Two glaring omissions in the Canucks' current marketing campaign
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Plenty of people have taken note that Elias Pettersson is prominently absent from the Vancouver Canucks' current ticket sales efforts.
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There is a Facebook advertisement that caught everyone's eye, for a start. Pettersson is not visible in it.
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And if you click on the Canucks' season ticket membership website, the video that plays at the top does not feature the visage of the team's best-paid player, just a fan sign that features his number.
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Is this because he's on the trade block? Maybe. Is it because his image carries too much negative connotations for fans right now? Perhaps also.
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Either way, what a spot to be in, given where Pettersson's star was 18 months ago, when he was one of the NHL's stars of the month. You can't even market the guy who is supposed to be one of your most marketable stars?
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That's one thing to note.
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But there's another face missing from the same imagery that should stand out more — goalie Thatcher Demko.
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Kevin Lankinen is in the website video. But Demko, still the Canucks' No. 1 guy in the crease, is not.
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It does make you wonder if Demko is quietly being shopped around. One league source said that trading Demko made sense to them since he is a solid trade chip, even if he is coming off multiple seasons in a row with injuries, and could help bring back the kind of No. 2 centre the Canucks openly covet.
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Another source said management is looking to 'get rid of the emotionally soft, diva, drama-type, cancerous players, without doing a traditional rebuild.'
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Line that up as you will.
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Fans know this dressing room was a mess this past season. There has long been frustration with management and coaches over some aspects of the team culture that they inherited when president Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin took over in 2022.
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There was too much entitlement, they felt, amongst a group of players that had very little to show for their work to date. Sure, the 2020 bubble playoff run was an impressive thing, but that was all they had in their cap. That was the only playoff run this group had put together to that point.
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And that's why Allvin in his first end-of-season news conference made note of what he wanted to see from his players in the future. He wanted to see more. He wanted to see a get-it-done attitude. He wanted to see players who focused on the task and got on with the job.
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There certainly have been rumours that management has been frustrated with how some players have prepared themselves. How they have worked to get back from injury. How they have operated once they have been cleared to return.
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