It’s no secret that Daniel and Henrik Sedin, the twin faces of the Vancouver Canucks, aren’t the players they used to be.
The team, too, is long past its heyday. And after two straight seasons of missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a new coach, Travis Green, was brought on this week.
But one of the biggest questions facing the team of late hasn’t been who would replace former bench boss Willie Desjardins, but rather how the organization will transition to a post-Sedin era.
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According to Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports, who joined The Jeff Blair Show on Thursday, the Canucks fumbled that transition badly, because they ought to have traded the Sedins a long time ago.
“They should have traded them like seven, eight years ago,” Lavoie said.
Of course six years ago, Vancouver made it all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, and it’s hard to imagine that team without the twins from tiny Ornskoldsvik, Sweden.
“Honestly if they would have traded the Sedin brothers let’s say five, six years ago, the return that [Vancouver would have gotten] would have been amazing,” Lavoie continued. “And that team would have been a playoff team after that.”
After coming painfully close to a Stanley Cup win in 2011, the Canucks lost in the conference quarter-finals in 2011–12 and 2012–13. The team failed to make the post-season in 2013–14, and the following year — their most recent playoff appearance — they fell in the first round.
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While Lavoie conceded that trading the twins would have been difficult given that they’re a package deal, he expressed confidence that a deal could have been made that would have garnered “tons of assets.”
“Maybe that’s the reason they’re struggling so, so much,” Lavoie said.
All that talk of what-ifs and missed opportunities may sound very doom-and-gloom, but if there’s a silver lining for Lavoie, it’s that bringing in Green — a “guy who knows every young player in the organization” — signals a step in the right direction.
“They’re not going to overpay for a coach that doesn’t know the organization. Normally those coaches who are coming in with a big salary want, normally, big-time changes,” he said. “So I don’t think we’re gonna see that soon, obviously …. But I think that with Travis Green they’re gonna be a better team next season.”
