I didn’t allow myself to be optimistic heading into the draft lottery. That turned out to be the right move: instead of crushing disappointment at the Canucks falling to the fifth overall pick, there’s just emptiness.
There are ways to look at this positively, of course. For instance, this will be the highest the Canucks have picked since selecting the Sedins second and third overall back in 1999. It’s just cold comfort when this could have been the highest Canucks pick ever.
I can’t claim this didn’t affect me. This post would have gone up much sooner, with far more pithy quips about the efficacy of Pat Quinn playing cards if it didn’t. But it’s an empty hollow feeling rather than a bitter anger, despairing sadness, or sick resignation.
As much as I didn’t believe the Canucks would win the lottery, both because of math and because I ran out of tinfoil with which to craft fashionable chapeaus, I still wanted the Canucks to win the lottery. The inevitability of the Canucks picking fifth doesn’t suck any less because it was so inevitable.
Look, the Canucks will still be able to draft a very good prospect with the fifth pick, and we’ll get into who that should be over the next two months—oh hell, the draft isn’t for another two months; this is going to be the longest off-season ever. But here’s the thing: the three players at the top of the draft are almost certainly going to play in the NHL next season.
We could have had the Canucks’ next franchise player in the lineup next season, apprenticing under the Sedins, giving the offense a boost after a franchise low in goalscoring, and providing a modicum of excitement for what could be another painful, frustrating season. So yeah, the Canucks will get a good prospect, but outside of that top three there’s a lot more uncertainty and we’ll have longer to wait to see if that prospect pans out.
Here’s where I would normally seek out the silver linings and positives in all the gloom, but everything that comes to mind is just so many straws to grasp at.
Picking at fifth increases the chances that the Canucks will add a top tier defenceman to their prospect pool. Great! But the Canucks really need first line forwards to take over for the Sedins in a few years.
Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine, or Jesse Puljujarvi wouldn’t be enough to make the Canucks that much better next season. True! But they could make the Canucks a lot better over the next decade or more.
Picking in the top three might have made Jim Benning and co. think they could speed up the rebuild, while picking a lesser prospect will force them to take their time and do things right. Maybe! Still would have been nice to pick in the top three, though.
At least the Oilers didn’t win the lottery. Yeah! But the Maple Leafs did.
This was a lousy season and Saturday was a lousy way to cap it off. It sucks, man.
