By / Larry Feist
When the February 2009 version of the Canucks wins six out of eight games during a stretch of eight games in eight different cities in 10 days, it is a bit tough to remember that the February 1999 crew was smack in the middle of a four-year playoff drought.
The Canucks were exactly two weeks into the Pavel Bure-less era.
Dave “not a throw-in” Gagner, Ed Jovanovski, and Kevin “goalie of the future” Weekes were all settled in Vancouver after the trade.
Mattias Ohlund is the only player from that roster that is still on the Canucks; however, in an interesting turn of fate, Gagner is back in the front office – maybe he wasn’t a throw-in after all?
Nobody saw the light at the end of the tunnel in February ‘99, mostly because there was still shock and misdirection with an underachieving team that had Mogilny, Naslund, Bertuzzi, Messier and a number of other veterans. The light at the end of the February ’99 tunnel was a train coming straight at them.
Interesting though that a few pieces on that team were moved to set up the fun but fruitless run in the early to mid 2000s.
Crawford and Burke settled in, Adrian Aucoin became Dan Cloutier, Alexander Mogilny became Brendan Morrison, Mark Messier became gone, Bill Muckalt and Dave Scatchard became Felix Potvin, Bryan McCabe became a Sedin, Peter Schaefer became Sami Salo, and last but not least, Garth Snow became a GM.
It will be very interesting to see how current general manager Mike Gillis’ moves turn out in February 2019. |