When a team sucks, it is usually easy to pinpoint a certain area of weakness, or a reason for the missing success — but for the 2015-16 Vancouver Canucks, there were too many to even decide the major one. Injuries, scoring depth, defense. The first one is entirely influenced by (bad) luck, but general manager Jim Benning is working on the latter two. Especially regarding the defense, we are experiencing some big changes.
Late this season, Benning brought Russian prospect Nikita Tryamkin over to Vancouver. He also signed new regular Alex Biega to the first one-way contract of his career, and traded a conditional fifth-round pick to the Edmonton Oilers for the rights to defenseman Philip Larsen.