The Quinn Hughes trade seemingly hurtled the Vancouver Canucks into a full-blown rebuild. But that’s precisely what the club wanted to avoid. If anything, the main purpose of the Hughes trade was to get pieces the team could deploy sooner rather than later.
If the Canucks had been looking to embark on a full-blown rebuild, the team acquiring Hughes would have sent teenage prospects and a boatload of draft picks. But that wasn’t the case. The Canucks insisted on getting NHL-ready players. Of course, those players had to make the team younger.
While that approach is still very much a rebuild, it isn’t a full-blown one. Instead, it’s a “hybrid rebuild” as The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun coined it.
In a December 19 piece, LeBrun wrote:
“The goal is to keep getting younger assets now in the post-Quinn Hughes world for Vancouver, but I would stop short of calling it a full rebuild. It’s more of a ‘hybrid build,’ as someone put it to me this week. They want to get more younger pieces but turn it around quickly enough.”
So, by “hybrid,” the intention is to retool on the fly. Such an approach avoids a full roster teardown. And that’s something that would make sense. The Canucks still have highly valuable pieces like starting goalie Thatcher Demko, wingers Brock Boeser and Jake DeBrusk, and blueliner Filip Hronek.
With players like that on the team, it would be pointless to enter a full-blown rebuild.
Canucks Want to Avoid a Decade of Losing
The most recent examples of rebuilds have yielded a timeline of about a decade to return to contention. The Detroit Red Wings, Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks, and San Jose Sharks have all taken about a decade before seeing tangible results.
That’s something the Canucks certainly would like to avoid. In the worst of cases, a team like the Buffalo Sabres seems mired in a never-ending rebuild. So, why subject fans to that sort of situation when there’s a better alternative?
In one fell swoop, the Canucks restocked their lineup. Marco Rossi could offset the scandalous decline of Elias Pettersson. Zeev Buium looks like he could fill in for Quinn Hughes as the team’s top defenseman. As for Liam Ohgren, the jury is still out on him.
If and when the Canucks get healthy, the lineup could look much better. That’s the path forward Vancouver hopes can emerge.
Full Rebuild May Still Be on the Horizon
There’s always the chance a full rebuild remains on the horizon. That’s the nuclear option that might emerge if the “hybrid” approach doesn’t work. The Canucks have bought themselves a couple of more seasons to sort things out. But if they continue to regress, a full-blown rebuild may be the only path forward.
The Canucks have shown some life since the Hughes trade. Their 4-1 win over the New York Islanders has given the club some life. They’re on a three-game winning streak and looking to get out of the Pacific Division cellar.
While the ship may have sailed on the playoffs this season, the hope is that the rest of the season can yield positive steps to build on.
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