Vancouver Canucks: Top 5 underrated players going into 2019-20

VANCOUVER, BC - OCTOBER 31: Brendan Gaunce #50 of the Vancouver Canucks is congratulated by teammates Tyler Motte #64 and Antoine Roussel #26 after scoring during their NHL game against the Chicago Blackhawks at Rogers Arena October 31, 2018 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images) /

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1. Troy Stecher

Coming in at number one is the man that hails from Richmond, B.C. Stecher has been underestimated from the minute he stepped into hockey. Being undersized at 5-foot-10, 186 pounds, he has had to fight for every inch of ice. He has overcome this supposed weakness by learning the art of body position.

If you watch Stecher on the boards, he rarely loses a battle for the puck. This is because he usually has body position on said player. He is also a great skater and an efficient two-way defenceman. If you look at the analytics, he was the top defenceman on the team in contributing shots from the blue line.

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He ended up being way ahead of the top pairing on the Canucks, Edler, and Tanev. He also placed second on the defence core with a 50.5 Corsi-For percentage.

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Only Biega had a better percentage with 51 (Quinn Hughes and Brogan Rafferty had 53.7 and 58.3 percentages respectively, but they did not play many games). His skills both offensively and defensively are not praised enough in my opinion, not to mention the warrior mentality he displays every time he steps onto the ice.

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