The Vancouver Canucks have only seen playoff action twice in the eight years.
The first was in 2014-15, which was the first year of Trevor Linden as President of Hockey Operations, Jim Benning as General Manager and Willie Desjardins as head coach. The Canucks overachieved that season and finished second in the Pacific Division with 101 points. Unfortunately, they lost six games in the first round to a younger and faster Calgary Flames team.
The Canucks would not see playoff action again until 2020 which was a very interesting year. Vancouver and 24 NHL teams took part in the “bubble playoffs” which started with the qualifying round. As we all know, the Canucks knocked off the Minnesota Wild in the qualifiers in five games, beat the St. Louis Blues in six and lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in seven games. That was the series which saw Thatcher Demko display unreal goaltending in the final three games.
Two years later, new management and a new head coach have come in.
My last article was on five questions for the Canucks heading into next season. There was one I missed and it was the biggest one. Will they make the playoffs next season? It’s a bit early but let’s go over to reasons why they will make it and why they will not and take a look at how they compare to the rest of the Pacific Division.