It's official.
Vancouver Canucks management has abandoned any remaining playoff aspirations and is focused on using the rest of the season as an audition period to set the stage for next year.
"Up to this point, (Willie Desjardins') focus was to try and compete hard every night and win enough games to challenge for one of those last playoff spots," general manager Jim Benning told
Iain MacIntyre of
The Province on Tuesday.
"Now that reality has set in, he’s going to be on-board with getting our young kids more ice time."
Benning's comments were made specifically with regard to Reid Boucher, who was shuffled up and down the lineup on Tuesday against Boston and who spent 13 of his first 14 games with the Canucks organization as a healthy scratch—and played 6:04 in the one game where he did get into the lineup.
"In this last little stretch of games, we’ve got to take a look at some of these young kids and see where they’re at," Benning told MacIntyre. "I thought (against Boston), Reid Boucher, you could see the powerful shot he’s got and the quick release. With more ice time, I think he’ll get more confidence and will show us the things he’s capable of doing."
Given Willie's reluctance to gift ice time to young players, it'll be interesting to see how this mandate affects ice time on Thursday, when the Canucks finish their homestand against the equally hapless Dallas Stars, who lost 7-1 last night in Edmonton.
Lines look familiar at Wednesday's practice.
Other candidates for bigger roles as the season winds down would include Nikolay Goldobin and Brendan Gaunce, but they're both still sidelined.
Nice to hear Jacob Markstrom is back on the ice—and also nice to hear that Derek Dorsett is skating, three months after his December neck surgery.
Alex Grenier was re-assigned to Utica on Tuesday. He got just 6:17 of ice time against Pittsburgh on Saturday, then was scratched in favour of Drew Shore against Boston. Pointless in his nine NHL games over the last two seasons, 25-year-old Grenier has excelled in Utica but appears to be running out of chances to show that he has what it takes to succeed at the NHL level.
"Pittsburgh was a tough matchup for him," Desjardins told
Ben Kuzma of
The Province about Grenier. "If there’s one thing, he has to be a little big quicker. He’s a big guy and it takes him time to get going. It’s a part he has to work on. He has good hands and size, and he sees what it is to see himself as an offensive guy."
Grenier has been an important piece of the puzzle in Utica. He has led the Comets in scoring for much of the season but thanks to his recalls, he's now tied with Darren Archibald for second place in team scoring with 40 points, while Curtis Valk leads the way with 41 points.
I've talked about how well goalie Thatcher Demko has been playing as the Comets push for a playoff spot, but Jake Virtanen is also starting to garner some consistent praise, four months into his stint in the minors.
Virtanen is now 6-8-14 in his 50 games with the Comets. As an indication of his improvement, he's still minus-seven for the year but has been a plus-three player in his last six games, where he has also tallied a goal and two assists. Not exactly tearing up the minors, but he seems to be heading in the right direction—as are the Comets, who are 8-1-1 in their last 10 games.
Jim Benning told MacIntyre that one of the reasons the team signed Drew Shore is because he doesn't want to be pulling any more players out of the AHL while the Comets are in this tight playoff race—which is a relief for coach Travis Green.
Joe LaBate and Richard Bachman are the only Comets players that are still with the Canucks.
Last season, the Canucks went 7-13-1 after the trade deadline to finish 28th overall with 75 points. This year, Vancouver is 2-3-2 so far since the deadline, with 65 points—in 25th place with 13 games remaining.
Where do you think they'll end up?
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