Article content continued

“I think they need to play with skilled players,” Green said. “They’re skilled guys. They’re scorers.

“But it’s a little early for that. But even when you look at (Alex) Burrows playing with those guys, he had offensive capabilities.”

All of this is something which will depend on how the roster shakes out in the fall, but it is intriguing at least to think about the possibility of Brock Boeser starting the season playing wing with the Sedins.

That is something the locals would get excited about. A decent power play would help, too.

In the past five seasons combined, the Canucks’ power play has hit 16 per cent of the time. The Florida Panthers are the only team with a lower power-play success rate during that span.

The Sedins’ unit has gone from a vivid, flowing dynamic power play to the static, predictable, easily defended unit which bottomed out this season at 14.1 per cent for the year.

Whatever they’ve tried, aside from a nice bump in Desjardins’ first season with Radim Vrbata on the backdoor, it hasn’t worked.

It’s going to be on Green and his staff to come up with some new ideas, because if the Canucks are ever going to escape the bottom of the league in goals-scored, they are going to need a decent power play.

But can it be done?

The five-season run includes three different coaching staffs, lots of different forwards and wingers, and none of them have been able to make a sustainable difference.

Photo by Dave Sandford / Getty Images

“I have lots of ideas,” Green said.