Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Nothing has changed in Vancouver because their GM sat on his hands at the Deadline yet again.

VANCOUVER -- Andrew Alberts? Sean Zimmerman? Yan Stastny?

Is that all you've got, Mike Gillis?

These are the guys that are going to put the Canucks over the top? Do they represent the infusion that will turn a good team into a great one?

Who knew this Deadline Day would make a powerhouse out of the ... wait for it ... Manitoba Moose.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames were in greater need of wheeling and dealing heading into Deadline Day than the Vancouver Canucks were. We get that.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that both Flames GM Darryl Sutter and Oilers GM Steve Tambellini clearly outperformed the Canucks GM Gillis when it comes to meeting their own perceived needs.

But the Oilers are a last-place team. And even the Flames are not being looked at as a genuine Cup contender in the West, the way Vancouver is.

Gillis didn't need quantity. But he surely needed some quality, with Willie Mitchell's concussion problems, and with the season Kyle Wellwood is having as the third-line centre.

A little bit of upgrading in Vancouver could have led to games at GM Place in June. Now, even the most unrealistic Canucks fan can't make a case for how his team has made up the gap between Vancouver and Chicago, which was a better team a year ago and still is today.

Now, the Canucks had better start looking over their shoulders, because almost every one of their Western rivals got better to some degree on Deadline Day.

"We're really happy with our team," Gillis said after the (non)dealing was done Wednesday. "We've had this road trip to contend with ... we're eight points ahead of the eighth-place team…"

Detroit is that eighth-place team. Do you, Canucks fan, feel any better about meeting a team like Detroit in Round 1 than you did 24 hours ago?

Or Anaheim, which improved itself. Or Phoenix, which already has one more point than the Canucks and made several key moves on Deadline Day. Or Los Angeles, which tweaked its lineup with Jeff Halpern and Freddy Modin. Even Colorado and Nashville improved, while the Canucks added Alberts, a No. 6 defenceman at best.

Sutter, one of the great triggermen among NHL GMs, stocked his team with six new players before the Olympic break. On Wednesday he cured his greatest remaining ailment, bringing in an excellent backup goalie in Vesa Toskala, and some nice defensive depth with gritty Steve Staios.

Up north, Tambellini's goal was to shed cap space, get younger and perhaps grab a draft pick, and he accomplished it all. Ryan Whitney is $1.6 million cheaper than Lubo Visnovsky, and six years younger. Denis Grebeshkov for a second-rounder works fine for where Edmonton is, and on the day they also added a third- and a sixth-rounder.

It marks a significant start on the rebuild in Edmonton. What exactly did Gillis get a start on at this his second silent trade deadline?

"You've got to be able to improve," he pleaded during his post-deadline media availability. "You can't make changes just for the sake of making changes. If we had opportunities to improve ... we would have taken them. But the improvements weren't there. We were content (not to make moves).

"If there isn't an improvement there, you can't manufacture it," he concluded. "At some point ... you live with the guys you get in the summer."

Gillis is clearly more comfortable doing business in the long hours of the summertime than with the clock ticking in March. But even though good teams are built in the summer, are great teams not topped up at the deadline, by savvy GMs with the guts to take a chance?

Gillis sat on all of his prospects, perhaps because he is now without both second- and third-round picks in the coming draft. NHL-ready goalie Cory Schneider still toils in Winnipeg, a netminder in a system where the Team Canada goalie just signed a 12-year contract.

Nothing has changed in Vancouver, because the GM sat on his hands at the Deadline for the second straight year.

They are still a very good team. But the Canucks are no closer to being a great one today than they were 24 hours ago.