Welcome to our offseason initiative — 30 teams in 30 days.
From July 16 until Aug. 14, we’ll be dedicating each day to a new team by recapping the offseason and looking ahead to 2012-13.
There will also be a series of posts looking at key stories, player profiles and burning questions regarding each squad.
Our final team is the Vancouver Canucks.
It took a while for the Canucks to shake off the 2011 Stanley Cup finals, but they eventually soldiered on and managed a second consecutive Presidents Trophy. The Los Angeles Kings made it certain that the 2012 postseason wouldn’t be a long one, however, dispatching Vancouver in five games.
The Roberto Luongo saga still needs to be sorted out, and depending on who they acquire that way, the Canucks could see some extra gains.
If nothing else, Vancouver continued its tradition of adding noteworthy free agent defensemen (see: Hamhuis, Dan) by landing hard-shooting blueliner Jason Garrison.
The Canucks lost some defensive depth otherwise in Sami Salo and Aaron Rome, yet many believe Garrison’s addition will tower over those subtractions.
Beyond that, the Canucks hope to see rebounds from the likes of Ryan Kesler, who underwent offseason surgery.
Stay tuned with PHT for plenty of stories on these regular contenders.