The Vancouver Canucks are bad.
I don’t mean to rub it in. Canucks fans are well aware of the team’s struggles and, in particular, the run of futility they are currently on, going over 212 minutes without scoring a goal. Really, we’re all pretty numb to it at this point.
As Dimitri Filipovic pointed out over at Sportsnet, the Canucks have literally been the worst team in the NHL over the past three seasons. In terms of wins and losses, the Canucks have the lowest percentage of points of any NHL team since 2015. Eliotte Friedman claimed that Vancouver fans and media were too negative towards the team and its management, but there’s an argument to be made that the market hasn’t been critical enough.
If Canucks fans can’t take pleasure in their own team, perhaps they need another source: schadenfreude.
The Canucks may be bad, but they’re not the only other bad team out there. Let’s take a moment to consider some other bad teams, in hopes of improving morale.
Arizona Coyotes
The Coyotes have been the worst team in the NHL this season, even with a recent hot streak that has threatened to carry them out of last place. The Canucks were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs on Wednesday, but they were not the first team eliminated: the Coyotes beat them by an hour or so. We’re number two! We’re number two!
Edmonton Oilers
The Oilers have picked first overall in four of the last eight drafts. They lucked into Connor McDavid, arguably the greatest player on the planet. And yet, because of some truly dreadful management decisions, they’re still terrible.
McDavid is third in league scoring, on-pace for over 100 points, and the Oilers are still going to badly miss the playoffs. Meanwhile, Taylor Hall is having an MVP-caliber season with the New Jersey Devils. For Canucks fans, seeing that kind of mismanagement in Edmonton is both enjoyable and a warning sign: even the best prospects in the world can’t turn around a franchise that can’t build a team around them.
Chicago Blackhawks
For years, the Blackhawks were the Canucks’ Big Bad, the evil that could not be defeated, the dragon that could not be slain. Then Burrows did exactly that — slayed the dragon — but the Blackhawks were still a powerhouse, winning the Stanley Cup twice since 2011.
This season, however, the Blackhawks have come crashing down in a way that will warm the cockles of Canucks fans’ hearts. They’re 15 points out of a playoff spot and are about to miss the postseason for the first time in ten years. Meanwhile, their two highest paid players are about to turn 30 and could see a decline in their play in the coming years.
Trinidad and Tobago in the 1994 Junior Goodwill Games
I mean, good for Trinidad and Tobago for putting together a hockey team with only three rinks in their entire country, but they just weren’t very good. Their jerseys were fire, but their team was just a tire fire, losing 9-2 to a ragtag group of Pee-Wee hockey players from Minnesota that only made the playoffs in their own league in the previous season because another team came down with the measles.
To their credit, Trinidad and Tobago did score a couple goals, which is more than the Canucks have managed over the last three games.
The University of Arizona men’s basketball team
They may have been ranked fourth in the South in the NCAA Championship tournament, but they’re clearly bad. How else do you explain them getting upset on the first day of the tournament to an underdog University at Buffalo team. And not just an upset, but a crushing defeat, with Buffalo cruising to an 89-68 victory. It wasn’t even close!
Between the Coyotes and the university, maybe we can just say that Arizona as a whole is bad.
The Washington Generals
The Harlem Globetrotters needed a team to trounce, so the Washington Generals were founded in 1952. The Generals toured with the Globetrotters for decades, losing over 16,000 times. They won just once, back in 1971, surprising the Globetrotters, who lost track of the score while entertaining the crowd with their antics.
There is one major difference between the Generals and the Canucks: the Generals were intentionally bad.
Team Rocket
There’s more than one meaning to “bad.” Team Rocket were morally bad, so they definitely qualify as a bad team. I mean, morally speaking, the Canucks are pretty good. They’re mostly decent human beings.
Can you imagine Team Rocket running a Dice and Ice event to raise money for something like the Canucks For Kids Fund? They would just disguise themselves as blackjack dealers, steal the money, then try to take everyone’s pokemon as well, after revealing themselves with a series of rhyming couplets.
