van woes

[goaltender]

i was listening to a podcast that broke down like 6 different things that went horrifically wrong for vancouver this season and it wasn't even everything!!! so first i need to write this and cleanse myself of the hilarity of their misfortunes

i literally think it is a vancouver fan's right to be miserable and negative and bitter about everything even though i will admit that upon reflection what horvat said was misconstrued. but i still don't respect him for apologizing and not owning up to the villainy! this tweet made me laugh it really is like that

anyway the thing about tanking is that it can get toxic if you genuinely do not allow yourself to enjoy a single positive thing the team does which is why part of following the habs is accepting that there will be victories and that these are still good things in the long run even if they're not going to get bedard. but then you look at the CANUCKS and it's like you couldn't even try? not even a little bit? connor bedard's most formative memory is crying over the cup final loss for a week straight when he was 6 years old and you couldn't run a bit of dallas mavericks action on your three stars for FIVE MINUTES? anyway.

[CHRONOLOGICAL RECOUNT OF EVERYTHING THAT WENT WRONG FOR THE CANUCKS IN 2022-23]

1. (september) francesco aquilini child abuse accusations
2. (october) jersey toss on home opener night
3. (october) extremely messy and opaque doerrie firing like weeks after she was promoted and highlighted as a HIFE diversity success story for the canucks
4. (october) jt miller r/canucks pumpkin patch pasta that he gets asked about during media availability and has to be like um no what the fuck are you talking about ashdfslgakldshfalsghlshdflgh
5. (november) canucks start the season on a mind-numbing 7-game losing streak, immediately setting the tone for the rest of the year
6. (december) demko is officially out for 6 weeks with lbi after an uncharacteristically poor start; he ends the season with -5.7 gsax, and the canucks put up a collective team -34.3 gsax across 4 goalies, league-worst after only columbus
7. (december) not really something that went wrong per se because he was still an assist machine but quinn hughes finally scores his first goal of the season after a 31-game drought despite mentioning that his main priority over the summer was to improve his shot and score more goals lol
8. (january) boudreau is finally fired after months of intense speculation and tocchet playing coy on national television, plus the general misery of this entire month and the BRUCE THERE IT IS chants and the fact that they still lost the last game he coached lol
9. (january) mikheyev is out for the season because HE PLAYED THROUGH A TORN ACL FOR MONTHS AND NO ONE STOPPED HIM. also everyone forgot about this and forgot he existed like a week later. also apparently the only reason the canucks picked him up was because kuzmenko's agent was like "yeah kuzmenko won't sign here unless you take him on too" so basically they dropped $10mil of cap space on 46 games of mikheyev and another first-year winger who has already hit his offensive ceiling and is due some amount of s% regression
10. (january) canucks trade their captain because they're cap strapped from miller's re-signing, though whether the circumstances of this decision are good or bad is subjective
11. (february) pearson gets put on ltir because of his hand and potentially career-threatening one million surgery issues after quinn stoked the fire by telling media his injury wasn't handled properly
12. (february) miller trade deadline penguins tease
13. (march) kuzmenko opts out of wearing the pride jersey which of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion on lol but it was objectively a large point of media interest. again all the other russians on the team were either brutally injured or scratched for this game. also miller being like "yes i wore the jersey. bet everyone is shocked because they all think i'm such a fucking asshole" which anyway
14. (april) face with truly the easiest schedule strength possible to end the season, the canucks go on yet another miracle run under a new coaching system and nearly slide out of bedard promise land, finishing right above nhl .500 and clinching a whopping last-place 3% chance at going 1oa. and tocchet plays hughes and petey like 439284 million minutes a night for literally no reason
15. (april) last but not least: horvat playoff push commentary and ensuing r/canucks circlejerkery

it really does say a lot about this org that debates over Who's Going To Be The Captain occupy so much mental energy for the fanbase because there's nothing else to care about LMAO. i woke up and realized i don't care about quinn4c anymore 💔 it's just so much....... i don't think it's true that only the playoffs mean anything and that regular season developments and records are worthless because petey hitting 100 points (even in this inflated offensive era) and becoming the individually dominant player he's matured into this season is still incredible and i don't think the misery of the surrounding team takes away from that. but it's just like... what do you look forward to on a whole?

nucks... :_) incredible stuff. never change (because we already know they can't)

Comments

[celltheory]

and WHEN they get bedard with that 3% chance......then we'll see

[goaltender]

can ao3 user espn write manifestation fic for it

[celltheory]

user espn can if petey fic counts 😩

[goaltender]

YOU KNOW IT DOES <333333