from Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province,

Spring and summer can seem like forever for the players and management of teams that don’t make the playoffs in the NHL, but the clock is ticking on the Vancouver Canucks.

It’s getting down to cases for them, as the next five short weeks will define the team they’ll ice next season.

There are a ton of decisions to be made, and if you really want to be effective, there’s no time to put them off. For instance, if you want to keep Ryan Kesler — as some signals from Jim Benning and Trevor Linden have indicated — then when they meet this week, they must give him some indication of whom the head coach will be.

There’s no way he’s committing to withdrawing the trade request he’s still denying making if he doesn’t know who the coach is going to be after his head-butting with the last two. And if after said meeting you want to trade him, the best time is just before the draft. Any suggestion you’ll make a better deal later in the summer is an exercise in self-delusion. By the time September rolls around, everyone likes the look of their own young players, no matter how lame they may be. It’s a time when optimism reigns, leading every team to overvalue its assets.

If landing a high-profile free agent to play with Kesler is part of the discussion and is to be acted upon, it’s likely to come in the first few days, maybe even the first few hours after July 1. That means preparation.

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