The Vancouver Canucks continue to find ways to win
With the Vancouver Canucks off to a tremendous start to the 2023-24 campaign, Daily Faceoff president and insider Frank Seravalli talked about how the Canucks continue to find ways to steal victories this season:
Tyler Yaremchuk: Five wins in a row for Elias Pettersson and the Vancouver Canucks. It’s a smiling Quinn Hughes in Vancouver, this team can really do no wrong. I love the tweet from Mike Kelly last night outlining their shooting percentages, and you can’t give this team an inch or they’ll take a mile. They scored on 31.3% of their shots last night for the second time this year they’ve been over 30%. As a believer in math, I think at some point this will dip down, but wins are wins whether they come in October or April. This team has put themselves in a fantastic spot.
Frank Seravalli: It’s unreal. You mention shooting and their shooting percentage. Last night, the Senators took a penalty and literally a few seconds into the powerplay the Canucks had the puck in the back of the net. That’s how quickly things are happening for the Canucks; is it always going to be that easy? No, but everyone is waiting for that regression and will see one in the shooting percentage but I don’t think we’re going to see it in the play of Pettersson or Hughes or Demko. We’re talking about guys who play at an elite level and can sustain it. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a Canucks fan, this is the dream start, the coming together of this core that fans always thought was possible. Now they’ve got this support around them in a defense core and how crucial that has been and attributed to their success. I mean it’s enormous what we’re seeing from the Canucks, it’s a breath of fresh air and a totally different feel around this Canucks team. They’re 10-2-1 and they’re looking at an additional two points all they need to do is play .500 hockey and that becomes pretty fun since the pressure is totally off.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, and the Canucks were one of the teams we identified that needed to come out hot this season. They needed to deflate that pressure because they couldn’t afford to sink themselves for 10 games. They’ve done the opposite of that and now the Canucks fans can maybe start to dream about how Allvin and Rutherford will add to this group. They have a first-round pick, they don’t have a lot of cap space but you look at the roster and tag Anthony Beauvillier and you can probably get almost anyone you want.
Frank Seravalli: They can dangle a Beauvillier and don’t have to trade a guy like Garland and they can begin to tinker. Not tinker in a big way but think about how the seismic move to get Filip Hronek last year and how that’s paid dividends in such a big way. They need to pay him, but they have to figure out the rest of their group and they’re in a great spot.
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