2023-24 NHL team preview: Vancouver Canucks

Credit: Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes (© Dennis Schneidler-USA TODAY Sports)

LAST SEASON

Even by Canadian team standards, the Vancouver Canucks delivered an absolute circus of drama last season. They opened their schedule with seven consecutive losses, prompting their own captain Bo Horvat to lament, “it feels like we’re never going to win again.” They healthy-scratched Brock Boeser on Hockey Fights Cancer night, a mere seven months after his father had died of cancer. Team president Jim Rutherford stated publicly that he was searching for coach Bruce Boudreau’s replacement – then kept him on until the Canucks settled on Rick Tocchet. Tanner Pearson’s hand injury was supposed to have a standard recovery timeline, then stretched to half a dozen surgeries and became season ending, prompting star blueliner Quinn Hughes to claim the injury “wasn’t handled right.” It was one embarrassment after another for the franchise.

With the Canucks unable to keep their head above water in the Western Conference, enduring major injuries to star goaltender Thatcher Demko and free agent addition Ilya Mikheyev, they waved the white flag and traded Horvat to the New York Islanders before the deadline. Rather than commit to a full seller’s posture, however, they used the first-round pick acquired from that trade and flipped it to the Detroit Red Wings for defenseman Filip Hronek.

The Canucks played better hockey after Tocchet took over. They saw top center Elias Pettersson break through to superstardom. They sold off one foundational piece in Horvat but retained the others, from Boeser to J.T. Miller to Demko, despite rumors that all three were in play for trades. They enter 2023-24 as one of the league’s toughest teams to forecast. They boast plenty of elite talent at the top of their lineup and, for a second consecutive season, built late momentum under a new bench boss when the games no longer mattered. Can Vancouver start a season on time for a change and claw back up the Pacific Division ladder?

KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES

Additions

Carson Soucy, D
Pius Suter, C
Teddy Blueger, C
Ian Cole, D
Matt Irwin, D
Jack Studnicka, C
Casey DeSmith, G
Zachary Sawchenko, G

Departures

Oliver Ekman-Larsson, D (Fla)
Ethan Bear, D (UFA)
Collin Delia, G (Wpg)
Brady Keeper, D (Mtl)
Justin Dowling, C (NJ)
Travis Dermott, D (Ari)
Vitali Kravtsov, RW (KHL)

OFFENSE

The Canucks feel like a potent offensive club, don’t they? They boast some of the most talented hockey players in the world. It always felt like just a matter of time before Pettersson parlayed his tremendous skill and shooting ability into a monster campaign, and it happened last season when he exploded for 39 goals and 102 points. Tocchet increased Pettersson’s average ice time from 19:54 to 21:21, and Pettersson went off for 20 goals and 48 points in 36 games under his new coach. He has arrived as a true superstar. He’s not alone among the Canucks in that regard, however. While Erik Karlsson got the 100-point season and this era belongs to Cale Makar and Adam Fox, Canucks blueliner and newly minted captain Hughes is a truly special offensive player in his own right. Last season, he became the first defenseman in 29 years to top 60 assists in consecutive seasons. He also became the fastest defenseman ever to 200 career assists. You read that correctly. Hughes did it faster than Bobby Orr, Paul Coffey, Brian Leetch, all of them.

With the mercurial Miller averaging a point per game for the third time in four seasons with Vancouver and new addition Andrei Kuzmenko scoring 39 goals on an incredible (and unsustainable) 27.3 percent of his shots, the Canucks had and continue to have scorers who bring fans to their feet. Yet they finished with the league’s No. 13 offense and No. 11 power play last year. They were merely above average – because they lacked scoring depth. Once Horvat was shipped out, they had three players left who even reached the 20-goal mark. They scored because they had the talent to finish chances, as their seventh-ranked team shooting percentage at 5-on-5 told us, but they struggled to put themselves in scoring positions enough. At 5-on-5, they ranked 26^th in shots per 60 and 25^th in scoring chances per 60.

So can we expect improvement on the offensive side of the puck this season? Good question. Most of the Canucks’ offseason additions were lunchpail-type players, signed to improve team defense – including the forwards they added, such as Pius Suter and Teddy Blueger, who will center their third and fourth lines. If Boeser, who is supposed to be one of the sport’s best pure shooters, can up his shot output from last season’s career-low 2.41 per game, it would give the Canucks some much-needed secondary offense. If Mikheyev finds his legs relatively fast as he works his way back from a torn ACL, that will help, too. On the whole, though: the Canucks look like the same middling offensive team we saw last year, dependent on a few big stars.

DEFENSE

The Canucks have been, ahem, an adventure defensively for most of the Pettersson/Hughes era. Over the three seasons preceding 2022-23, no team allowed more scoring chances per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. They left Demko to desperately try and keep them afloat. They remained below average defensively last season but not “worst in the league” bad, and they showed mild signs of improvement once Tocchet took over. They went from one of the worst teams at preventing high-danger scoring chances to one of the best.

This offseason, GM Patrik Allvin evidently committed to cleaning up Vancouver’s play in its own end. Blueger and Suter will help in checking-line roles. On the blueline, Ian Cole will bring Stanley Cup-winning experience, while Carson Soucy offers a big body and reliably vanilla defensive game.

Those additions significantly deepen a D-corps that asks Hughes to do a lot. His small stature and flashy puck-moving game belie the fact his defensive play has dramatically improved during his four seasons and change in the NHL. Paired with Soucy, Hughes will have the freedom to rush the puck while relying on a safe and sturdy presence to back him up. A full season of a healthy Hronek driving his own pair in the top four should make a meaningful impact, too – at both ends of the ice. His game is well-rounded.

While the Canucks appear stagnant on offense, they seem visibly improved defensively on paper. That will help them twofold, getting their scorers back on the attack quicker in transition and lightening their goaltenders’ workloads.

GOALTENDING

Miller screaming at third-string goaltender Collin Delia during a game summed up the disaster that was Vancouver’s net last season. The Canucks lost starter Demko for roughly three months after he suffered a lower-body injury in early December. The Canucks were already a bad defensive hockey club, and neither Spencer Martin nor Delia could weather the storm and post anything close to a .900 save percentage.

Demko was a totally different goaltender once he returned, however, going 11-4-1 with a .918 SV%. Under Tocchet’s defensive scheme, Demko’s difficulty of workload softened significantly, from a 2.95 expected goals against per 60 pre-injury/pre-Tocchet to a 2.60 xGA/60 post-injury/post Tocchet. Demko has the tools to be a Vezina-Trophy-caliber goaltender as soon as this season: a cool demeanor, a long, rangy build and excellent athleticism. If he can stay healthy, he’s capable of singlehandedly winning a few extra games for Vancouver this season. Backing him up will be a quality NHLer in Casey DeSmith, who holds a .912 career SV% and has lots of experience relieving an injury-prone starter for extended stretches, having worked behind Tristan Jarry with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Canucks had the second-lowest team save percentage in the NHL last season. Their outlook between the pipes is night-and-day better heading into 2023-24.

COACHING

Tocchet spent two seasons carrying the “best coach not currently working” label, popping up on national TV broadcasts, before the Canucks snapped him up. He led them to a 20-12-4 record after taking over – 14^th best in the league over that span. Pettersson and Miller became the league’s deadliest shorthanded scoring threats under his tutelage, albeit he has pledged to use his stars less in those roles going forward. He’s a players’ coach who, like Rod Brind’Amour in Carolina, commands respect given his long and successful playing career. Tocchet never had much success as a head coach with the Arizona Coyotes or the Tampa Bay Lightning before that, but he had little to work with on those teams. He won a pair of Stanley Cups as an assistant under Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh.

ROOKIES

Many of the Canucks’ most promising young players have already graduated to the NHL level, and some of their best prospects aren’t ready yet. Defenseman Tom Willander will play in the NCAA this season, and right winger Jonathan Lekkerimaki is playing in Sweden. A few of the Canucks’ B-level prospects should surface at some point this season, however. Aatu Raty, acquired in the Horvat trade, saw 15 games of NHL action last season and will try to force his way into the lineup. If he doesn’t make the opening-night roster, he’ll likely be one of the first AHL callups. Goaltender Arturs Silovs showed promise at the NHL level late last season and went bananas at the World Championship with Team Latvia, taking home tournament MVP honors in May. He will fill in if anything happens to Demko or DeSmith, but he’s waivers-exempt and blocked by DeSmith, meaning Silovs will marinate in the AHL for now.

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. When does Elias Pettersson sign – and for how much? In an offseason interview, Pettersson, a 2024 RFA, indicated he’s in no rush to ink his extension because he doesn’t know if it will be a long- or short-term deal. Whatever it is, it will constitute a monstrous raise over his current $7.35 million AAV. As a possible comparable, Sebastian Aho’s extension with the Carolina Hurricanes carries a $9.75 million AAV, and Pettersson’s 2022-23 numbers smashed anything Aho has accomplished to date. What happens if Pettersson matches or exceeds last year’s performance?

2. Is Quinn Hughes ready for an NHL captaincy? Hughes was named the 15^th captain in franchise history earlier this month. His all-around play and competitiveness suit him to the role, but he’s not known as a booming voice and he’s still just 23 years old. Can he rally a room that includes a temperamental presence like Miller’s?

3. What happens to the retool plan if the Canucks stink again? Vancouver believes it can ice a competitive club in the perpetually wide-open Pacific Division. Fine, have at it. But if the Canucks stumble toward an eighth playoff miss in nine years, how many heads roll this time? Will any veteran aside from Pettersson and Hughes be safe come the trade deadline?

PREDICTION

Maybe the Canucks would’ve been better off embracing a proper rebuild last year. But what’s done is done. If we accept that this team fashions itself a contender: can it rebound in a full season under Tocchet? The Canucks do look like a team that will allow significantly fewer goals thanks to their improvements on defense and in goal. Can that buy them the extra five or six wins they’ll require to squeeze into a Western Conference Wildcard spot?

It will be close. And I don’t say that to cop out. The prediction here is: Vancouver Canucks, bubble team, point total in the low 90s, grinding toward a low playoff seed in the final week of the season. At that point: flip a coin between them and the Flames.

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