I’ve been holding off from posting, waiting for the Canucks to announce something substantial in the dizzying NHL free-agent market. But since it looks like the hockey club and its fans could be waiting a while longer, now seems like as good a time as any to start pounding away at the keyboard.

There is no doubt that Mike Gillis has put himself in a predicament with the 20-million eggs-in-one-basket offer for Mats Sundin. And since the entire hockey world knows that Sundin won’t be coming here, it’s time to move on.

But with who’s still available out there, it seems virtually impossible now to think the Canucks will be a better offensive hockey team than they have been for the past couple of seasons. Bringing back Markus Naslund and Brendan Morrison wouldn’t represent improvement for a hockey club that failed to make the playoffs last year.

I like the additions of Ryan Johnson and Darcy Hordichuk. Both are better than the players they will replace (Byron Ritchie and Jeff Cowan). Unfortunately, both Johnson and Hordichuk are role players – the type of guys good teams need to have. But the good teams also have top-end forwards and that’s what the Canucks are still desperately lacking.

Re-signing back-up goalie Curtis Sanford gives the team some continuity in net, but Sanford has a bunch to prove to himself, his teammates, the coaching staff, and the fans. He didn’t get a start after a January 29 disaster and hasn’t won a hockey game since December 12. Yikes.

I’d love to be able to get inside the heads of four people right about now: general manager Gillis, owner Francesco Aquilini who hired Gillis and handed him full control to make sweeping changes, head coach Alain Vigneault who hasn’t had much to work with in his first two years on the job and is now facing the prospect of being a coach/miracle worker.

But most of all, I’d love to know what’s rattling around inside the brain of Roberto Luongo, who’s watching all of this unravel from his home in south Florida. What must he be thinking?

The free-agent window hasn’t slammed shut just yet. But it’s closing quickly. And a team that won one of its last eight games last year to slide out of the playoff picture certainly isn’t any better today than it was three months ago.