NHL
The Canucks have won both games they've played since Quinn Hughes was traded. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
NEW YORK — In the five days since the Vancouver Canucks traded Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild for a promising buffet of future assets, the Canucks have gone undefeated.
There’s a rich irony in that, of course. In the wake of a deal that appeared to signal a long overdue and sorely needed rebuilding phase for the franchise, one that the team’s president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford told Postmedia this week that Canucks ownership had the appetite for, it’s clear that Vancouver’s long-term interests will be best served by remaining in place at the bottom of the NHL standings.
Advertisement
That the club has picked this moment to heat up and get rolling is both hilarious and typical, in its own grim way.
On Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, the Canucks defeated J.T. Miller and the New York Rangers 3-0. The clean sheet that Vancouver kept was the club’s first shutout win of the campaign.
Keying the victory was goaltender Thatcher Demko, starting his third consecutive game for the first time all season, who was immense in net for the Canucks.
Since returning from an extended injury absence that caused him to miss a month, Demko has managed a sterling .938 save percentage in his three appearances. Tuesday’s game, played against the team coached by Team USA Olympic head coach Mike Sullivan, might’ve been especially critical for the Canucks starter — an opportunity to make a strong, in-person impression on Team USA leadership before the Olympic roster is selected later this month.
As good as Demko was, and he was genuinely exceptional on Tuesday, the club’s defensive effort was also notably sturdy. There was a moment in mid-November, when Vancouver’s defensive game was bleeding chances against at a league-worst clip at five-on-five, when its penalty kill had sagged to the bottom of the NHL and when the club was getting regularly bludgeoned in the run of play, during which it seemed as if Vancouver might trend toward being a historically permissive defensive team.
Over the past few weeks, however, the Canucks have found a far more robust defensive level. They’re limiting chances against impressively of late, even if that’s come at the expense of their offensive output. Their penalty kill has turned it around, and was critical to Tuesday’s victory, especially in an unevenly officiated first period, when Vancouver’s defenders regularly stymied Rangers backdoor pass attempts while down a man.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, the club’s new additions continued to make a difference with their speed and evident enthusiasm. Marco Rossi led all Canucks forwards in ice time, Zeev Buium played with confidence and swagger and logged top-pair minutes and winger Liam Öhgren scored an insurance marker in the second period on an against-the-grain rush chance, beating Rangers backup Jonathan Quick with a heavy wrist shot that trickled past the veteran netminder, off the goal post and into the net.
Between the promising play of Vancouver’s new additions, the return of Demko — both to the lineup and to form — and the positive trends in the club’s defensive game, it’s understandable that those long-suffering Canucks fans who’ve been praying for years to see the club finally prioritize the future and rebuild are growing a bit nervous.
Any such concerns are misplaced, however, for several reasons.
Here’s what you need to know to stop worrying about whether the club can tank properly and embrace some baseline enjoyment of Canucks wins across the balance of this season.
Lottery odds aside, it is, in fact, a good thing for any team to win some games and get some positive traction. Both in terms of scaling back up to a more competitive mode and in terms of the developmental environment for young players, you want to see an NHL team maintain a certain structural baseline, even if they’re undermanned from a talent perspective. You should be far more concerned if the Canucks were a virtually unprecedented defensive mess than if the club appears organized, solid and capable of hanging around in games regularly the way it has looked in wins against the Rangers and the New Jersey Devils.
While I’m of the opinion that dynamic Penn State winger Gavin McKenna is the key prize at the top of the 2026 draft order, and that by the time late June rolls around, he’ll restore his consensus perch as the first pick, it’s worth noting that this is a deep draft class rich in potentially elite talent. Corey Pronman’s recent ranking of this draft class, for example, dropped McKenna to the fourth slot, behind dynamo USHL centre Tynan Lawrence, big defenceman Keaton Verhoeff and historic SHL scoring winger Ivar Stenberg. Pronman ranks seven 2026 draft-eligible players as top-of-the-lineup calibre prospects, and I’ve heard positive impressions as well for several of the players that Pronman currently ranks in “Tier 3.”
Advertisement
Of course, the Canucks’ interests are best served by getting the top draft lottery odds and guaranteeing themselves at least a top-three pick, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that, but provided the club settles toward the bottom-five of the draft order, the Canucks will net themselves a spectacular, young building block at the 2026 NHL Draft.
With seven wins in their last 10 games, the Nashville Predators are heating up. In fact, dating back a month, the Predators have only dropped games to the Winnipeg Jets, Florida Panthers and Colorado Avalanche. They’re beating literally everyone else. Luke Evangelista’s star is rising, Fedor Svechkov has turned a corner, Nanaimo’s Matthew Wood looks like a burgeoning young star and Ryan O’Reilly and Filip Forsberg are still exceptional. The Calgary Flames, meanwhile, have picked up points in seven of their last 11 games, and while they lack game-breaking talent — which cost them against Macklin Celebrini and the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night — their underlying profile remains far more auspicious than Vancouver’s. Above the Flames and the Predators in the Western Conference pecking order, meanwhile, are a number of teams that are comparable to Vancouver’s true talent level — teams like the Seattle Kraken and the Sharks, and perhaps the Chicago Blackhawks, depending on the length of Connor Bedard’s injury-related absence — who at least have a decent lead in the standings.
Barring something drastic to tear apart a roster, there are no truly obvious Panzer-tank level teams in the NHL this season. Even with four points this week, Vancouver remains very well placed in the battle for the top draft lottery odds over the balance of this season.
The Canucks were always going to have stretches of play in which their goaltending or shooting ran hot, during which they’d rack up some wins. This week, for example, the Canucks have benefitted from nearly .980 save percentage goaltending at five-on-five. Get puck-stopping like that, and you’re going to win some games. Puck stopping at that level, however, doesn’t usually last for very long. A decent win streak, frankly, is nearly inevitable for just about every undermanned NHL team across an 82-game season. Don’t sweat the peaks and valleys, just look at the overall process.
While it’s good to see Vancouver’s defensive play improving, for example, its game-winning goals this week were scored off an own goal and a rush play in which the linesman set a devastating pick to free up Evander Kane to cut in on Quick all alone. Those bounces will normalize as the sample expands.
Finally, if the Canucks are going to make the pain of rebuilding really count, it won’t be enough to just sink to the bottom of the NHL standings. The club will also have to reorient its roster, sell pending unrestricted free agents, clean its books out (at least somewhat) of long-term commitments to useful players unlikely to be prime contributors by the time this franchise is ready to contend and maximize its asset value in executing those sorts of moves.
It’s difficult to trade players in fair value deals when your team is struggling as mightily as Vancouver did in November. Getting back to a higher competitive baseline for the next few months in the lead-up to the trade deadline, and capitalizing on any short-term boosts to the value of various on-the-block Canucks assets in the process, is as important to successfully accumulating future value as it is for Vancouver to maximize its 2026 NHL Draft lottery odds at season’s end.
Advertisement
The inevitable peaks and valleys of team performance will be felt across the 49 games that remain in Vancouver’s season. In a variable sport like hockey, there is some non-zero real risk that the club will truly run hot for a 10- or 15-game stretch and significantly harm its draft position, although it can be offset if the Canucks move aggressively to sell veteran players and pending unrestricted free agents well ahead of the deadline.
Buckle up and don’t worry too much about enjoying a Canucks victory. Especially because the importance of losing games in the short-term isn’t as important for the future of this franchise as a reorientation of priorities is.
A top pick would help enormously, but it’s far more important for the club to build up a draft capital surplus, find clever ways to buy low on players with star potential and make a collection of smart, disciplined moves with the future in mind.
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms
Find the hidden link between sports terms
Play today's puzzle
Thomas Drance covers the Vancouver Canucks as a senior writer for The Athletic. He is also the co-host of the Canucks Hour on Sportsnet 650. His career in hockey media — as a journalist, editor and author — has included stops at Canucks Army, The Score, Triumph Publishing, the Nation Network and Sportsnet. Previously, he was vice president, public relations and communications, for the Florida Panthers for three seasons. Follow Thomas on Twitter @ThomasDrance
Hockey News