That’s what the Canucks now have with the addition of Mats Sundin.
If you are the Vancouver Canucks, the theory has to be: Why not us?
If you sat out there on the West Coast and watched the stars line up for Calgary, then Edmonton, then Ottawa, with each city taking their stab at a Stanley Cup while you sat at home wondering "Why not us?", why would you be thinking long-term when it comes to Mats Sundin?
On Thursday the Canucks went from a pretty decent team that was playing well above most preseason predictions, to the team chosen by Sundin. To a team that now has what every team wants to have: A Chance.
And really, that’s all you can do in today’s NHL, where there are only a couple of clubs -- Detroit, San Jose, maybe Boston -- that stand above the rest.
There is still a trade deadline to come, where Vancouver can do a little fine tuning. If Roberto Luongo’s groin injury isn’t season-threatening and GM Mike Gillis can make a tweak here and there, the Canucks just might be Canada’s team come June.
"I don't think I'd be comfortable calling any team a contender other than maybe San Jose and Detroit, because they won last year," Gillis said at a Thursday news conference. "What we want to do is get into the playoffs and win round by round. For me, it's more the process of how the team plays and the integrity it plays with. I know we'll get results if we play that way.
"I think Mats is a great player that joins a good group of players committed to winning. I think we're a better team for sure but I'm not going to place that label [Cup contender] on any team."
Wisely, Gillis isn’t coming off as cocky after making the biggest splash of the young season -- some pretty spiffy work for a first-time GM. He might have just spent a huge whack of cash on an ageing player who stands as a magnet for groin and back ailments after sitting out as long as Sundin has. And a critic would point out that both Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne were a shadow of their former selves when they came back midway through the season the year after Anaheim’s Stanley Cup victory, but that’s a topic for another day. For now, it is not debatable: Sundin makes the Canucks a contender.
You want to argue that, by the time the team surrounding Sundin comes of age he’ll be pushing 40? I’ll argue that the team will mature a lot faster with a legitimate superstar in its midst then they would have without one. You want to argue that what the Canucks really need is some grit, so their annual fold-like-a-tent act when the games get tough in March and April doesn’t repeat itself? I’ll argue that the Sedin brothers will be better players both short- and long-term for having a role model like Sundin to study up close. Here is a guy who carried some awful teams in Toronto for years; who probably played five consecutive seasons without ever seeing anything less than the other club’s top defensive pairing, because ever since I can remember, if you stopped Sundin you stopped the woeful Leafs.
You can say that Sundin mitigates Gillis’ first free agent signing, Pavol Demitra, a player we’ve never been fond of. But I’ll argue that Demitra gets better and more valuable the less a team is counting on him in a leadership role. It all works, so long as Sundin can retain his health, giving himself at least a chance to be that point-per-game player the big Swede has been for more than a decade. If the fire still burns in Sundin’s belly -- and there are few more legitimate questions than that for a guy who always said he wouldn’t be a holdout, then did it anyway -- the Canucks could have more than just a puncher’s chance come spring.
"He outlined his training schedule, when he'd be in a position to decide to play," said Gillis. "And so, the notion that deadlines continued to get extended was a fabrication. They weren't getting extended. We knew it was going to be around the 15th of December before he would make a decision about playing. We were going to be patient and wait for him to make a decision." We all know it: Had Sundin not been a Maple Leaf -- had he been a former Senator or former Flame -- the saga that was his decision-making process would have been more of a sidebar.
Now, Sundin goes from the early game on Saturday nights to the late one.
From the blue and white team that’s a million miles away from winning anything, to the blue and green one that suddenly has a chance.
A damned good chance, as a matter of fact.
