Last week was not kind to the Vancouver Canucks as they finished their first road trip of the season with only two of a possible 10 points and then lost both games on their brief two-game homestand 5-1 and 3-2 against the Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes respectively. They now sit as the only team without a win on the season at 0-5-2 and are off to the worst start in franchise history having lost their first seven games.

That begs the question, how long will president Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin wait until they do something to shake up this team? Last season the Canucks also started slow, but by this time they already had three wins and were sitting with a decent record of 3-3-1. As everyone knows, that still eventually cost Travis Green, Nolan Baumgartner, Jim Benning, and John Weisbrod their jobs and triggered the hirings of Rutherford, Allvin, and Bruce Boudreau. While I don’t necessarily see them firing Boudreau, stranger things have happened, considering he wasn’t their choice from the beginning as owner Francesco Aquilini hired him before they were officially brought into the organization.

If a coaching change doesn’t happen, management might go the route of trading someone significant to address the Canucks’ very thin blue line. In fact, even if they do find a way to turn things around, Allvin and Rutherford should still be looking to strengthen a defence that featured Jack Rathbone and Kyle Burroughs as a second pairing against the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday (Oct. 24). With that, here are a couple of players that could see a ticket out of Vancouver sooner rather than later.

Conor Garland

This isn’t the first time Conor Garland‘s name has been mentioned in trade speculation. Last season, only a few months after signing a long-term deal with the Canucks, his name popped up as possible trade bait just before the trade deadline. At that time the Los Angeles Kings were said to have “serious interest” in the shifty forward, but of course, nothing came of it. Then the offseason came and the Kings, Toronto Maple Leafs, and New Jersey Devils were reported to have reached out again to Allvin and Rutherford to see if a deal could be struck. Again, no trade occurred.

Now Garland’s name is once again making the rounds after a healthy scratch found him sitting in the press box for the first time in his career. When asked about the decision, Boudreau said, “We have to be accountable with the way we play…I could have taken a lot of guys out, I chose him” (from ‘Conor Garland’s healthy scratch and why the Canucks need better from Quinn Hughes’, The Athletic, 10/19/22). Choosing Garland as the player was puzzling, to say the least as there were many others more deserving of that treatment like J.T. Miller and Tanner Pearson who both really haven’t had a complete game this season yet.