Vancouver Canucks defence: How bad is it? A lot better than before

The Vancouver Canucks improved their defence and now have one of their best defence groups in years. So next up in my “How bad is it?” series, let’s take a look at the defence.

For those that are new to this series, allow me to explain the premise. If you are already familiar with it, feel free to skip to the next slide. If you are in fact reading this series for the first time, this is a series where I, someone who is generally an optimistic realist, analyzes different parts of the Vancouver Canucks trying to see if they’ve got what it takes to make the playoffs.

For years we have heard about how bad this team is, and rightfully so, no one is denying that the last few seasons have been hard to get through, as the Canucks tried to retool on the fly, failed, then decided to commit to the rebuild, then got their pieces at the draft, and now here we are.

The inspiration for the series came from a conversation with a fellow Canucks fan, who believed that the team was still two to three years away from making the playoffs, despite the Canucks’ moves this offseason. So far, I have looked at the goaltending situation and the secondary scoring. In both of those articles, I explain why it’s not as bad as everyone seems to think.

Admittedly, the Canucks goaltending was exceptional last season, and if it’s sustained heading into next season, which I and many others believe it will, then the Canucks won’t have any problems there.

The secondary scoring, on the other hand, played a key role in the Canucks falling off a bit in the second half. The stars got tired and had little to no support in the scoring department.

That was addressed, and I believe that secondary scoring will all of a sudden be one of this team’s strengths. Now let’s get into another part of the team that desperately needed a remodelling after last season, the defence.