PENTICTON B.C. — The Vancouver Canucks have been to two Stanley Cups in their 40 year history and for the past two seasons, this one for sure, they have been the preseason choice to win the Northwest Division.
But it’s a bit different now.
The San Jose Sharks know the feeling. They’ve heard the Stanley Cup talk for a few years now down in California.
It’s the same breathless anticipation that now exists for a Canucks team that has stumbled in the second round for two seasons, but scratched almost every itch it needed to this past summer.
This has never happened before, but it’s happening now.
The Vancouver Canucks are this fall’s trendy choice, and will be made the favorites to win the Stanley Cup this season, by more than a few of us pundits.
A guy who’s been there before, Sharks GM Doug Wilson, has this advice for the Canucks: "The things that matter are the things that take place … inside your dressing room. The outside noise really has no impact on what you do."
That’s easy to say when you’re in San Jose.
But in Vancouver, a hockey market that rivals Toronto for its voracity and the size of the media herd, GM Mike Gillis will be watching for any signs that anyone in his organization — and we mean ANYONE — is planning the parade too early.
"Absolutely," Gillis assured us Wednesday evening in Penticton. "The first objective is, get into the playoffs. Second objective, try and win your Division so you’re a Top 3 seed. The third objective is to win the Stanley Cup."
"We’re not putting anything ahead of the initial objective. We have to be as diligent as we can to ensure that everyone in our organization — not just players, but everybody —understands that getting into the playoffs is our first objective."
There have been other promising Septembers in Vancouver, but by April they’re always just a sour memory.
Like in ’97, when Mark Messier came to town to join Pavel Bure, Alex Mogilny and Markus Naslund.
Or the post-lockout season in 2005-06, when the new rules were going to play right into the game favoured by Naslund, Todd Bertuzzi and the boys.
Alas, neither of those teams even made the playoffs.
"For a few years there, the best team in the game didn’t win the Stanley Cup," points out Oilers senior advisor Pat Quinn. "Tampa, Carolina, the other finalists… You can’t tell me Edmonton and Calgary (in ’04 and ’06) were the best teams in the league, but they got there."
So what are the pitfalls that stand between the best Vancouver team in ages, and the Holy Grail?
"It’s the toughest threshold," said San Jose development coach Mike Ricci, who won a Cup with Colorado in ’96. "Going from being a good team to being The Team, is a big jump. You’ve got to guard against always thinking about the destination, and not worrying enough about the day to day. Don’t concentrate too much on the end product."
"You can’t win the Stanley Cup right now in September," Ricci warned. "But you can lose it. If you don’t prepare well enough for April, May and June right now, you can lose it."
If there were shortcomings identified by Canucks management after last season, and there always is, you have to believe Gillis dealt well with most of them.
Goalie Roberto Luongo has divested himself of the burden of captaincy, and a defence that needed shoring up gained two Top 4 D-men in Dan Hamhuis and Keith Ballard.
With those repairs in order, Gillis — a serial out-of-the-box thinker — will address the fact that only one Pacific time zone club, the ’07 Anaheim Ducks, have won a Stanley Cup in modern NHL history.
The Canucks GM chalks that up to travel, and though he can’t change the number of miles his team flies, he and head coach Alain Vigneault will try to give certain key players, some light nights wherever possible.
"We are going to manage players as well as we can in terms of fatigue levels," Gillis said. Asked how he would "manage" Henrik Sedin the GM responded, "There are nights when he is going to play 16 minutes, and there are nights when he is going to play 23. Rather than just have the competition decide that, we’ll be in a better position — because we have a deeper team — to make those decisions."
Ice time, the Canucks can control.
But a whacked out Vancouver market that will be talking Stanley Cups in October?
Or a media group that can stretch a nugget-sized development, into a three-part series?
Twitter?
That will be an entirely different animal.
"We’re in Canada," said Quinn, who has coached the Canucks, Toronto Maple Leafs and Oilers in his day. "When you’re here, there are a lot of people with opinions that may not jibe with what reality is. When you’re in San Jose, you can hide.
"Let’s face it, if you’re on a decent team in Canada, there’s not a better place to be. At the same time, there are some downsides. You can’t hide and you can’t go away."
The Canucks have no interest in going away. Until mid-June, that is.
