The Vancouver Canucks have a coveted set of building blocks for the future. They’ve got a franchise centre in Elias Pettersson, a potential No. 1 defenceman in Quinn Hughes, a top-flight winger in Brock Boeser and an excellent second-line pivot on a sweetheart of a contract in Bo Horvat. A bright future is in the cards should management build wisely around them.



But how much brighter would the light at the end of the tunnel look if the Canucks had committed to a rebuild earlier instead of tinkering for a while with an on-the-fly retool? Could they perhaps have already finished the rebuild and started on their trek as legitimate Stanley Cup contenders?



Investigating these questions isn’t an attempt to criticize management or ownership for the team’s direction to date so much as it is a wistful thought on an alternate reality. Such an exercise also allows us to relitigate past moves and examine how differently things could have played out had the...