With the third round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs just beginning, it seems like strange timing that my Twitter feed is filled with nostalgia about the Canucks' 1994 and 2011 runs to the Final.
Monday marks the 27th anniversary of the Canucks' 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, and Riot No. 1.
Tuesday's the 10th anniversary of the 4-0 loss to the Boston Bruins at what was then General Motors Place, and Riot No. 2.
While both series were heavy on the drama, the awful aftermaths magnify the unpleasantness of the losses for me. I've seen a couple of stories over the last couple of weeks about people who found themselves in the midst of the 2011 riot, including the
'kissing couple' from that famous photograph, still together but now living in Australia, and some of the
Good Samaritans who tried to put a stop to the mayhem.
In 1994, I felt like the city would never be the same again. In 2011, I was wary of what might happen — sad when I saw some businesses boarding up their store windows that afternoon. One bitten, twice shy.
J.J. Adams' 'Good Samaritan' story from the
Vancouver Sun highlights how the 2011 Stanley Cup Run was an extension of the good vibes that emerged from the 2010 Olympics. My memory is different. From the moment I hopped on the Canada Line to head downtown to work on the afternoon of Game 7, the energy made me uncomfortable.
The game, of course, made it worse. Not even a glimmer of hope. I've wondered, if it had even been close, if things would have turned out differently? As it was, the huge crowd near the CBC building had many hours to let their frustration build before that first car got lit on fire outside the post office.
If I haven't depressed you enough already,
Greg Wyshynski of ESPN posted a new oral history of the 2011 series against the Bruins on Monday — with quotes from Boston's Milan Lucic, Mark Recchi and Andrew Ference, and Chris Higgins of the Canucks. As we've heard everyone from Kevin Bieksa and Ryan Kesler to Mike Gillis and Laurence Gilman talk about how painful those 2011 memories still are for them, I'm not terribly surprised that other members of the Canucks declined to participate in the story.
Nuff said. Let's turn our attention back to the present.
Here's a positive note: Vancouver prospect Aidan Mcdonough has been named an assistant captain for next season for the Northwestern Huskies:
Drafted in the seventh round by the Canucks in 2019, Mcdonough is a winger with good size, at 6'2" and 205 pounds. Despite his low draft selection, he has done well at Northeastern, finishing second in team scoring last season with 20 points in 21 games.
I remember him participating in the Canucks' 2019 development camp at UBC, just after he was drafted. As a college player, he can't come to training camp.
I wonder if NHL teams will be able to hold development camps this summer, after the draft in late July? It would be great to see the prospects all in one place and get a handle on who's in the pipeline.
I realized recently that my penchant for prospects probably originates from my time in the music business, where the ultimate badge of honour is seeing a big band in a small club before they get famous.
I think I feel the same way about hockey players. One of my favourite moments of the last five years was watching Elias Pettersson tear it up at the Canucks' 2017 Summer Showcase game, just a couple of weeks after he was drafted. Just like with a rising-star band, I left Rogers Arena that night thnking "I just saw some thing special from a kid before he gets famous."
As for the next wave? According to
Elite Prospects, the Canucks' other seventh-rounder from 2019, Arvid Costmar, has re-upped for another year with Linkoping in the Swedish Hockey League. I liked Costmar a lot at the World Junior Championship, so it's interesting to see that while he put up six points in three games with Linkoping's U20 team last season, he managed just one goal in 22 games with the big club. He doesn't turn 20 until July, so maybe there is still room for growth in his game.
It's hoped that the Canucks' 2020 seventh-rounder, Swedish defenseman Viktor Persson, will finally get over to North America this fall to play with the Kamloops Blazers. Covid scuttled that plan last season.
And finally, another big fish defenseman is reportedly hitting the market. Maybe.
Dougie Hamilton is such an interesting player — run out of Boston and Calgary, but now a highly coveted target because, at the end of the day, he's a very good defenseman.
I wonder how many teams will be willing to go hard after Hamilton, despite his so-called 'character issues?' Has that gone away after his three solid seasons in Carolina?
Or is Carolina management right? Is they offer they're making in this flat-cap world as good as anything he might receive on the open market — or at least close enough to give him the incentive to stay in a city that has been a good fit for him?
If not, the Hurricanes set themselves up to at least receive an asset if Hamilton decides to sign elsewhere. They got a fifth-round pick last year in exchange for allowing Montreal early access to impending UFA Joel Edmundson. In the pre-pandemic world, the Winnipeg Jets also received a fifth-rounder in exchange for allowing the Philadelphia Flyers to speak with Kevin Hayes nearly a month before free agency opened in 2019.
So while it probably wouldn't cost significant assets to get into the Dougie Hamilton sweepstakes, I still doubt the Canucks will be players. As much as they could use the blue-line upgrade, I don't think the team has enough salary-cap flexibility available right now to try to bring in a big-ticket free agent like Hamilton.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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