After a season that defied the critics ended in a Game 7 loss in the second round to the Oilers, the Canucks are looking ahead to the future, but improving on an already solid team will be no simple task.

For reasons both within and beyond their control, the Vancouver Canucks might not be better in the 2024-25 NHL season.

Last September, Vancouver Canucks president Jim Rutherford famously declared that he thought his team could take a crack at a playoff spot ‘if everything goes right.’

From the season-opening 8-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers to the Jack Adams win for Rick Tocchet to major award nominations for Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko and a 40-goal year for Brock Boeser, things did end up going pretty well.

Most players met or exceeded expectations, and only a couple struggled to deliver as hoped. 

Andrei Kuzmenko couldn’t keep pace with his 39-goal debut and was shipped off to Calgary as part of the package that brought in Elias Lindholm, and Ilya Mikheyev is now at the top of many fans’ trade or buyout lists after managing only one goal after the Christmas break.

But for all that success, don’t get too eager to declare the Canucks on the cusp of a ‘return to glory.’ 

Past Patterns

The only two Canucks coaches to win the Jack Adams before Tocchet both eventually got their teams to the Stanley Cup Final. But it didn’t happen right away for either of them. 

Pat Quinn won in 1992, after his first full year behind the Canucks' bench. The following season, the team improved from 96 to 101 points, but got knocked out in the second round by Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings. In 1993-94, Vancouver slipped to 85 points in 84 games and was down 3-1 in the first round to Calgary before catching lightning in a bottle as Kirk McLean went on the run of his life in net.

Then, Alain Vigneault won his Jack Adams in his first season in Vancouver in 2007, after taking the team from 92 to 105 points and earning a second-round playoff appearance. The following year, Vancouver slipped to 88 points, and missed the playoffs, then hit 100 and 103 ahead of two-straight second-round losses to the emerging Chicago Blackhawks. 

Finally, in Vigneault’s fifth season, everything clicked — the Presidents’ Trophy, the dragon-slaying goal that vanquished Chicago, and the run to the Stanley Cup Final.

Higher Expectations

At his season-ending media availability on May. 23, GM Patrik Allvin was in no mood to celebrate the Canucks' successes. Instead, he focused on the challenges that lie ahead.

Stage 1 will be navigating the team’s roster requirements over the next month.

When Allvin talked about his inability to add some scoring help at the wing when the trade deadline came and went without a move last March, he acknowledged that the club was already a bit short on assets. Vancouver has just five selections in the upcoming draft, and won't pick until the third round. So there still isn't much draft capital available to spend.

And $26 million in cap space looks like a solid amount — except that the team has only 15 players signed for next year. UFAs like Nikita Zadorov and Dakota Joshua have indicated that they want to come back, but their price tags will go up after strong seasons.

When praising Joshua for how his game grew during his two years in Vancouver, Allvin may have told on himself when he said, “We’ll find the next Dakota Joshua for the coaches to work with.”

Likely translation — they'll try to source out a different power forward who’s a little younger and carries a lower price tag.

That’s not a bad thing — but it’s also not easy. Allvin and Rutherford have shown that they’re happy to keep bringing in fresh faces, and to move on if a player isn’t a fit — whether that’s Kuzmenko or trade acquisitions like Vitali Kravtsov, Ethan Bear or Jack Studnicka, whose stays in Vancouver were all brief. 

As well, players like Joshua, Carson Soucy and even depth center Nils Aman have fit in. No organization bats a thousand in player acquisition.

Tougher Tests

Once the puck drops, opponents will be hungrier to test themselves against a top team. For starters, that means the Canucks will see fewer backup goalies than they have over the last few years.

Rivalries will also become more heated. At the tip of the iceberg, next year’s games against Edmonton and Nashville are going to mean a whole lot more.

And after the Canucks lurked in the bottom half of the league’s list of man-games lost to injury in 2023-24, can that be sustained — especially if the grind gets tougher?

Allvin’s nomination as a finalist for the NHL's Jim Gregory Award, which is voted by the GMs along with league executives and select media members, suggests that his peers think that he and the Canucks are on the right track. And to be the new name alongside 2023 winner Jim Nill of Dallas and three-time finalist Bill Zito of Florida is definitely some prestigious real estate.

But in the NHL, success is rarely linear. And the history books are filled with teams that get near the top of the mountain but can't reach the summit.

The Canucks’ brass is well aware that future success is far from guaranteed. For the team's reinvigorated fanbase, attempting to balance their enjoyment of the moment with keeping expectations in check should continue to generate plenty of talk-radio and social media discourse.