Figuring out the issues in goal, will Hughes play and where do the Canucks sit in the NHL standings?
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The gold standard is still watching the Canucks on a Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada. Alas, not this week. There’s an early Friday game in Carolina before an afternoon game in Tampa and Monday in Miami against the Panthers.
Hopefully you can deke out of work early and catch the Canucks with your friends enjoying some weekend libations at a local watering hole. More likely you’ll be listening to the game on the radio stuck in gridlock on Highway 1. Sigh.
Whatever is ailing Quinn Hughes — remember he would only say of the arm/shoulder injury that knocked him briefly out of the game Tuesday that it was a “weird play” — it’s obviously not fully healed.
That’s the conclusion you must draw after he didn’t practice on Thursday and now Adam Foote has said Hughes will be a game-time decision this evening.
We can tell you that the Canucks have certainly discussed the idea of signing David Kampf, the now-former Toronto Maple Leafs centre. Kampf cleared unconditional waivers on Friday and has had his contract terminated by the Leafs — by mutual consent — and is now a free agent.
According to The Athletic, it looks like Kampf has at least three suitors beyond the Canucks: the Wild, Penguins and Habs are also considering the veteran centre, who has no offence in his skill set, but is a great penalty killer and pretty good on faceoffs too.
Is he better than Max Sasson? Almost certainly, even with Sasson’s fun scoring streak to open the year. He’s definitely better than minor leaguer Nils Aman, the only alternative to Sasson at the moment.
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Teddy Blueger isn’t on the current road trip and while as recently as last weekend there was hope he’d be able to rejoin his teammates soon, it no longer appears to be the case. Still the fact he has skated lately suggests he’ll still be back sometime soon, and given his overlapping skillset with Kampf, surely Blueger’s prognosis will play some kind of factor here.
Of course Kampf has a say in all this too!
Neat angle here from Canucks Army, pondering what players like Reichel have turned out to be.
The Canucks have their fingers crossed that they’ve found a second line centre for free. And there are a few cases where kinda sorta this has happened: Owen Tippett a best-case kind of example.
But the thing is, Tippett did score a little in Florida, before he became a Flyer. He just didn’t get a big opportunity there.
Reichel got plenty of opportunity in Chicago and other than one stretch three years ago, he just hasn’t been able to put the puck in the net.
The Oilers have some healthy bodies back and had to make some roster choices today. Troy Stecher is on waivers as a result.
There’s plenty to say about the veteran: he’s a solid depth player and a quality person.
The Canucks are obviously in a touch and go situation with Quinn Hughes, so maybe it would be worth it for the team to throw a dart at the former Canuck, even if he plays a different game from Hughes and is a right-shot defenceman.
But where would Stecher fit in the lineup? He’s not taking Filip Hronek’s job. Tyler Myers could use a little more rest so one supposes Stecher could be spotted in there from time to time. Tom Willander’s game is growing well so it’s unlikely Stecher could take the rookie’s spot.
As Ben Kuzma notes, maybe he’s best suited to the Ottawa Senators, where former Canucks coach Travis Green needs a defenceman right now.
The big question today is will captain Quinn Hughes play?
Quinn Hughes flew with his mates to North Carolina on Wednesday. He did not skate with his mates on Thursday during practice.
Given all the bangs and bruises he is apparently carrying, that was not a real surprise — but it’s still concerning.
Head coach Adam Foote acknowledged Thursday that he is “hopeful” his captain can play on Friday against the Carolina Hurricanes. Hughes is listed as “day to day,” the coach said, but what is keeping him from the lineup is not exactly clear.
Hughes did seem to injure his arm or shoulder on Tuesday, briefly leaving the game in obvious discomfort. He got tangled up with Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele chasing after a puck. Their sticks intertwined, then Hughes let up, as if he had jammed his arm or perhaps taken a blow to a nerve. Either way, his arm seemed limp.
Carolina didn’t get off to the best start but have won five of their last six to move into the top five in the NHL standings. They’ve been tinkering with some of their defensive pairings.
At practice Thursday slight adjustments to how the defensive pairs were arranged.
The Canes are still missing two key pieces as Jaccob Slavin (LBI) and Jalen Chatfield (UBI) remain sidelined with injuries, but the team’s remaining six defencemen all looked to have new partners.
Sean Walker, who’s been the Canes’ de facto number one defencemen since Slavin went out, averaging nearly 24 minutes a night, was once again paired alongside Shayne Gostisbehere.
The two formed Carolina’s third pairing last season, combining for nearly 800 minutes together, and they had some of the strongest possession numbers in the entire league with a 63.30 CF% and a 60.04 xGF%.
Gostisbehere looked a bit rusty on Tuesday, as he returned to action after what was essentially 10 days out with injury, so it would make sense to give him a bit more support alongside Walker.
While the Canucks have been looking for an offensive breakout from anyone besides Kiefer Sherwood, he’s in the top 10 in goal scoring but Hughes and Elias Pettersson are the Canucks highest point-getters, tied for 84th in the NHL, numbers suggest the Canucks flaccid form is down more to their defensive effort of late.
Vancouver has struggled to find consistency to start the season, hovering around .500 and entering tonight’s tilt with a 2-3-1 mark in November.
The Canucks’ defence has been its weakness thus far — their 66.7 per cent penalty kill is the lowest in the league, and they’re allowing the fifth-most goals per game on average (3.50).
Offensively, Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes expectedly lead the team in scoring with 13 points apiece, but all eyes have been on forward Kiefer Sherwood. Ranking T-4th among all NHLers with 11 goals thus far, Sherwood has scored in back-to-back games and is comfortably on pace to surpass his career high of 19 tallies in a season.
After Thatcher Demko left Tuesday’s loss to Winnipeg with a lower-body injury that will sideline him for a few weeks, the Canes are likely to face Kevin Lankinen this evening. The 30-year-old is 3-3-2 against Carolina in his career, with an .886 save percentage and 3.85 GAA.
Some interesting comments from Canucks President Jim Rutherford in a Q-and-A with Sportsnet on the team being ‘caught in the middle of what they have in the pipeline and trying to preserve their prospects yet adding to the team to make them a true contender.
Sportsnet: Yes, you said after last season that the Canucks needed to acquire a second-line centre and it would be “expensive” to make that trade but “very expensive” not to do it. Did you think in April you’d still be waiting for that trade in November?
Rutherford: No, I did not. But it’s not from Patrik’s lack of trying. He’s calling teams all the time. If it ever gets to a conversation about potentially adding somebody, the price is just too high.
Sportsnet: How high? Like Tom Willander and young Elias Pettersson too high?
Rutherford: Yeah, like that. One of the things I’ve been open about is, you know, we’re kind of caught in between here right now. I believe our organization has done a good job in building up the pipeline of younger players. Do we want to give those up now or do we want to keep building? (Until) we traded J.T … we were on the right track to continuing to build towards being a contender on a more regular basis. And then when J.T. got traded, we were set back. Regardless of what deal we made, you’re not going to replace him. And so then we became a team in transition again. And we’re still a team in transition. If you look at our lineup now, we’ve got sometimes six, seven first-year players in our lineup, and that’s hard. But the positive side of that is these guys are developing. So there’s somewhat of a silver lining in a disappointing first quarter of the season.
End of week is Power Rankings time for a lot of outlets, let’s check in on what they think about the Canucks.
ESPN is first up, where the Canucks dropped a spot. They also drop in one ‘fantasy add’ for each team.
28. Vancouver Canucks
Previous ranking: 27
Points percentage: 47.2%
All Kiefer Sherwood does is score goals, ranking among the league leaders thus far. The Canucks’ secret net-finding playmaker is also the league leader in hits, making the left wing a must-start in leagues that reward both categories.
Next seven days: @ CAR (Nov. 14), @ TB (Nov. 16), @ FLA (Nov. 17), vs. DAL (Nov. 20)
Sportsnet maybe put the rights-holder filter on their rankings this week, putting the Canucks at rose-tinted 22 which is higher than the Leafs and Rick Tocchet’s Flyers.
22. Vancouver Canucks (8-9-1): The Canucks entered the new season desperate for a bounceback campaign after a tumultuous 2024-25 derailed by off-ice chaos. The stakes couldn’t be clearer in 2025-26, with captain Quinn Hughes’ future in Vancouver seemingly hanging in the balance. But it hasn’t looked great so far, the Canucks sitting second-last in their division and fourth-last in the West overall with a quarter of the campaign in the books.
OK, back to the depression rankings. Bleacher Report drops the Canucks three spots down to 28, despite a battling display against the Avs and Jets.
Previous Ranking: 25
Overall Record: 8-9-1
The perpetual injury concerns that follow goaltender Thatcher Demko are back again after he left Tuesday’s game against Winnipeg with a lower-body issue after allowing three goals on eight shots in the first period.
Demko didn’t play over the weekend due to what the team called preventative maintenance. The 29-year-old has started more than half of Vancouver’s games in a full season just twice and made only 23 starts in 2024-25.
CBS Sports follows the crowd and has the Canucks at 28, which is not only the popular spot for them but also their NHL standing. I’m thinking there’s not a lot of nuance put into the rankings below number 20.
Vancouver cannot get any kind of momentum, and an upcoming road trip that features games against the Hurricanes, Lightning and Panthers probably won’t help matters. That they play those three games in four days only adds to an already tall task.
The Athletic also have them at 28, but also take a shot at one of the Canucks newest players.
It’s tough to think of a player whose stock has fallen further than Lukas Reichel’s over the last five years. He was drafted 17th in 2020 and made an impressive first impression in Chicago with 15 points in 23 games to close the 2022-23 season. Since then, though, he’s struggled massively at both ends of the ice — enough for the Blackhawks to ship him off to the Canucks last month at the first signs of a hot start.
Sometimes a change of scenery is all that’s needed, but that might not be the case here. Reichel has just one point in 10 games with the Canucks, and the same two-way issues that were present in Chicago remain. Reichel has a lot of work to do to prove he’s an everyday NHLer.
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This isn’t technically Canucks news but it is adjacent to the team and does impact your sports fandom. Patrick Johnston wrote yesterday about how the MLS is switching its schedule to a fall-spring calendar to align with most of the rest of the world of soccer. Right now the Whitecaps are waiting through an international break in other leagues to get to the rest of their playoffs, a three week gap between games at the most important time.
Next Saturday they’ll have 52,000+ fans at BC Place. But in 2027 when they switch schedule, the playoffs will be in May, which would go right up against the NHL playoffs.
Having a playoff chase in May will potentially pit them in a chase for fan dollars against the Canucks, who would want to be in a playoff race at the same time as their soccer neighbours. But again, no big deal, say the Caps.
“No, we are not concerned,” Whitecaps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster said via text. “In our experience, when all of Vancouver’s teams are doing well, it creates an incredible sense of civic pride and raises awareness for sport across the city. We have seen this time and time again, including back in November 2023 when we opened the upper bowl at B.C. Place for the first time in our MLS era, hosting LAFC in round one of the MLS Cup Playoffs. That same weekend, the Lions drew a big crowd for their CFL Western Final, and the Canucks had two major games against Dallas and Edmonton.”
Check back for more Canucks news throughout the day …
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