Why not? Let's play armchair GM

As a couple of classmates of mine have pointed out in their blogs, it's not exactly the brightest of times in Canucks nation. The team heads into a pivotal match against the Wild at the Xcel Energy Center tonight with a very mediocore 33-30-10 record and no Henrik Sedin, but they have to be used to the one twin thing by now.

There are very encouraging signs of late, notably Zack Kassian's four assist night against his former team the Sabres, as well as the emergence of young Danish sniper Nicklas Jensen, whose shot has gotten Roger's Arena jumping. The crowd has gone from a murmur to a quiet buzz. However, it's likely all for not as they sit six points out of a playoff spot with nine games to play and two teams to leap. That means they'll likely find themselves with a mid-first round pick and no playoff success, once again.

Oh well, Flames fans and Leafs fans have endured years of this and Oilers fans have gone through almost half a decade of complete tanking with nothing close to a franchise player to show for it. As a diehard Canucks fan, I owe it to my team to stick it out through these tough times, but I also owe it to them to go after Mike Gillis' job. So I'm going to post my armchair GM 2014-2015 Canucks roster and maybe the Acquilini's will take notice. I will note that I'm doing this during an all-nighter, all off the top of my head and I'm just going to assume this fits under the cap.

1) Trade Alex Edler
My pick: Philadelphia
Also traded: Vancouver 3rd round pick (or another small piece to even it out)
The return: Brayden Schenn + 1st round pick
The reason: The Canucks are seriously lacking at center and you'll see why it's even worse with my second move. This deal gets the Canucks a young second line center and by the time Henrik has regressed enough, one of Schenn or Bo Horvat will hopefully be ready for the role of a top line center in the NHL.

2) Trade Ryan Kesler
My pick: Anaheim
Also traded: Philadelphia 1st round pick (acquired in Edler deal)
The return: Emerson Etem, Sami Vatanen, Ottawa 1st round pick
The reason: Kesler is the team's most valuable piece and my personal favourite player but you have to get what you can for him before he starts to decline. Prime example: Calgary with Iginla. Anaheim has been looking for that second line center to go behind Ryan Getzlaf for years now and none of Nick Bonino, Andrew Cogliano or Saku Koivu are solutions on a cup competing roster. The Canucks on the other hand get another pick in the top of the draft (along with their own) while picking up two young roster players in Vatanen and Etem, both of whom have shown they can play at the NHL level.

3) Buy out David Booth
Suck it up management, this ones a bust and we need to get this waste of space off the roster. Sure it's only one more year, younger grinders can take the roster spot and we can pray to a higher power they match Booth's huge goal total.

4) Re-sign Zack Kassian
BECAUSE SCREW YOU CODY HODGSON

5) Re-sign Mike Santorelli
He deserves it, was our best player until he got hurt this year, even if it's a one year deal bring him back. If he choses to go elsewhere for a multiple year contract, so be it!

2014-2015 Opening Night Roster
No this won't be close to the roster, even if these trades were made. They will sign free agents and I just don't have the same vision as John Tortorella or Mike Gillis, but this is how I'd do it if I was running show after my tirade in the summer.

Daniel Sedin - Henrik Sedin - Nicklas Jensen

Chris Higgins - Brayden Schenn - Zack Kassian

Alex Burrows - Mike Santorelli - Emerson Etem

Shawn Matthias - Brad Richardson - Jannik Hansen

Dan Hamhuis - Chris Tanev

Sami Vatanen - Jason Garrison

Ryan Stanton - Kevin Bieksa

Eddie Lack

Jacob Markstrom

In the system

Bo Horvat

Frank Corrado

Hunter Shinkaruk

Brendan Gaunce

Whoever we pick with Ottawa 1st (5-10 overall)

Whoever we pick with our own 1st (10-15 overall)

A bunch of other surprisingly solid prospects

Needless to say, I think that looks a lot more promising for a rebuild than what we're likely gonna end up with. That team would struggle with offence for a season or two until serious help started to arrive through the youth movement, but it will help them to another mediocre year and a higher draft pick for one of the strongest classes of the last few years. It's also pinning a lot of responsibility on two relatively young Swedish goalies, but if that proves to be an issue there is plenty of cap space to sign a veteran guy to go with Lack.