No one saw Ryan Johnson's announcement coming

Ryan Johnson is set to address the media Wednesday morning at 9:30 am, and the questions facing the Vancouver Canucks GM won't be gentle.

This isn't a routine end-of-season availability. The Canucks just finished 32nd overall in the NHL, dead last in the entire league.

The final record was 25-49-8. Fifty-eight points. A goal differential of -100.

That number alone, minus-100, tells you everything you need to know about the state of this franchise right now.

The season ended April 16 with a 1-6 loss in Edmonton. That was the last image of this Canucks team: outclassed, outscored, playing out the string.

At home, the Canucks went 9-27-5. Think about that. They were worse at Rogers Arena than on the road. Their own building became hostile territory.

Elias Pettersson's $11.6M contract is the conversation nobody wants to start

The elephant in the room, the one that's been sitting there all season, is Elias Pettersson's cap hit. Eleven point six million dollars for 51 points in 74 games, with a rating of -30.

That's not a production level that justifies that number under any reasonable reading of the cap landscape. A quarterback drawing that salary while throwing picks all year doesn't survive the offseason without a hard conversation.

The Canucks weren't just bad. They were bad in expensive ways.

Brock Boeser finished at -48. Filip Chytil, brought in to help center depth, managed 3 points in 12 games at $4.4M. Marcus Pettersson, the shutdown blueliner earning $5.5M, went -19.

Johnson is the one with the decisions to make. The draft. The buyouts. The trade calls that have already started coming in on a franchise center who cost $11.6M and went scoreless over his last 10 appearances.

Thatcher Demko only dressed for 20 games at $5M. Kevin Lankinen, forced into the starter's role, posted a .875 save percentage in 47 starts. Neither number is a foundation to build on.

The prospect pool gives Johnson something to sell. Zeev Buium, 20 years old, showed flashes at 26 points. Tom Willander is 21 and logging real minutes on the back end.

But the rebuild, if Johnson actually calls it that Wednesday, starts with the hardest question in the room: what do you do with the face of the franchise when the face of the franchise just cost you the most money in the building and delivered a minus season in every direction?