Stanley Cup Finals 2011: What's Next for the Vancouver Canucks After the Loss?

VANCOUVER - Well, that wasn't the way the story was supposed to end.

In the end, the Vancouver Canucks ran out of gas and fell to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Now they can take a day or two to decompress after the stress of the last two months of playoff hockey, but then the Canucks will need to asses what happened and where to go from here.

Once the smoke clears from downtown Vancouver and emotions aren't running quite so high, general manager Mike Gillis and head coach Alain Vigneault can assess the season, see where the team came up short and then move to address those weaknesses.

In my opinion, there are five main questions that need to be addressed in the next few weeks.

The first question is injuries.

Not as an excuse for losing, but rather: Who was injured, do they require surgery and how did it affect their play?

For example, was Ryan Kesler's injured as rumoured, or was it simply that he was overmatched by the Bruins? Ditto for Henrik Sedin.

One injury that has already been confirmed is Christian Ehrhoff.

Ehrhoff told the media that he never fully recovered from the shoulder injury suffered in the Western Conference Finals and that he was getting pain shots during every game to help him try and compete. His lack of production from the point in the finals can be linked largely to this injury.

The second question is what to do at the draft on June 24th and 25th.

The Canucks have first-round (29th overall), second-round (60th overall) and third-round (90th overall) picks.

Does Gillis package the picks to trade for a roster player?

Does he offer them to a team, possibly along with other compensation, for a restricted free agent?

Or does he simply use them as intended and draft some more prospects?

The third question is: What to do with the impending restricted free agents and unrestricted free agents?

Amongst the forwards, Raffi Torres, Chris Higgins, Tanner Glass and Jeff Tambellini are all unrestricted free agents. Maxim Lapierre and Jannik Hansen are restricted free agents.

Amongst the defencemen, Kevin Bieksa, Christian Ehrhoff, Sami Salo and Andrew Alberts are all unrestricted free agents.

Who will sign a new contract before free agency opens on July 1st? Who will test the market and who will never again don a Canucks jersey?

The fourth question is: What do to with Cory Schneider?

Schneider was the best backup in the NHL last year and has one year left at $900,000 on his contract. Do the Canucks deal him at the draft? Or do they wait until later in the summer? Or do they hang onto him as the backup for another year?

The fifth and final question is: What to do with Keith Ballard? 

Ballard has four years at $4,200,000 left on his contract. He also fell down to approximately 10th on the depth chart during the playoffs.

Rookie Chris Tanev dressed in the Stanley Cup Finals over Ballard, and the Canucks even called up AHL journeyman Nolan Baumgartner as insurance for Game 7 rather than risk putting Ballard back into the lineup.

What can the Canucks do with Ballard? Will he be able to adapt to the Canucks' system if given another year? Or is he simply a square peg trying to fit into a round hole?

Can Gillis convince some other team that Ballard has value? Maybe, but it would probably take some draft picks and/or prospects to sweeten the deal for a team to take on Ballard's contract.

These are the five major questions facing the Canucks, and I'll discuss them in depth over the next few weeks.

Joel Prosser is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and was the organization's on-site reporter for the Stanley Cup Finals in Vancouver.