Vancouver-- It was an up and down year for the Canucks, as the team struggled in the standings rumblings of a rebuild started through out the city, but after moving Pavel Datsyuk the team started to play better and they made a run into the playoffs beating the Winnipeg Jets (Now Ottawa Senators) before losing in the 2nd round to the Blues, many were unsure if they would take one more run with the current core or tear it all down and go for a full rebuild, the end result was instead a retool were some major players were moved out in hopes of competing for the playoffs in a tough Western Confrence.

Players traded for- Nick Spaling, Joel Edmundson, Roman Polak, Nate Prosser, Jori Lehtera, Michael Grabner, Alex Chiasson, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Niklas Kronwall, plus picks 2017 Rnd 3 DAL, 2017 Rnd 5 OTT and 2017 Rnd 6 NYR

Players traded- Chris Driedger, Jared McCann, Jannik Hansen, Nazem Kadri, Alex Edler, Antoine Roussel, Landon Ferraro plus picks, 2017 Rnd 5 Van, 2017 Rnd 3 DAL, 2017 Rnd 6 EDM VAN NYR, 2017 Rnd 5 OTT and 2018 Rnd 7 Van

Players lost to Free Agency- Andrei Markov, Willie Mitchell, Clarke MacArthur, Alex Tanguay

Of course the biggest names leaving Vancouver are defenseman Alex Edler, Nazem Kadri, and Jannik Hansen, all three were expected to play major roles in Vancouver during the 2016-17 year but they will now be playing on various other teams through out the BRHL while replacing them will be the likes of Niklas Kronwall, a top pairing defenseman that will help on the power play, Brock Nelson, a young elite goal scorer that should continue to improve and become a core player in Vancouver, and Jori Lehtera a RFA from LA brought in to centre the second line.

While several core players have moved it will be the bottom two lines that will be almost completely different with only one (possibly two) player(s) returning from last years team and a defense that will see only 3 players return that played significant minutes, where the most noticeable changes have occured.

Ben Bishop has been the back-bone of the Canucks for several seasons, and of course that will not change this season, and with a strong defensive core keeping pucks out of the net again shouldn't be a problem, the real question for Vancouver will be how many they can score which has been the achilies heal of the Canucks for just as long.  Making the playoffs will be tough in a very strong Western Confrence and with the Canucks so close to a rebuild last year one has to question how long this group will get if they stumble out of the blocks again this year.