Canucks roundtable: Which player was the team MVP this season?
Jacob Calvert
The MVP this season in my opinion has to be Pettersson, which may shock some to hear seeing how good Markstrom truly was this year. Pettersson not only improved on virtually every stat from his Calder winning season but he also made his team around him significantly better.
Providing a whopping 57% high danger scoring chances for and excelling in all the advanced stats, Pettersson is not giving up soon and will remain the MVP for years to come. The Lotto line was considered at one point to be one of the best lines in hockey that operated at a CF% of 57 a FF% of 58, and an SF% of 57, that dropped down to 52, 51, and 46 respectively when Pettersson was not playing with them.
Quinn Hughes, who many see as a possible MVP Candidate had a CF% of 49 without Pettersson, which jumps to 58 with Pettersson on the ice. Pettersson played 68 of 69 games this season and while that’s not a very large sample size for games missed, the Canucks lost that game against the Minnesota Wild.
Not only would the Canucks be significantly less fun to watch without Pettersson on the team, but they would be in a very serious conversation for Alexis Lafreniere. Without Markstrom, the Canucks would barely hold water but ultimately not be as low in the standings as their young superstar center.
Joshua Rey
I firmly believe Markstrom is the rightful MVP for the Canucks. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pettersson but Markstrom takes the crown here. Without him, I’m not sure the Canucks would have been playing meaningful games in March, and boy its been a long time coming since that has happened.
Markstrom had eight stolen wins for the Canucks throughout the year. Some of his best outings came at home, including a 1-0 overtime thriller that resulted in a victory versus the Carolina Hurricanes, and a Sedin Night shutout win over the Chicago Blackhawks where he was peppered with 49 shots.
In games where the Canucks weren’t playing well, Markstrom was the best player on the ice for them and he bailed them out over and over again. At one point, the Canucks were something like 10-0 when they were heavily outshot and it was all thanks to Markstrom. He was a brick wall.
He covered up a lot of the Canucks’ problems and I think he should even be in the conversation for the Vezina Trophy. I don’t think he should win it but he has had a Vezina caliber season. Or should I say, “MVP”?
Before the team got together to write this article, The Canuck Way reached out to their followers on Twitter to get the word from the fans. According to the people, Markstrom gained 51% of the votes for a majority win. But still very interesting to see how deep the conversation really goes.
The writers at The Canuck Way will be weighing in on who they believe to be the Vancouver #Canucks MVP of the regular season. But for now, we want to know who the fans think should get the award!
— The Canuck Way (@FSTheCanuckWay) June 18, 2020
Final thoughts…
Canucks: 3 takeaways from Quinn Hughes' rookie year. dark. Next
It appears there are several opinions on the Canucks’ Most Valuable Player and that’s a great problem to have. Vancouver’s lineup hasn’t seen this much talent since the cup run of 2011, and that’s exciting to think about ahead of the play-in series. Who will step be the MVP then? That’s a debate for a whole nother time.