Why the Vancouver Canucks should keep their best prospects OFF the Taxi Squad in 2021

Since the NHL and NHLPA announced a joint return-to-play agreement that included a 56-game regular season and the advent of taxi squads, there’s been an interesting notion passing through the Vancouver fanbase and mediasphere. There’s an idea that, for the 2021 season, the Canucks’ top prospects — players like Nils Hoglander, Jack Rathbone, Mike DiPietro, and Kole Lind — would be better served by staying on the taxi squad, rather than being assigned to the AHL. The thinking goes that such young, promising, and unpolished products would benefit more from a truncated season of travelling and practicing with the NHL squad, and its coaching staff, than they would from game action in a downgraded AHL. And to that, we’ve got no choice but to quote the great Allen Iverson.