The Canucks have Quinn Hughes.
They have a core that includes a former 100 point player in Elias Pettersson, a former 40 goal scorer in Brock Boeser, and a Vezina runner-up in Thatcher Demko.
They have supporting pieces like Conor Garland, Jake DeBrusk, Nils Höglander, Filip Hronek, Filip Chytil, and Kiefer Sherwood, who can all get you 40-50 points.
They are one of the youngest rosters in the league, with new guys making their mark on the team like Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Tom Willander, and Elias Pettersson (the defenseman).
Just two seasons ago, the Canucks had a successful season where they won the Pacific Division and took the Edmonton Oilers to game 7 of the 2nd round, where they were unfortunately missing Brock Boeser and Thatcher Demko and lost by 1.
After the locker room fell apart last season, changes were made, and the team came into the season saying “the vibes are high.”
That’s the good news.
In the early goings of this season, the Canucks have already had a rollercoaster.
They started out 4-2, but lost 3 separate players due to injury in a game against the Capitals. That’s when the slide started, and it seemed they were losing a player to injury in every single game. Quinn Hughes missed a couple games. Brock Boeser was away from the team. Filip Chytil, who has a very detailed concussion history, left a game clutching his head. Forbort’s out. Lekkerimäki’s out. Höglander hasn’t played a game this season. And now Thatcher Demko’s out of the lineup for 2-3 weeks with a groin injury. It really just gets you thinking “who’s gonna get injured tonight?”
The Canucks alternated wins and losses for NINE games in a row, making absolutely no progress in the standings in the meantime. They truthfully haven’t played too bad in some of the losses (particularly against Montreal, Chicago, Colorado, and Winnipeg), but at some point you need to translate good efforts into a winning streak. They are not doing that.
Elias Pettersson has struggled to put up points so far. While it’s certainly been better than it was during the stretch in early 2025, and he’s leading all forwards in blocked shots, you still need to get points from the guy you’re paying $11.6 million. Especially with how thin the offensive depth is. He’s just not doing that.
Oh yeah, and Quinn Hughes, the franchise player, might just be leaving in 2 seasons to go play with his brothers in New Jersey. Honestly, sometimes it looks like he’s already daydreaming about it.
So that’s the bad news.
The Canucks look like a team that’s a little bit lost right now. They’re in no man’s land standings-wise. Their record of 8-9-1 has them at a .472 points percentage, which puts them at 28th place in the league standings. That’s McKenna zone.
Albeit, there’s a log jam in the standings right now. The team in 5th place has just 5 more points than the Canucks so far. They’re 2 points behind in the wild card race (though their 18 games played are more than a lot of the teams ahead of them). It’s still a salvageable year if they can translate the good performances into wins.
The question is: is it even worth it?
Say the Canucks do eventually start to get more wins trickling in. Say some of the more unsustainable teams ahead of them (Seattle, Chicago, San Jose) predictably fall off. Say the Canucks happen to get themselves back to the playoffs.
Then what?
To get through the West, they would have to go through teams like Edmonton, Vegas, Dallas, and Colorado. Teams that have years of playoff experience. Teams that have experience making runs to the Stanley Cup Finals, even if some of them can’t get the job done (yes that’s a shot at Edmonton). Do the Canucks really have what it takes to get through a couple of those teams on their way to the finals? I try to be positive when it comes to the Canucks, but I struggle to think of a universe where the experience and talent that those other teams possess doesn’t simply overpower the Canucks in a 7 game series.
Even if you get past them, you get Florida. Who, at full strength, are not just going to hand over the Cup.
The Canucks are missing pieces that could make them a true contender. I think the J.T. Miller trade was necessary. It seemed like he needed a change of scenery for his own mental health, and the locker room clearly wasn’t working out in Vancouver. I believe the media blew it more out of proportion than it needed to be, but it still seemed like a necessary trade. I just wish it weren’t.
J.T. Miller took up $8 million of the cap hit. He scored 103 points in his last full season as a Canuck. Now, Evander Kane takes up $5.125 million of the cap hit. He is bad at hockey.
It’s a little bit sad to say, because they did look like a good team while healthy, but it already seems like turning this ship around is improbable. The only guys playing up to their potential right now are Kiefer Sherwood and Conor Garland. Also somehow Drew O’Connor recently. But even the Drew O’Connor legacy run is not enough to save this team.
Hughes hasn’t been nearly as good this season as he was in his past 3. Pettersson is not quite getting the “revenge” he was seeking in the offseason. Boeser’s fine, but has only been a game-changer in a couple of games so far. DeBrusk is snakebitten. Demko is injured yet again.
Nothing’s clicking.
Which is where the idea of a rebuild seems really juicy.
Quinn Hughes has another season after this one left on his contract. Then, he’s a UFA. He has given absolutely no indication that he is going to stay with the team past his contract expiration. He did say that if this season is fun, it could change things for him. I can’t imagine this season has been very fun for him so far.
Jim Rutherford, the President of Hockey Operations for the Canucks, has even admitted that Quinn wants to play with his brothers one day. In this past offseason, he voluntarily floated around the idea of a trade at some point. The value you could get for Quinn Hughes would be eye-popping, even with the lack of leverage the Canucks would hold in negotiations. A full year of Quinn Hughes would be enough for any contending-hopeful to give up some significant pieces in the summer.
The idea of a rebuild is certainly quite intriguing. Look at San Jose, Chicago, and Anaheim. All three of those teams absolutely tore it down for a couple of seasons and were rewarded with high draft selections who are already making their presences extremely felt through the league. Macklin Celebrini, Connor Bedard, and Leo Carlsson are each in the top 4 for points in the NHL so far this season, trailing just Nathan MacKinnon (unethical stat-padder). None of those 3 can even drink a beer in their team’s city yet.
These players also have other young talent surrounding them from the rebuilds, whether by draft or trade. San Jose has Will Smith (hockey). Chicago has Frank Nazar. Anaheim has Cutter Gauthier. These guys are fantastic pieces beside their team’s franchise player, and have all found great success so far. The young guys are carrying their teams into relevance. These 3 teams will be running the Western Conference in a couple years.
The draft has been nice to them. The players drafted high have all lived up to the hype. This year, there’s similarly a big fish: Gavin McKenna.
McKenna put up 129 points in 56 games last season for the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers, plus 38 points in 16 playoff games to help deliver the team a trip to the Memorial Cup Finals. So far this season at Penn State, McKenna has 14 points in 12 games (it’s a lower scoring league).
There’s really no team in the NHL that went into this season planning to tank. Pittsburgh, San Jose, and Chicago, all of whom were expected to be in the McKenna mix, have exceeded expectations so far. Calgary is currently at the bottom of the league, and after a 96 point season that saw them just miss the playoffs, they’re probably still hoping that the magic can return. St. Louis is down there too right now, but they’re no stranger to second half turnarounds. The McKenna race is wide open.
Getting a guy like McKenna could completely turn around whatever franchise wins the lottery. He could end up on that same level that previous first round picks Bedard and Celebrini are on. Look at Schaefer on Long Island, too. 18 years old and already making a case for himself in the Norris race. The impact 1st overall picks can have on your franchise cannot be understated.
The Canucks would know nothing about that. Entering their 55th season in the NHL, the franchise has never once picked 1st overall in the draft. They’ve held the 1st overall pick once before, acquiring it via trade, but flipped it for the opportunity to select Henrik and Daniel Sedin back-to-back at 2nd and 3rd overall. Probably wound up being worth it.
Why can’t this be the year that they finally use up all the luck they’ve been saving in draft lotteries?
I would love to make the playoffs this season. I still see a way for them to do it. But again, it’s hard to imagine a world where they go far unless they make an Earth-shattering trade for a top line forward. The package we’d give up for that may just further put the franchise into a hole in the future, though.
There’s no question on what the Canucks’ aim is for this season: playoffs. On Saturday’s edition of After Hours on Sportsnet, Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin joined Scott Oake, who absolutely grilled him (thank you, Scott). Allvin rejected the idea of a rebuild coming into effect currently, stating that it’s hard to give up on winning when you have the talent that Hughes, Pettersson, Demko, Boeser, and the supporting cast can bring. I agree. It’s really hard to give up while Quinn Hughes is still a player on the team. Who knows how much longer we’ll be able to say that. May as well make it count now.
But there’s always the universe where this season doesn’t go well and they end up in the bottom 11 with a chance to win 1st overall. So this is what I want to see from the Canucks going forward this season:
I want them to make the playoffs. Once you’re in the playoffs, anything can happen. Sure, they may just get rolled over by one of the powerhouses in the conference, but they may also pull a rabbit out of the hat. We’ve seen plenty of Cinderella finals runs in sports recently. While it seems like all of those have resulted in a finals loss, they’ve still made it far. The Canucks have players who are built for the playoffs. A healthy Thatcher Demko can be an absolute menace. Kiefer Sherwood can bruise the other team with his relentless hitting. Evander Kane was a significant contributor for Edmonton in their recent run, even after missing the entire regular season. Brock Boeser has the clutch factor in him, which we saw in 2023-24. It’s still worth trying to turn this season around. They’ve been playing well recently, and were winning games before the injury bug hit. More players are coming back to the team now. That could turn into more wins.
However, if they do continue to lose and magically wind up winning the draft lottery, I think you tear it down right there. Give Quinn a chance to sign a contract in July, and if he doesn’t, get a crazy package for him. Don’t bring back Kane. Start the rebuild right there and then. Gavin McKenna is your new franchise player. His window is now your window.
And if they end up with the 15th overall pick again, missing the playoffs and getting that mid-round pick, then I guess they’re just screwed. That’s probably the most realistic option, too.
So I agree with the decision to not start a rebuild right this second. It’s early in the season and there’s a lot of time to turn it around. If we get last season’s first half Quinn Hughes, the wins will come in bunches. But the second you’re either confident Quinn is leaving, or you get a new, younger franchise player, rebuild immediately. Commit to it. Tank for a couple years. No more retooling. No more half measures.
