Canucks Have Unsettled Future After Early Exit Andy Clark/Reuters Coach Alain Vigneault has guided the Canucks to 45 wins or more in five of his six seasons. VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The Vancouver Canucks got revenge, but it did not help in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Canucks" regular-season highlight was a 4-3 road win over the Boston Bruins on Jan. 7, when the teams met for the only time since the Bruins walked out of Rogers Arena with the Cup on riot-marred June 15, 2011. Some of the estimated 1.1 million British Columbians who watched the fight-filled rematch called it "Game 8." "The Boston game was our peak; it took awhile for us to get back to playing the way we wanted to after that," the Vancouver captain Henrik Sedin said Tuesday, two days after the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Kings eliminated the Canucks, four games to one. Defenseman Kevin Bieksa said the time between that Boston game and the playoffs seemed like "two years, it took forever." "There were times where we didn't have a lot to play for in the standings," he said. We put ourselves in a good situation, we were trying to get healthy down the stretch, and try some different things, obviously try different personnel in different situations. I don't know if that helped us or it hurt us. Sedin and Bieksa had not cleared out their lockers so early since 2008, when Vancouver failed to qualify for the playoffs. Expectations were high this year for the Canucks, who won the Presidents" Trophy as the regular-season points champion. Since the N.H.L. returned from the lockout in 2005, four Presidents" Trophy winners have become first-round victims, and only the 2008 Detroit Red Wings parlayed the trophy into a Stanley Cup win. Only seven times since the 1986 Edmonton Oilers won has a Presidents" Trophy winner also captured the Cup. The 1984 Oilers and the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins are the only teams since the league expanded in 1968 to become Cup champions the year after losing the final. The Canucks had 91 days between the 2011 final loss and training camp in September. Forwards Ryan Kesler and Mason Raymond struggled to regain form after 2011 playoff injuries. Daniel Sedin was sidelined with a March 21 concussion and returned for Game 4 against Los Angeles. The team lost offense when the rookie center Cody Hodgson was traded at the deadline for Buffalo Sabres power forward Zack Kassian, who was a healthy scratch for Game 5. Declining offense was ultimately the Canucks" undoing. In March 2011, they won 13 of 17 games, outscored opponents by 43-27 and were crowned Presidents" Trophy champs on March 31, with a 3-1 win over the Kings. A year later, the scoring ratio was 35-33, the Canucks won 9 of 15 games and they needed a 3-0 win over the lowly Oilers to clinch first over all. The scoring riddle continued in the playoffs, when they beat the Kings" hot goaltender, Jonathan Quick, only eight times in five games. Henrik Sedin and Alexander Edler led the Canucks with two goals each. Sedin had two of the three goals on 21 power plays. "Sometimes a week and a half costs you seriously," General Manager Mike Gillis said. I still felt even though our team wasn't playing its best going into the playoffs, we had a unique opportunity to gain some momentum, to have great goaltending to do some things that would put us back in the same position as last year. Coach Alain Vigneault's fate rests with the owners, the Aquilini family. In six seasons behind the Vancouver bench, he has compiled five seasons with 45 wins or more. Craig MacTavish, a former Oilers coach and the coach of the Canucks" American Hockey League team, the Chicago Wolves, is a logical successor should Gillis be overruled. "This guy is the winningest coach in this team's history, we just won two Presidents" Trophies, lost in the seventh game of a Stanley Cup final - is that when you decide when you're going to start getting rid of people?" Gillis said. I know there are a lot of teams that are envious of where this team is today in a lot of different ways, and having a good head coach is one of the reasons. Another is goaltending depth. Cory Schneider assumed the starter's role from the veteran Roberto Luongo in Game 3 and is eligible for restricted free agency on July 1. Luongo, meanwhile, has finished two years on a 12-year, $64 million contract but said Tuesday he would be willing to waive a no-trade clause. "It is a very unique circumstance we're in where we've got an elite young guy that's up and coming that's probably going to dominate the league for many years," Luongo said. I'm not sure what I'd do if I was G.M. as well. I think I fared pretty well. I did not take that last ultimate step that we all wanted to last year. I wouldn't call this a failure at all.