Not that I personally want to punch him in the face, but I think a lot of people do.” 

While it’s not Canucks specific, one of the issues The Athletic’s poll explores is taxes. While NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has said it’s not an issue, the Athletic’s poll says otherwise.

Seeing the Panthers re-sign the likes of Brad Marchand, Sam Bennett and Aaron Ekblad at below market value this past off-season only added fuel to the fire.

Bettman called it “a ridiculous issue” during an interview on TNT in June, only allowing that it could be “a little bit of a factor if everything else were equal.”

Our survey of 120 NHL players says otherwise. Definitively. In a landslide, 86.3 per cent of our respondents said state income taxes do matter.
For the record, the following U.S. states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. That gives the advantage to the Lightning, Panthers, Golden Knights, Predators, Stars and Kraken.
Some players even wanted the NHL to change the rules to level the playing field.

“That’s something I would love the NHL to consider,” one said. “Let’s say in California, you have a higher state rate for our tax. You could have a higher cap, and those (no-state-tax) teams would have a lower cap, for example, so it would basically balance out. I think it would be fair for the whole league. But then again, the teams would complain that you have very nice weather in California so people would suddenly go there. It’s hard. There will always be advantages and disadvantages.”
As one astute player pointed out, it’s important to remember that players in Canadian cities get paid in American dollars.

“I live in Canada year-round, so with the exchange rate, I’m actually getting out ahead,” he said. “If you live in a no-tax state, you’re at 39 per cent federal tax. Here, you’re at 51 per cent, so you lose 12 per cent tax. But I gain 40 per cent on the exchange. Obviously, the prices are different, but everything I spend is in Canadian dollars and everything I make is in American dollars, so it is what it is.”

If the Canucks do end up making some big trades and completely remaking their roster it may offer hope. In The Athletic’s game story from Monday night Thomas Drance pondered the flat sense of resignation from the stands.

And as the game spun out of control for Vancouver in the second period, with a pair of cataclysmic breakdowns, both of which resulted in a Detroit skater, all alone in the slot, quite easily depositing a puck past Kevin Lankinen to break the game open, the crowd’s reaction was disturbingly muted. There was little but scattered booing until the final minute of the third period, when some halfhearted expressions of disappointment trickled down on the home side.

In what’s reputedly this tough, pressure-cooker Canadian hockey market, the crowd reacted to yet another dispiriting Canucks loss on Monday with a claustrophobic sense of resignation. It was like a message to the hockey club, sent via the wisdom of crowds, that the Vancouver fan base isn’t angry, just disappointed.

A couple of our fan council members, Jimmy Ghuman and Chris Conte, summed up what many fans are thinking about the team.

Jimmy: It’s hard to get excited when it’s clear the status quo is not working. Last night for example we did not have the offence capable of scoring. Two years ago we we had a great playoff run. Going into that season expectations were low and then exceeded when Jim Rutherford famously said everything needs to go right to make the playoffs. And it did and we stayed relatively injury free. Last year and this season is a what we expected before that season and it seems to have moved the goalposts to what we all know will never work and that’s what is most frustrating.

Chris: It’s a bizarre predicament. My heart wants the team to succeed, but my spite wants ticket sales to nosedive just so the owner feels it in his wallet. I’m basically cheering and booing at the same time.

There were dozens of tickets for Monday’s game on Stub Hub in the $38-45 range.

Check back for more Canucks news throughout the day …