Canucks are likely to finish with six 20-goal scorers

The Vancouver Canucks have been an offensive juggernaut this year, and they figure to conclude the season with at least 20-goal scorers.

It’s been a long time since the Vancouver Canucks were blessed with balanced scoring throughout the entire lineup.

Throughout most of the 2010s decade — beginning in 2012-13 —  Vancouver leaned way too much on its top line to do the bulk of the scoring. They had the Sedin twins, Alexandre Burrows and Bo Horvat to guide the offence, but there wasn’t any depth whatsoever.

Rookie Brock Boeser came along in 2017-18 and formed tremendous chemistry with Horvat. One year later, Elias Pettersson burst onto the scene and emerged as Vancouver’s top scorer, winning the Calder Trophy after posting 66 points.

But outside of Pettersson, Boeser and Horvat last season, Vancouver simply didn’t have enough scoring from the bottom-nine. Antoine Roussel was the team’s fourth-highest scoring forward season with 31 points.

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2019-20 has been a completely different story, however. For the first time since their 2011-12 Presidents’ Trophy-winning season, Vancouver has been loaded with capable scorers up and down the lineup.

Unsurprisingly, Pettersson has already hit the 20 goal mark (he has 21 through 48 games), and the 21-year-old leads Vancouver with 50 points.

Boeser, Horvat and newcomer J.T. Miller are all at 16 goals now, and they’ll all join the 20-goal club with Pettersson in short time. That will bring Vancouver up to four 20-goal scorers for the season. But it shouldn’t end there.

23-year-old Jake Virtanen is finally enjoying a breakout season, six years after Vancouver drafted him sixth overall. Virtanen has 14 goals on the season, and he’s already set a career-high in points with 26. He only needs six more through the final 34 games to reach the 20-goal mark. There’s no reason to think it won’t happen.

And finally, veteran Tanner Pearson looks poised to hit the 20-goal mark for only the second time in his career. He posted nine in 19 games with the Canucks last season after arriving in a trade deadline deal with the Pittsburgh Penguins. As it turns out, his hot finish last season wasn’t a mirage — but rather a sign of what was coming.

Pearson has 13 goals and 35 points for the Canucks this season. It’s worth noting that Pearson’s 10.9 shooting percentage is still below his career percentage of 11.5, so there’s little reason to expect regression.

The 27-year-old has always been a capable top-six forward, as we saw it during his tenure with the Los Angeles Kings. He just wasn’t a fit in Pittsburgh, and we’re seeing the real Pearson shine through in Vancouver. Like Virtanen, Pearson has more than enough time to reach the 20-goal mark.

So when all is said and done, expect the Canucks to finish with a whopping total of six 20-goal scorers for 2019-20. And if they can continue to produce like this, Vancouver’s stacked group of forwards should be able to guide them into the postseason.