Frustration in Canuck Nation

Well, you've got your answer to the question "Deal or No Deal?" Canucks' fans. With all due respect to the Matt exchange (Cooke for Pettinger), Vancouver basically stood pat on trade deadline day and that isn't sitting well with most in the lower mainland.

But make no mistake; this is not an isolated incident. The lack of a deal to land a significant upgrade to the Canucks' offense on deadline day is simply the culmination of nine months of waiting for such an announcement. Dave Nonis made it perfectly clear after seeing his club get downed by the Ducks' last spring that three elements were lacking: grit, speed and scoring. Byron Ritchie, Brad Isbister (to a lesser extent) and Aaron Miller upped the sandpaper quotient, while Ryan Shannon and Mason Raymond have increased the team's speed. But nothing was done to address the need for secondary scoring.

That's not to say that Nonis didn't make an effort to do so. He went so far as to knock on Peter Forsberg's door in Sweden as early as last July, and I have no doubt that he tried to acquire both Brad Richards and Olli Jokinen. Unfortunately, none of those efforts yielded the scoring that the Canucks need to give them a legitimate shot at a deep playoff run. Stranger things have happened (like Anaheim and Minnesota in the 2003 Conference Final), but the cards are stacked against the Canucks in the West right now. Should Vancouver contend for a Cup in a year, this will all look like part of the master plan. But based on what last year's team did in getting to the 2nd round, this year's squad deserved a better chance to go further.

Other stuff I don't quite get:

1) Is a 2nd round pick really the best that the Habs could get for Cristobal Huet? Considering the Leafs picked up a 2nd & a 5th rounder for Hal Gill, Bob Gainey and company appear to have been shortchanged by the Capitals. That deal makes the least sense to me out of any that were made at the deadline.

2) Why are people asking the players and the NHLPA to limit no-trade clauses in contracts? And wasn't it also the owners and GMs crying about the big $$ being handed out to players during the NHL lockout? So what do these teams do immediately after the work stoppage - they hand out long-term deals for massive amounts and throw in a few no-trade clauses for good measure. Last time I checked, GMs are also involved in the negotiation process. To quote Brian Burke, "maybe we should just say no [to a few of these conditions] instead of asking a bunch of lawyers in New York to fix things for us". I don't agree with everything you say Burkie, but amen.

3) Is Jason Jimenez suspended or not? I know that we are in the middle of the CFL's off-season, but how big of a joke is it that a ruling has not been made on a guy who committed a transgression last November? Not that there's a game any time soon, but it's this type of foot-dragging on logical issues that gives non-CFL fans another reason to dub it a "bush league". I love the product and admire the skill of the players, but the management of the league drives me insane sometimes.

Final Point: If the Richard Zednik incident made your stomach turn, don't go renting Eastern Promises anytime soon. Great movie that was worthy of the praise it received at the Oscars, but the Russian mob handles their "business" in a very similar manner to the way in which Zednik was nearly fatally wounded.