Canucks unsurprisingly looking poor in early-season power rankings

This season hasn't exactly started out as planned for the Vancouver Canucks. They went winless in their first three games, before finally picking up a valuable two points via overtime versus the Florida Panthers.

Giving the success the Canucks enjoyed last season in securing the third-most points in team history, expectations were understandably heightened ahead of the 2024-25 campaign. Although for what it's worth, it should be noted their four points through four games is exactly the same number as at this stage last season.

Irrespective, the early-season inconsistency has been reflected in the NHL power rankings of the various sports media outlets around the NHL. It's fair to characterise the majority of outcomes as not particularly favourable to the Canucks, and rightly so.

A couple of sensible rankings

Beginning with Bleacher Report, and keeping in mind this was published prior to the win over the Panthers, they have the Canucks ranked at 24. This is in stark contrast to thei final preseason ranking of sixth.

Next we turn to ESPN, who have been slightly more generous in putting the Canucks in 19th place, again prior to the victory against the Panthers. It should be noted though that ESPN were not quite as high on the team as Bleacher Report was during preseason, in ranking them 10th. (Not that this was a bad ranking in and of itself.)

A bit of a surprise

Looking at the power rankings for CBS Sports, it isn't entirely clear what the context is. What we mean by this, is that the article was apparently posted on Oct. 16, but they have the Canucks' record as being 1-1-2. (The Panthers game wasn't played until Oct. 17.)

Irrespective of this, we are still surprised to see the Canucks ranked all the way up in 11th place. This is not a deserving ranking for the team based on their performances thus far, combined with ranking tied-21st in points win percentage as of Saturday morning.

That's more like it

Finally, some common sense returns to the matter, when we take a look at NHL.com's power rankings, albeit we don't know where exactly they rate the Canucks. That's because it's just a Super 16 power ranking, but the point is that the Canucks are not included on this particular list, and rightly so.

Of interest however, four of NHl.com's 15 voters did include the Canucks in their respective rankings. Amalie Benjamin placed them 10th, Jean-Francois Chaumont had them 12th, Bill Price at 14th and Shawn P. Roarke at 13th.

Overall, as previously stated, we appreciate that power rankings are subjective by nature and on many levels naturally set up to encourage debate (and sometimes heated exchanges). Regardless, we believe the majority of the various media outlets have accurately reflected the Canucks' start to the 2024-25 campaign, with the exception of CBS Sports.

Now of course, Canucks fans everywhere will be hoping CBS Sports' optimistic ranking serves as a prediction of sorts for what's to come in Vancouver. In this respect, it is early days, and there's little to indicate the Canucks don't have the talent to begin winning more consistently as we progress through the regular season.

Recent Posts