Following their fourth straight 5-2 loss (the first four-game streak of its kind in NHL history), it’s hard for anyone in Vancouver to justify an argument that these Canucks still have a reasonable chance of making the playoffs. If you do believe such a thing, congratulation, your mettle is clearly unbreakable, or your delusions are frighteningly strong.

For most fans, though, reality has set in. Some saw this coming and are not shy about it. Others may be distraught or confused. Fear not, friends, we’re all in this together.

The hopelessness of this season is starting to become reminiscent of the Tortorella year, the worst Canucks campaign in recent memory. Well, I have some interesting news for you. As bad as that season was, those Canucks weren’t this bad this early. To match this season’s disappointment, you’d have to go back a lot further.

The 2015-16 campaign started off well enough, as the Canucks went 5-2-4 in the month of October, putting them on pace for over 100 points. Unfortunately after that, things went downhill pretty rapidly.

Since mid-November, the Canucks have been hovering around about a point per game in the standings. In most seasons, it would be abundantly clear that this is an abysmal total. In this season however, the Pacific Division has been so bad that it gave the illusion that the Canucks were in the playoff mix through to the end of the calendar year.

As the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks finally started picking up the pace and putting some separation between themselves and the rest of the Pacific Division pack, it has become more and more apparent that a postseason berth is little more than a pipedream for this squad. Following the loss to the Flames, mathematician Micah McCurdy‘s playoff chances predictor was not looking too fondly on the Canucks.

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In the west, only Edmonton has a lower statistical likelihood of making the playoffs (which we can all take a moment and have a chuckle about). Last year at the 58-game mark, the Canucks had amassed 69 points, putting them in second place in the Pacific Division and in a solid position for making the playoffs, which they eventually did.

Even two years ago, in a torturous season that ended in everybody getting either hurt or fired, the Canucks still had 27 wins and 63 points after 58 games – and that was while they were four games into a seven-game losing streak.

In fact, you’d have to go back all the way to the turn of the millennium to find the last time the Canucks held such a woeful record after 58 games.

Back in 1999-00, the Canucks had won just 19 times in their first 58 games, putting up 56 points. Fully aware of the predicament that they were in, GM Brian Burke sent away all-star winger Alex Mogilny in exchange for a couple of young players in Brendan Morrison and Denis Pederson.

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At this point, the Canucks had already been a terrible team for a few years. As hard as it was to believe at the time, that time was actually on the way up. The 83 points they managed to accumulate by the end of that season were the most they had managed since the 1993-94 season when they went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final after an 85-point season.

For better or worse, those Canucks had already begun the fire sale of their assets, trading away core players like Kirk McLean, Pavel Bure, Gino Odjick, and Trevor Linden in preceding seasons. In return, of course, they got their hands on players like Todd Bertuzzi and Ed Jovanovski, setting themselves up for years to come.

Most importantly, a 58-point season in 1998-99 (the worst point total in a full season since the 1970’s), along with some draft day wheeling and dealing that has entered into Canuck legend, left the Canucks with two picks at the top of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft. So even though they sat with 54 after 58 games in February of 2000, they could see a ray of hope knowing that they had the rights to a pair of twins that were tearing up a European elite league in Sweden.

Can the 2015-16 Canucks take any lessons from that 1999-00 iteration? Certainly. First of all, it isn’t often that you can make significant gains without suffering first. So long as you’re proactive, there is always hope that the future could be better. The time is now to turn old veterans into young assets. You never know when you might come across the next Todd Bertuzzi or Brendan Morrison.

As for those high draft picks, the present day Canucks haven’t picked from the top of the pyramid quite yet, but as the season winds down, the chances that the Canucks get to select a franchise altering player continue to increase with each poor performance.

With a three lottery system this year, there are plenty of opportunities for the Canucks to land in the top three. Even without the first overall pick, the Canucks could draft a young man that becomes an impact player almost immediately.

Maybe we’re in for something even more special. Now, I certainly wouldn’t get my hopes up for this, but just allow your mind to wander. Could you imagine if Vancouver management could pull a series of trades, combining their deadline sales and a little bit of lottery luck, and get their hands on another pair of top three selections? One year from now, would you really care about the hell the Canucks went through if they had yet another pair of Scandinavians waiting in the wings, setting the Canucks for another decade?

It won’t happen. At least, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that it will come to pass. But that’s just how it goes when your favourite team drops out of contention this early on in the season – your mind has little choice but to wander on to brighter days ahead.

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