Canucks showed plenty in playoff chase, but roster ’round out’ needed: Jannik Hansen

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Jannik Hansen has seen up close how a methodical approach can create a Stanley Cup contender.

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Look at how the 2010-11 edition of the Vancouver Canucks was built, he told Postmedia on Friday. There was a strong core in place, but they didn’t become the team that got within one win — or a handful of injuries — overnight.

And that remains the lesson that the current Canucks management group must keep in mind. Given the Stanley Cup-winning pedigree that president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin bring to the table from Pittsburgh, there’s little doubt it’s a lesson they know for themselves.

It wasn’t just that then-Canucks general manager Mike Gillis nailed his free-agent signings in the summer of 2010, adding Dam Hamhuis, Manny Malhotra and Raffi Torres, plus smart depth signings in Jeff Tambellini and Chris Tanev.

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It was that there was a slow build. The season before, Hansen pointed out, the Canucks added Mikael Samuelsson and Christian Ehrhoff.

These were all key depth signings, added to a lineup that featured players already in place like the Sedins, goalies Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider, plus defensemen Kevin Bieksa, Sami Salo and Alex Edler. Hansen was a depth player but found in the best way: The draft. He was a 2004 ninth-round pick who went on to play 626 NHL regular season games, 565 of them with the Canucks over all or part of 10 seasons.

And to Hansen, this all relates to how former GM Jim Benning built the current Canucks’ roster. Benning did draft some strong pieces in the first round, but his teams always fell out of playoff contention because of consistent misfires in building the rest of the roster, both in poor draft-day judgments — like Jake Virtanen over Nikolaj Ehlers or William Nylander, or Olli Juolevi over Matthew Tkachuk or a host of better defensemen — and in endlessly scrambled free agent signings, like Jay Beagle or Loui Eriksson or Micheal Ferland.

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“You should slowly filter it in,” said Hansen. “Last year it felt like they had eight to 10 holes in the lineup and it looked like they thought they could fill them all right away. I would have done a few last year, a few year this year. This year (2022-23) should be the one, you still have Bo on a good contract, Miller on a good contract.

“In the past there have been too many fringe signings that haven’t worked out. You can point out Dickinson, Poolman. I assume they signed Poolman to be top four, so that’s a big whiff,” he said. Tucker Poolman was signed to a four-year contract last summer at an annual salary cap hit of US $2.5 million, but he has barely played since January because of persistent migraines, an issue he also had in Winnipeg.

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“They were very, very fortunate that Luke Schenn panned out as well as he did … He wasn’t signed to be riding shotgun with Quinn Hughes,” Hansen added. “The guys you’re targeting in free agency, you can’t be 50 per cent. I want them going out getting guys we can expect 70, 75 games from. All these players with chronic back, groin issues? Stay away from them.”

The good news, Hansen feels, is that Rutherford, Allvin and their staff have learned a lot about their roster in the last few months.

“Hopefully they’ve matured and that we won’t see what they were in the first 30 games. Time will tell. Thankfully they got all these games that really mattered,” he said. “That’s really something they can take away. It’s not about someone playing hard in 30 games that didn’t matter. All these games mattered, and the guys you were looking to turn their seasons around — Pettersson, Garland, Podkolzin — played well down the stretch.”

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Pettersson proving himself to be the player most thought he was, that he wasn’t the player who struggled through much of the first half of the season, is especially crucial.

“The question will always be do we have a No. 1 center and it looks like they do,” he said. “That’s always the hardest role to fill.”

In Bo Horvat and JT Miller they have two more top-quality centers, in Quinn Hughes a No. 1 defenseman and in Thatcher Demko a No. 1 goalie.

That’s a fantastic base to work from, said Hansen. But now it’s about being smart.

“All the spots that are really really difficult to fill are filled. Now you need to round out the roster.”

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