Trevor Linden's greatest day as a Vancouver Canuck was not Wednesday, when he became president of hockey operations.
That day was nearly 20 years ago, on June 14, 1994, when the 23-year-old Linden, by then captain of the Canucks, led his team into battle in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals against the heavily-favoured New York Rangers. Mark Messier may have scored the winning goal for the Rangers but Linden forever earned the love and respect of Canucks fan for scoring both goals, one of them short-handed, in a 3-2 loss.
There is a famous photograph of Linden hugging Cancuks goaltender Kirk McLean after the game. Both men are exhausted and utterly spent. For a coach wanting to illustrate the phrase "leave it all on the ice," that picture would do.
If Linden works half as hard as team president as he did in that game 20 years ago, Canucks fans should brace themselves for plenty of happy days in the not-too-distant future.
When Linden first joined the Canucks, the team was in a shambles then, too. They finished dead last in their division in the 1987-88 season and earned the right to take the second overall pick in the entry draft. The inspired choice was Linden, whose name was called right after another pretty good player, Mike Modano. Linden had two Memorial Cup championships under his belt with the Medicine Hat Tigers and made the jump to the NHL as an 18-year-old.
Linden was one of the top rookies in the league in the 1988-89 season. The Canucks made the playoffs for the first time in three years and Linden helped his team take the Calgary Flames to overtime of Game 7. Some oaf named Joel Otto stood in the crease and kicked the puck past McLean and the Flames went on to win the series and eventually the Stanley Cup that year. The 25th anniversary of that dark moment in Canucks history is next Tuesday, for anybody keeping track.
Anyhow, Linden returns in 2014 to a big mess in Canucks land, left for him by Mike Gillis, who was fired as president and general manager on Tuesday. Gillis wasn't all bad but he inherited his best players - the Sedins, Ryan Kesler and Roberto Luongo. Gillis did sign some decent guys along the way, like Alex Burrows, Chris Tanev, Christian Ehrhoff, Jason Garrison and Dan Hamhuis, but he sure knew how to find the dogs, too, like Derek Roy, Keith Ballard and David Booth.
Gillis will forever be remembered as the guy who traded away two elite goaltenders (Luongo and Cory Schneider) in less than eight months for scraps and future prospects, leaving behind Eddie Lack, a rookie who had barely played in the minors the year before due to a serious injury.
The first order of business for Linden will be to find himself a general manager to look after the day-to-day operations of the team, particularly the coaches and the players. It will be up to the new GM to decide the fate of coach John Tortorella but it should be remembered that the last time the Canucks didn't make the playoffs, the general manager of the day, Dave Nonis, was also fired, but his replacement, Gillis, decided to stick with second-year coach Alain Vigneault, who went on to lead the Canucks to two President's Trophy seasons as the league's best regular-season team and a Stanley Cup final.
Linden should keep Tortorella at least for one more year to see if he can right the ship and leave the difficult short-term player decisions (trade Kesler? give Booth a buyout?) to his new GM. What Linden should do is get to work on the longer-term future of the team. He needs to follow the lead of Pat Quinn, the man who drafted him back in 1988, with smart and inspired trades and draft picks that will bear fruit both now and down the road.
In the near-future, however, Linden is inheriting a team on the decline, so he needs to cash in on his personal popularity with the fans to keep their bums in the seats (and their dollars coming to the team) during the rebuilding process. Quinn turned around the Canucks quickly and Linden, with the right GM, can, as well, with the right moves. But even Linden will earn the ire of devoted fans if he turns the Canucks into the once-mighty Edmonton Oilers, who haven't made the playoffs since losing Game 7 in the 2006 Stanley Cup final.
It's never boring following the Canucks but with Linden at the helm where he belongs, it could be a lot easier cheering for them real soon.
