Vancouver Canucks: 5 Trades That Could Reset Them as the Favourites in the West

The Vancouver Canucks had a tremendous season last year, running away with the Northwest division title, winning a franchise-first Presidents' Trophy, and having a Sedin (Daniel) pick up the Art Ross for a second year in a row. Oh, and Ryan Kesler finally got his Selke too.

Of course, the season did end on a bad note with the Bruins dominating the Canucks in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Between the lacklustre performance against the Bruins, several key players still recovering from injuries and the inevitable hangover after a lengthy playoff run, the Canucks aren't considered the favourites in the West this year by any pundits.

But there are a few things that general manager Mike Gillis could do between now and the trading deadline to turn that perception around.

Trade Away Roberto Luongo

First, I should note that I think Roberto Luongo has taken too much heat for the playoff meltdowns.

Yes, he played horribly at times.

However, so did the skaters in front of him, so making the goalie into a scapegoat for everyone else's sins doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

It does make a lot of sense to a lot of other people, though, who like to trash Luongo while conveniently forgetting others who also were found lacking in the playoffs.

I disagree that trading Luongo would automatically make the team better, but this article is about public perception.

In the eyes of a lot of people, both in and out of Vancouver, Luongo is damaged goods, and trading him would make the Canucks a better team regardless of what Gillis got back in return for his star goalie.

Trade Away Cory Schneider

If the Canucks are going to trade a goalie, this makes more sense to me.

Schneider is young, has won at the AHL level and is putting together a pretty good record in the NHL.

He also would be considered a goalie on the rise, unlike Luongo, and so would be more attractive to other teams.

Gillis has stated that he wants to keep Schneider around for the entire year before making a decision on his future, but really, Schneider is a pretty big chip to play in the trading game.

Once the playoffs roll around, he won't get any playing time.

Even with all the goaltending controversy in Vancouver last spring, he got exactly one start—in the first round. He didn't perform any better against the Blackhawks than Luongo was doing at the time.

Like pretty much every other team in NHL history, once the Canucks hit the playoffs, they'll have a designated starter whom they will ride all spring.

Thus, keeping two good goalies past the trade deadline is a waste of assets if Gillis could turn one of them into an impact skater.

If Gillis does what I expect and deals Schneider for a good second- or third-line forward who can grind in the playoffs and also provide secondary scoring, then the Canucks will again be favourites to win the West (unless they draw Chicago in the first round again).

Trade Away Keith Ballard

Keith Ballard has a cap hit of $4.2 million and has four years left on his contract.

He also was a healthy scratch repeatedly in the playoffs despite numerous injuries to other defencemen, falling to around 10th on the depth chart by my estimation.

Now to be fair to Ballard, he had the worst season of his career injury-wise in 2010-2011 and basically missed training camp due to offseason surgery, so he was never in sync for most of the year.

Vancouver also had an exceptionally deep blue line, unlike his previous teams in Phoenix and Florida.

This year, he is perfectly healthy, and a spot in the top four has opened up with the departure of Christian Ehrhoff, so it would be safe to assume he will have a rebound year.

But do the Canucks need him? And will the coaches and fans have any faith in him?

Ballard seems to be a player who needs ice time to thrive, and if he isn't going to get it in Vancouver, he is a waste of cap space.

The Canucks could trade Ballard either as a straight salary cap dump to make room for another deal or to take on another onerous contract from the other team.

Even if it was an overpaid forward coming back, the odds are better that the forward could actually make the starting lineup.

Trade for Shea Weber

It has been rumoured for quite a while that the Nashville Predator captain would like to return to his British Columbia roots, as his one-time defence partner Dan Hamhuis did last summer.

Weber and Nashville were at an impasse on his contract negotiations over the last year, and he ended up winning the highest arbitration award in the history of the NHL.

It is, however, only a one-year deal.

Nashville won't want to go through the entire season again with question marks about its captain, and as a restricted free agent next summer, it would have to give Weber a raise on the $7.5 million he is making this year.

Pekka Rinne and Ryan Suter are also coming up as unrestricted free agents after this year, and they are equally valuable to Nashville's success on the ice—which means that their agents will inevitably be pushing for Nashville to pony up the cash if they want to keep them.

All of this points to Nashville looking to trade Weber for a good package of roster players, draft picks and prospects so that it can stay competitive and not have to break the bank next summer. 

Whatever the Predators want (outside of the Sedins and Kesler), Gillis should give it to them if it meant that the Canucks would be getting back a 6'4", 235-pound Team Canada defenceman just starting to enter his prime at 26 years old.

The addition of an Norris-calibre defenceman to play 30 minutes a night would make the entire team better and push the Canucks ahead of the pack when it comes to picking a favourite to emerge out of the Western Conference in 2012.

Trade for Zach Parise

Zach Parise is in the last year of a $6 million contract. He will be an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Parise is an elite winger who can play a solid two-way game while still putting up points.

The New Jersey Devils don't have the cap space to re-sign him without gutting the team further after the debacle that was the Ilya Kovalchuk signing.

Martin Brodeur is 39 and showing signs of age. He can backstop the Devils for another couple of years at most.

The Devils need a good young goalie who is ready to be a backup now and a starter as soon as possibly 2012 depending on Brodeur. They don't appear to have anyone in the system that fits that description.

The Canucks happen to have a good young goalie that fits that description in Cory Schneider, and they also have a nice Parise-sized hole beside Ryan Kesler on the second line.

Other pieces would be involved in the trade, but at the core it is the Devils parlaying a player they are going to lose anyway as a free agent for a player that fills a necessary void in their own system.

Yes, it would be a rental, since the Canucks have around as much chance of signing Parise to a new contract as the Devils do.

But Parise would instantly make the Canucks the top contender in the West again.