“It really makes you sick thinking about some of the things, what could have been if we just cleaned some things up at the start of the year. It’s a fine line. It’s a close league. The teams at the bottom of the standings are not that far away from the teams at the top.” —Tyler Myers
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Tyler Myers signed with Vancouver in 2019 with playoffs on his mind. A Stanley Cup, even.
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That’s why players play.
He’s loved being in Vancouver but still, the last three seasons have been nothing like he imagined.
“It’s been strange,” he admitted Friday, after the Vancouver Canucks’ season came to a close with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
“It was what? Game 68? And we thought it was going to be a couple of weeks. Turned out it was a little bit longer than that,” Myers chuckled.
“Then we jumped into a bubble and then we jumped into a season that started in January with no fans the whole year in the Canadian division. My first two years were very strange.
“I’ve still really enjoyed it. I love the guys. I’ve loved the organization and being a part of it. This year, the first full year back, it was the most fun I’ve had. Just because we got back to some normality and a lot of a normal 82 game season. It was nice to get that feeling back again. I’m sure it’ll continue.”
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Myers and his mates got a full endorsement from head coach Bruce Boudreau for their late-season efforts.
“Playing against good teams, we competed really hard, so I’m not unhappy. I’m unhappy that we didn’t make the playoffs but not unhappy with the way they played and I think the organization has a bright future,” Boudreau said.
It’s going to be an interesting off-season for Myers and the Canucks. Even though the Canucks played very well under Boudreau and nearly made the playoffs despite starting the year 9-15-2 under Travis Green, the new management team seems set to make changes.
After all, when you’re an organization that’s missed the playoffs six of the last seven years you need to sit back and figure out why. Getting incrementally closer to the playoff line isn’t really that much progress, no matter how you slice it.
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And if management needs to find some flexibility under the salary cap, they’re going to have to make some hard decisions.
Myers could be one player on the move. He really likes Vancouver and chose to sign here in 2019 for a reason. But he’s on a big contract and his no-trade clause becomes a 10-team list this summer.
He has three more years on his contract, with a US$6 million cap hit each season. He’s 32 but just played the third full 82-game season of his career. He’s proving to be durable, though he also posted the lowest-scoring season of his career, scoring just one goal while adding 17 assists.
If there is trade chatter, Myers clearly isn’t thinking about it.
He’s focused on how his team has evolved under Bruce Boudreau. They were in a very bad spot when the energetic coach took over in early December. They’d won just eight times in 25 games and the idea of a playoff push, let alone getting within spitting distance of a playoff spot, seemed like a fever dream.
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“We’re pretty proud of the way we fought. You know, you look back at where we were after the first six weeks of the season, I don’t think anybody expected us to make it this far. It hurts. We came up short,” Myers said.
“You think of what could have been if we just cleaned up a bit of stuff we went through at the start of the season… but a lot to be proud of, and we just have to take the highs coming into next year for sure. ”
Myers, one can tell, feels that disappointment more than most. He pointed his finger at the team’s miserable penalty kill in the first six weeks of the season. The Canucks’ PK was at risk of being an all-time worst unit when Boudreau took over and handed the reins of the penalty killing units over to assistant coach Scott Walker and then to Brad Shaw after Walker had to take a leave due to vertigo.
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They turned their fortunes around dramatically, though the hole they were in was so deep that the second-half turnaround only got their penalty killing up to 31st overall in the league.
“Where we got in trouble was the start of the year, specifically the PK. It’s tough stuff when you think about that. Two or three games you clean up the PK, we might be a playoff team this year,” Myers noted.
“It really makes you sick thinking about some of the things, what could have been if we just cleaned some things up at the start of the year. It’s a fine line. It’s a close league. The teams at the bottom of the standings are not that far away from the teams at the top.”
And that is what this team will take a long and hard look at going into next year.
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