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VANCOUVER — When Vancouver Canucks general manager Dave Nonis says missing the NHL playoffs is never an acceptable result in this marketplace, he is in lockstep with the fan base and ensures the lofty expectations that greeted the 2007-08 season will survive into next fall.
But in concurring with the public sentiment that the Canucks were good enough to make the NHL's postseason this year, and should be again next year, Nonis also ratchets up the pressure on him and his hockey operations department to make that so. And that pressure increases commensurate to the strength of the Western Conference.
It would be one thing to say that in the Eastern Conference, where you can feast on the Florida teams and clubs with perpetually poor management (see the Atlanta Thrashers, Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Islanders and such), but the West is not for the meek.
It's where the big boys play: the defending champion Anaheim Ducks, Presidents' Trophy-winning Detroit Red Wings and Stanley Cup favourite San Jose Sharks.
It's where the perennially competitive stay: the Colorado Avalanche, who have missed the postseason just once since 1995, and the Dallas Stars, just one miss since 1997.
And it's where the emerging lay: the Edmonton Oilers, Chicago Blackhawks and Phoenix Coyotes, all of whom look poised to make the playoffs in 2008-09.
So we can bank on Detroit, Anaheim, San Jose, Dallas and Colorado making the postseason next year. Throw in the Calgary Flames, who have made the playoffs for four consecutive seasons, and that leaves just two playoff berths unless there is a massive reordering of the West's power structure.
Now, look at who is left.
There's the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators, both 2008 playoff qualifiers, and then there's that cluster of teams that surrounded the 11th-place Canucks: Edmonton, Chicago and Phoenix, who are all loaded with young talent and, presumably, will only get better.
And so, Nonis faces not only the prospect of retooling his roster this summer, but he must also retool it to a point where the Canucks are significantly better. Just keeping up with the top eight teams in the West won't be good enough.
Which brings us to another interesting question of arithmetic, namely who will make up the top two forwards lines?
When the 2007-08 edition was at full health, the group included the Sedin twins, veterans Markus Naslund, Brendan Morrison and Taylor Pyatt and rookie Mason Raymond.
Naslund and Morrison can become unrestricted free agents in the summer, and fans are well within their right to question whether Pyatt and Raymond are top-six forwards on a legitimate contender.
Slice it fat, and Nonis needs at least two top-six forwards. Slice it thin, and he needs four. Even with $15-million (U.S.), potentially, to spend in the summer, that's no easy chore.
"The free-agent market is not as deep as it has been the last couple of years, in terms of high-end players," Nonis said on Monday during his state-of-the-franchise address. "[But] we have significant cap space to work with and it's something that I think we have to pursue vigorously."
The ugly truth is that the Canucks regressed by 17 points this season. They went from first to worst in the Northwest Division, and they finished without a 30-goal scorer for the first time in eight years.
That alone would be worthy of a thorough self-scouting by management, but an examination of the wins could prove just as important.
When you throw out two-goal margins achieved with empty-net goals, just 16 of Vancouver's 39 victories this year came with breathing room. That means on most nights, even when the scoreboard was in their favour, the Canucks had little margin for error and were placing heavy burdens on goaltender Roberto Luongo.
Head coach Alain Vigneault needed 10 losses in overtime and shootouts as well as tons of buy-in, from tons of players, on tons of nights, just to get to 88 points.
When the playoffs were out of reach, Naslund, the seven-year captain who was once an elite offensive player in the NHL, was asked about playing for a team that scores so few goals and consistently finds itself in tight games. He agreed it was a tough way to play game in and game out, and the Canucks were leaving too much to chance in overtime and shootouts.
"You want to have a night where you are up 4-0 and you can play the game out and look forward to the next one," Naslund said. "But we didn't really have many of those."
Three go East
The Vancouver Canucks assigned three players to the Manitoba Moose of the AHL yesterday.
Defencemen Luc Bourdon and Nathan McIver and forward Rick Rypien will join the Moose for their final three games of their regular season and the playoffs.
The Moose will finish second in the AHL's North Division and face the Syracuse Crunch in a divisional semi-final.
