The Canuck Way Mailbag: Assistant captains, Holtby’s turtles, more

The dog days of the NHL’s offseason are upon us, but with that comes questions about the future of the Vancouver Canucks. Here’s the mailbag for this week.

This time last season, the Vancouver Canucks had already played 23 games and were holding a record of 11-8-4. Things are different this time as the NHL is currently in offseason mode. A hockey offseason with snow on the ground and Christmas right around the corner? Yeah, that’s 2020 for you, right there.

As disappointing as it is to not have hockey being played right now, it leaves an opportunity to talk Canucks, answer questions, and look ahead at what’s in store for the team next season. Will they be better? Will they take a step back? Who’s going to be the starting goaltender? Who’s going to lead the team in points?

These are all questions that any serious hockey fan loves to debate. The season can stop, be halted, postponed, whatever you want to call it, but that’ll never stop hockey fans from talking about their favourite teams. It’s a never-ending cycle and hockey fans wouldn’t have it any other way. With that being said, let’s take a look at what’s in store for questions this week.

There are several candidates that could fill the role of assistant captain to Bo Horvat next season. There are likely two routes Travis Green can decide to take this decision. Either he slaps it on the chest of a veteran player who he knows can handle it or he decides that one of his young stars is ready to take on more responsibility.

If Green decides to play it safe, his options in terms of veterans likely comes down to two players: J.T. Miller and Tyler Myers. Of the two, I think Miller’s performance last season was more than enough to grant him the role. He’d be an excellent stop-gap before an elite young-gun takes over.

The other option would be to consider picking between one of the team’s superstar trio. Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser and Quinn Hughes are all wickedly talented players who could easily become the next alternate captain of the Canucks. Pettersson is a franchise forward, Boeser is a bonafide sniper, and Hughes is a top-10 NHL defenceman.

If I had to make a prediction. I’d say Green decides to make Miller the captain. If I was in charge and making the decision, it would be Pettersson who got the nod as an alternate captain. In my opinion, if it wasn’t for Horvat already being captain, he could very well carry the torch.

The way I see it, the top four has more or less already been decided. The four players involved will most likely be Hughes, Alex Edler, Myers and Nate Schmidt, but the pairing of those guys is still uncertain. There are two very reasonable ways Green can go about this. Would he prefer to put the two most offensively dynamic players together or does he split up Hughes and Schmidt to make sure he’s got at least one steady puck-mover on the ice for 45 minutes a game?

Likely, Hughes pairs with Myers and Edler matches up with Schmidt. The combination of Hughes and Myers has proven to be an offensively reliable duo and putting Edler and Schmidt together sounds very intriguing as a two-way pairing who gets it done both in the offensive end and on the penalty kill.

As for the final pairing, it will come down to which rookie pairs up best with Jordie Benn. Yes, I expect Benn to be there opening night unless he has an absolutely atrocious camp. He’s a veteran player and I just can’t see Green doing it any other way. Not a chance he pairs two rookies together. Instead, I think Olli Juolevi has an impressive camp and he makes the final cut. He was Utica’s number one penalty killer last season and with Tanev gone, the Canucks need another capable PK defender.

That’s a tough question to answer, but if I had to make my best assumption it would probably have to be the challenge of living up to the team they were last season. Everything seemed to swing in their favour last year and after the offseason losses in free agency this fall, I’m just not sure if they can continue building off of who they were during the 2019-20 campaign.

It’s not impossible, but it’s going to be difficult. In just a few short days, the Canucks lost an MVP goaltender, a very good stay at home defenceman, a proven top-six goal-scorer, and some important depth pieces.

Yes, they acquired a Stanley Cup-winning goaltender in Braden Holtby and a number two blueliner in Nate Schmidt, but is that going to be enough? It won’t be unless Vancouver’s young guns can turn it up another couple of notches and completely dominate the rumoured All-Canadian division.