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Spitballing on what happened to the Canucks on trade deadline day, 2018

This is just a personal analysis of how an NHL organization should be run.
Moves should be planned months in advance. The Canucks should have been talking trades back in late November, and early December after having a few months to evaluate their own roster. Who fit the long-term plans, and who didn't. That's the easy part. Who currently on the NHL roster fits in the Canucks long-term plans? Boeser. Horvat. Maybe Stetcher, Hutton. What about prospects? What about veterans?
Plans and more plans. Best-case scenarios, and worst-case scenarios. There should have been meetings between the team's management strictly on trades, and proposals finalized and submitted by the managers to Benning as to what should be done. That part should have been done early: late November, early December.
And then from there, Benning should have been getting in touch with other teams as to what players the Canucks were willing to part with for what specific returns. He'd submit the team's proposals to these teams. Ideally, this is done prior to the Christmas break, allowing for the other team to have something to mull over during the holidays. He'd then have his assistant contact the other team's assistant to work out the particulars of the deal. This process could take up the whole of January, and should probably be the main focus of the entire management team (excepting extensions of players in the team's long-term plans, but the Canucks didn't have any of those).
That way, entering February, the framework of deals are in place, and ready to be signed off on if both teams came to agreement.
However, we can reverse-engineer the Canucks' actual deadline deals, and come to twisted conclusions. The Canucks had few if any plans going into deadline day. They hadn't evaluated their own players well enough. They were unable to gauge the trade market well enough. They didn't submit proposals to other teams in time to form a proper framework. They were caught flat on their heels entering this deadline. The Canucks have no plans in regards to the trade deadline, and their own roster construction.

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