Canucks: Four questions heading into upcoming season
The Vancouver Canucks are looking to bounce back after a woeful 2020-21 season which saw them finish last in the Scotia North Division.
General manager Jim Benning is returning for his eighth year at the helm and head coach Travis Green was signed to a two-year contract extension.
Benning proclaimed that they would be aggressive in the offseason and they were.
The Canucks offseason saw them trading for Jason Dickinson, making a blockbuster trade on draft day for Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland, and signing a bunch of free agents including Tucker Poolman, Jaroslav Halak and Phil Di Giuseppe.
With the upcoming season upon us, here are a few questions heading into it.
Will the forward core be as good as advertised?
It’s safe to say that the Canucks forward group is better than last year’s.
Dickinson is a proven third line centre and Garland can help provide goals in the top six.
Brock Boeser led the Canucks last season in goals and points and hopefully he stays healthy once again and builds on last season. His shot has looked like the shot we saw in his rookie season and he has evolved his game into being much more than a goal scorer. For instance, he was 15th in the NHL for puck battle wins among forwards.
Elias Pettersson (assuming he is signed before the season starts) will look to bounce back from his injury riddled season. J.T. Miller, despite being second in points last season, wasn’t very good defensively and had a frustrating year which saw him drop F-bombs, and slam his stick many times. With a healthy Pettersson and a better top six, surely Miller will be back to his 2019-20 form.
Tanner Pearson will look to prove that his three-year contract was a good investment. He can still score goals but those can disappear.
Nils Höglander will also look to impress in his sophomore season. Can he avoid the sophomore slump? It seems likely he will if playing with Horvat and Garland.
The fourth line isn’t overpaid this time and so is Brandon Sutter who re-signed on a cheap one year contract. He has plenty of options for wingers. Tyler Motte is a lock to be one but Benning told The Athletic that Motte won’t be ready for training camp.
Players like Matthew Highmore, Zack MacEwen, Di Giuseppe and Justin Bailey are going to battle for that fourth line spot at camp.
The forward core, especially the top nine are the best group the Canucks had in years and they look good on paper. However, how will the lines look like and can the new acquisitions find chemistry with the rest of the team?
The power play could also find it’s spark with the new acquisitions and will have a better second unit.
Wait, I forgot to mention somebody above. Who is it?
How good will Vasily Podkolzin be?
Oh yeah, that’s right, Vasily Podkolzin!
The Canucks will finally have their 2019 first round pick on the team and he looks ready for the NHL.
He is likely to start on the third line because Green likes to make rookies earn their minutes. Given Podkolzin’s skill set, it’s very likely we will see him in the top six at some point in the season.
Podkolzin and his two-way game are built for the NHL and he has the potential to be a very good top six forward.
There are big expectations for the 20-year-old but don’t expect him to come flying out of the gate the way Pettersson and Boeser did.
He’s going to need some time to adjust to the North American game and living in Vancouver. (He is learning English and he and his wife will continue to do so with a tutor.)
Expect Podkolzin to be that two-way force this season and like any young player coming into the league he will go through some growing pains but will he overcome them? Of course, he can.
How will the defence fair?
While the forward core has shown some improvement, the defence doesn’t look too good on paper.
There are bunch of questions we can ask about the defence.
The biggest is whether Ekman-Larsson could bounce back after a rough final years in Arizona. He is still a capable player offensively but it’s his defensive play that makes Canucks fans shudder.
The still unsigned Quinn Hughes did not have a very good year defensively last year but did provide good offensive numbers. There is the question of whether he can clean up his defensive game this season. Travis Hamonic is likely going to be his partner to start the season and he didn’t have the best year defensively either and will look to bounce back.
Poolman was signed to a questionable four-year contract. In Winnipeg, he struggled in a top four role (Playing with Josh Morrissey could have been a factor and the Jets back end wasn’t very good last season, either.) and is nothing more than a bottom pairing defenceman. Can he prove the doubters wrong in Vancouver?
Tyler Myers led all Canucks defencemen in ice time and goals last season but was poor defensively last season.
Jack Rathbone is likely to start the season on the left side for the bottom pair but Olli Juolevi and Brad Hunt give him some competition and we could see them slot in the line up next season. Luke Schenn is also expected to slot in on the right side when needed and he is a reliable seventh defencemen.
Analytics guru JFresh took the Canucks defence in his WAR roster builder and it has them ranked 32nd in the NHL.
Of course, analytics don’t tell the whole story and we haven’t seen them play together yet so take this with a grain of salt.
New assistant Brad Shaw specializes in defence. No, he won’t magically turn them into great defenders but t will be interesting to see how he handles the Canucks back end.
The Canucks defence doesn’t look that great as of now but we will see how well they play together on the ice.
How will Thatcher Demko handle the starting role in a full 82 game season?
Thatcher Demko became the Canucks No.1 last season. He posted a 16-18-1 record with a 2.85 goals-against average, a .915 save percentage and one shutout in 35 games. He had a slow start but got going in March before the team was hit with a COVID-19 outbreak.
With a full 82 game season, it will be a big test for Demko to see how well he can handle the starting role.
“I feel like there’s a ton more room for me to grow,” Demko told Sportsnet’s Iain Macintyre. “I think I can get a little bit better, a little more consistent start to finish. That just comes with experience. This year, I just want to take another step as far as maybe my presence in the locker room and becoming a little bit more of a leader maybe and just solidifying my role on the team and making sure I’m there every single night.”
Starters in the NHL tend to start at least 55 games per season and it will be interesting to see how Demko does with that many starts.
What other questions do you have heading into the Canucks season? Let us know in the comments below!