It has been 165 days since the Vancouver Canucks stepped on the ice for their final game of the 2015-16 NHL season. They managed to snag a 4-3 shootout win against the Edmonton Oilers, but that wasn’t nearly enough to move away from the 28th spot in the league standings.
Before I get into the long story, let’s just go with the short version: it was a season to forget.
General manager Jim Benning and the rest of the Canucks brass did their best to forget everything about it as quickly as possible.
They traded for shutdown defenseman Erik Gudbranson and signed scoring winger Loui Eriksson; both moves intended to fill immediate needs.