Canucks Offseason Preview.

 Offseason plans blog post PT 1 (Canucks)

So today we have the eliminated Canucks who were the 1st team eliminated from playoff contention who has a nightmarish season, they are 1st in my offseason preview series, as I will breakdown why the Canucks missed the playoffs and what I personally think they could do in the offseason to improve their team to try and make it better for next year.

1st up the Canucks stats for the 25-26 season

21-42-8 50 points with 11 games left

177 31st GF 

264 32nd GA

PP% 19.2 20th

PK% 71.2 32nd 

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Goal scoring leaders

Sherwood* 17

Boeser 17

O’Connor 17

EP40/DeBrusk 15

Points leaders

EP40 43

Hronek 41

Boeser 37

 * means no longer with team

So when looking at the Canucks stats for the 25-26 season you can definitely see why this team did so poorly, as defensively especially this team was terrible as they are dead last in goals against having given up 264 and they are also the worst penalty kill team in the NHL so the defensive stats are terrible and offensively it isn’t much better as they have the 31st ranked offense and while the power play is more respectable at almost 20% and only 20th in the league, it needs improving too and heading over to the goal and point scoring leaders this team has no 20 goal scorers or 50+ point players on there team which is absurd as you usually see 1 or 2 players hit those marks even on bad teams, so all in all this team is terrible, so terrible that Sherwood who has been traded 2 MONTHS ago is tied for the team lead in scoring, so yeah this team was bad. 

3 Reasons I believe they missed

1.) Horrendous Defense + Demko injury: I feel that the poor defensive play plus Demko injury did them in this year, I mean when Demko is healthy he is a top 10 or 15 goalie in the NHL but when he gets injured you have a Lankinen-Tolopilo tandem which won’t win you many game and given the defensive stats, I think it is safe to say that was the big reason they did so bad. 

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2.) The Hughes trade: now the 2nd reason I feel they didn’t do well was the fact they dealt Hughes to Minnesota, now Hughes is a Norris caliber defender and one of the best in the World, a guy who holds a couple of Canucks records but with Hughes informing the Canucks he wasn’t going to play there long term a deal had to happen so they didn’t wait until they had no leverage and while I think they got a pretty good haul in return, that was a huge blow to their defensive performance and a huge reason as to why their defence was so poor. 

3.) Terrible scoring: now the 3rd reason I think the Canucks were eliminated this year so early is because the Canucks could not find the back of the net to save their life this year, they at this point have no 20 goal scorer which tells you how bad that offense has been, you usually need a few 20 goal scorers if you are going to be good and you need at least some decent offense from all of the players and that didn’t happen for the Canucks this year as that is another reason why they missed.

Projected cap hit: $80.76 

Projected cap space: $23.24

Significant Pending UFA’s

E.Kane 12-17-29 in 66GP

T.Blueger 6-5-11 in 22GP

C.Douglas 0-2-2 in 33GP

D.Forbort 0-0-0 in 2GP

G.Brisebois 0-1-1 in 2GP (AHL)

J.Patera 9-13-3 .904 SV% 2.76 GAA (AHL)

Significant Pending RFA’s

N.Aman 5-28-33 in 50GP (AHL)

C.Stillman 3-3-6 in 22GP (AHL)

D.Klimovich 13-14-27 in 55GP (AHL)

P.O Joseph 1-4-5 in 24GP

J.Thompson 3-9-12 in 42GP (AHL)

Now when it comes to their UFA’s and RFA’s they don’t have a ton, I think the Canucks will walk away from most of their UFA’s, especially Kane, but I wouldn’t be shocked if maybe Douglas or Patera were back on short term deals to help out the Canucks going forward and there has been a ton of speculation that the Canucks and Blueger would be open to a extension and maybe on a 2-3 year deal the Canucks might try and bring back Blueger, but I think they walk away from their other UFA’s meanwhile I think they keep most of their RFA’s, as I think they get short term cheap deals to stay but I also could see the Canucks not qualify POJ as I could see them walk away from him and turn him into a free agent but that’s what I believe the Canucks will do with their free agents.

Current draft capital for Vancouver in 2026: 10

1RD: VAN, MIN

2RD: VAN, SJ

3RD: CBJ

4RD: VAN

5RD: VAN 

6RD: VAN, WAS, BOS

7RD:

Just real quick here the Canucks have a pretty decent amount of draft Capital entering the offseason and may acquire more by the draft, having 2 1RD picks as a rebuilding team is crazy and 5 picks in the 1st 3 rounds isn’t too shabby, so I feel like they have a decent amount of capital to work with and may even get pick #1 in the draft, so lots to be excited about when it comes to the Canucks draft capital 

Lastly I look at 3 things I think they should look at in the offseason to improve 

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1.) Figure out which vets to move (EP40, Boeser, DeBrusk, O’Connor, etc): now we look at 3 ways I feel the Canucks could improve in the offseason to become a bit more competitive next year, so the first thing I believe the Canucks should do is move off some vets, started doing that at the deadline by dealing Myers, Garland, Kampf and more and that was a good start, but I expect them to keep on doing that in the offseason, Elias Pettersson and DeBrusk were both mentioned heavily at the deadline as potentially getting moved but never did, so they get dealt in the offseason, what about older players entering the final year of their deals like O’Connor and Chytil, would they consider moving them, what about guys who recently signed extension like Marcus Pettersson or Boeser, would they be open to a fresh start. I am not sure exactly who they wind up dealing but I could see 3-4 of the guys I mentioned above get dealt by the Deadline, so I would say a top priority for the Canucks is dealing some vets.

2.) Decide on their goalie tandem going forward: now another thing I believe the Canucks have to figure out this offseason is the goalie tandem going forward, now Lankinen is still under contract for I think another 4 years with a $5.4 Million AAV and then Demko will have his 3x$8.5 extension kick in July so the Canucks are about to be paying their goalie tandem almost $14 Million which  is something I believe they don’t want to do and on top of that if they want to be bad again next year, moving Demko would be smart as he is a goalie who can win you game, so they could also look to move Demko from a practical point of view and with a rather weak goalie market they could get a rather nice return for one of their goalies, so wether they keep this tandem going forward or deceide to move one, I believe that figuring out the goalie tandem for next year has to be priority number 2. 

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3.) Add 1-2 veteran blueliners: now another thing I really believe the Canucks should try and do in the offseason is add some more veteran defenders to the team. Now they moved Myers at the deadline and Forbort who is a UFA is unlikely to come back, so with all of those subtractions that only leaves Hronek and Marcus Pettersson as the only real veteran defenders on the team and like I mentioned above the Canucks may look to deal Pettersson in the offseason so the need for veteran defenders is pretty high, so I don’t if they would go after some high profiled vets maybe on the trade market like Fowler or Gavrikov or maybe some lower ranked 3rd pair free agents such as Peeke or Klingberg (which I think is the more likely scenario), but I think adding 1-2 veteran blueliners to what is a rather inexperienced team such as the Canucks have wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Canucks in the long run, especially if they can flip those players in the next year or two.

So those are my thoughts on the Canucks, and what I think they should do in the offseason, and I don’t expect the Canucks even if they have a great offseason this year to be a playoff team next year and I do expect them to miss again, but I would love to hear your thoughts below, are you surprised how bad the Canucks were this year, do you think they keep all their Free Agents and could they add more draft capital by the draft and what do you guys think they could do in the offseason to improve for next year, love to hear your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel as well.