NHL Draft Lottery another reminder Canucks need more than luck to get back on track

New York Times

06-05-2025

This Vancouver Canucks offseason has been defined by uncertainty to this point.
This is a club that's found itself in a lengthy, bizarre stalemate with its top prospect over a meagre amount of bonus money.
A franchise that's already dealt with a credible round of speculation about the stability of the ownership group, which the club refuted while clarifying that longtime governor Paolo Aquilini had resigned from his ownership duties.
A team that offered its hand-picked, Jack Adams Trophy-winning head coach the moon and more on a long-term extension, only for the coach to decide to walk anyway.
From the reliability of the Canucks' star centre to the availability of their star goaltender to the future of the team's captain, just about everything seems to be up in the air these days.
And that's before Canucks fans logged onto the social media site X on Monday afternoon and were greeted by images of Elon Musk, sent by the club's official account, which was compromised by bad actors hawking crypto and replying sardonically to Canucks fans.
Even in a city that's comfortable dealing with a deluge of rain, the extent of the downpour that's engulfed its hockey team recently looks pretty remarkable.
In that context, then, something familiar, even if it's as unwelcome as another bout of bad NHL Draft Lottery luck, can still provide relief.
On Monday night, the lottery balls didn't bounce Vancouver's way. And why would they? They never have before.
Vancouver entered the draft lottery with a roughly 98 percent chance of remaining locked in place with the No. 15 selection at the 2025 NHL Draft. As the NHL unveiled a new draft lottery format, with the drawing broadcast in transparent, gameshow fashion live from Seacaucus, N.J., and several long-shot teams moved up the draft order thanks to favourable draws, the overwhelmingly likely outcome in fact occurred for Vancouver.
The Canucks didn't move up the draft order on Monday, and never came especially close, but they also didn't move down. There's a win in that.
The result was to be expected, but it's still somewhat disappointing for a franchise that could've used a boost. At least there's certainty in the draft order for Vancouver now, one mystery box now been revealed. It might not be a new coach or a new top-six centre or a Brock Boeser replacement, those mystery boxes will have to be filled in later on, but every new bit of certainty is still helpful for Canucks management as they consider their next steps this offseason.
The No. 15 selection is an asset with fixed value now, and one the Canucks may have to move to boost their roster in the here and now.
However, the concept that the Canucks can continue to shed uncertain, volatile assets like first-round picks to better position themselves for the future should be met with intense skepticism.
Vancouver has only selected three times in the first two rounds since 2020, an appallingly low number given the Canucks have made only one playoff appearance during that span.
One could even credibly argue the team is backed into the corner it finds itself largely due to a longstanding organizational failure to chase upside — and, yes, volatility — by being disciplined about accumulating talent through the draft.
This isn't the summer for such macro team-building concerns, though. This is the summer in which the Canucks are and should be feeling immense pressure to get back to the business of qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs and getting this listless team back on track.
After all, the Canucks have built around a core group that's out of runway to launch, and is swiftly running out of time.
The 'Enjoy the future folks, here is is right now' overtime shift — during which Boeser, Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes combined with such electricity as young players, symbolically opening this era of Canucks hockey — occurred over six years ago now. The time since has flown by, with very little in the way of team success to show for it.
This summer feels like a pivot point for the organization and this core group. Boeser is now out of contract, headed toward hitting the open market as an unrestricted free agent on July 1. Hughes is 25, in his statistical prime and a year away from being extension-eligible before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Pettersson is 26 and should still be in his prime, although there was scant evidence of that this past season.
Even as the club has added a few useful top-of-the-lineup supporting pieces like Filip Hronek and Jake DeBrusk to the roster, and as younger prospects like Elias Pettersson (the defender) and Jonathan Lekkerimäki have demonstrated real potential, there's little in the way of star talent coming up behind the core.
And the 2025 draft class isn't especially laden with star potential outside the top handful of draft-eligible players.
If it's tempting to interpret that widespread industry perception as a justification for trading the pick, just remember it's a double-edged sword. The perceived lack of star-potential players in the middle of the first may provide a green light for Vancouver to consider chasing win-now help on the trade market, but it will also restrain the trade value of its first-round pick relative to what we've seen on the draft floor in previous years.
This is the quagmire that Canucks management will attempt to extricate themselves from this summer. Their best and most likely course ironically paved by the same types of moves that led the franchise here in the first place.
Luck won't be sufficient to get this team back on track, that much has been abundantly clear throughout Canucks history.
Several home run cuts on the trade market or in unrestricted free agency might not be either, even if the Canucks have been left with little choice but to continue to push forward on the narrow path that the organization decided to walk long ago. It's an all-in summer, and it should be.
And if it doesn't work again, then it really will be time for this stubborn franchise to expand its organizational paradigm and consider what's required to win sustainably — and to commit to doing the unsexy, uncertain work of organization building with the long-term in mind.
(Photo of Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford: Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press via AP)