Vancouver Canucks, Tampa Bay Lightning

Canucks Highlights: Stamkos 500 And A Trick

Good for you Canucks fans; a chance to see NHL history on an otherwise dismal Wednesday night that saw the home team buried in the first period. The Vancouver faithful showed class, appropriately honouring Steven Stamkos for becoming the 47th man to reach the 500 career goal mark. He added 501 and 502 for a hat trick in the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 5-2 win over the Canucks.

It came as no surprise really. The Bolts are a consistently elite team, the Canucks the poster boys of discombobulation. Or maybe that describes the organization, to hear the chatter around town.

At any rate, the loss dropped the Canucks five games below .500 on the season as the franchise and its brass start to daydream of ping-pong balls … the slight chance that winning the NHL Draft Lottery and picking North Vancouver’s Connor Bedard first overall will make everyone’s job a hell of a lot easier.

Nothing wrong with dreaming.

The Canucks Countdown

Meanwhile, it’s back to the old drawing board for the Vancouver Canucks and there’s plenty of work to do: Getting the best deal possible in a trade for captain Bo Horvat in the next six weeks and figuring out when to mercy fire head coach Bruce Boudreau.

Regardless of who shares the blame, ‘Gabby’ didn’t deserve this smouldering mess. How many times can one head coach be thrown under the bus?

Imagine the jargon that’ll be tossed out there at the press conference for the next guy. “He’s here to win (lose) games for our dedicated fans. For this proud franchise, it’s all about going out every night, giving it our best, and attempting to win (lose).”

We’ll talk about all of the various long reorganization options shortly.

For now, clear cap space, lose, do ten Hail Mary’s and pray to God your ping pong ball comes in.

The Canucks injury that matters.

Rob Simpson

Rob Simpson has covered the NHL in five different decades. He’s authored 4 books on hockey and is a veteran TV and radio play-by-play man and reporter.