Article content continued

Seems aggressively unlikely.

Plus, any “discount” would certainly be more than the $3.5 million he’s making now and it’s already too much.

And that leads us to Canucks Army, which, correctly, pointed out signing Guddy long term is the least attractive option:

It’s an excellent rundown from JD2 on the situation which features gems like this:

JD2 uses a comment from The Provies as an accelerant.

I can’t speak for Halford and Brough, but that’s not my order of preference. Not at all.

The comment “they can’t lose him for nothing” is poorly worded, and not a reflection of my preference.

It’s my read on a complex situation which involves a volatile market where executives lose their jobs at a high rate.

One of the items JD2 doesn’t address here is the mea culpa which would be required of Jim both publicly and in the owner’s office if he were to allow Guddy to walk to free agency without compensation.

As JD2 pointed out, there was already a sense the Canucks got fleeced before 44 played a game here.

If he leaves via free agency, it would mean Jim gave up a bounty of futures for 100-odd games by a third-pairing dman.

GMs lose their jobs for mea culpas less egregious than this one.

Basically, it requires a: “I made a colossal mistake.”

Internally, that can stoke a crisis in confidence, not to mention the optics it would mean externally.

The power of optics is some drug.

As an example, there is a belief by some around the NHL the Canucks signed Rodin because they didn’t want to look bad if he excelled somewhere else.

I’m not yet sure I believe it yet, but I do find it believable.

So let me tack on an amendment to my comment.

The Canucks can’t lose Gudbranson for nothing.

And survive.