The Vancouver Canucks went from hoping for a bounce-back season to trading parts of their core and beginning a rebuild. Here's how they ended up being eliminated from playoff contention and what comes next.
The Vancouver Canucks came into this season with the expectation of having a bounce-back year.
Five months later, they're the first NHL team eliminated from playoff contention. They traded the face of their franchise. Their top center might not even reach half of his career high in points for the second straight season and is in all sorts of off-season trade speculation.
In other words, a bounce-back year couldn't possibly be further from what they've experienced in 2025-26. But if there's anything Vancouver fans should take comfort in, it's that Canucks brass has made a strong directional choice and began tearing things down as soon as they could.
The Canucks are easily the NHL's worst team this season, with 15 fewer points than the third-last New York Rangers and second-last Chicago Blackhawks.
The team's porous defense has allowed 3.70 goals against per game, the most in the league.
The second-worst team in that category is the San Jose Sharks at 3.56, but the Sharks at least have a vibrant offense that has kept them in the playoff hunt.
There's no such luck for Vancouver, which has the league's second-worst offense at a shabby 2.52 goals-for per game.
Pretty straightforward, isn't it? Can't score goals, can't stop goals from being scored on them. That's a clear way to finish last.
Vancouver GM Patrik Allvin and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford have quickly embarked on a roster rebuild to address those issues.
They traded Quinn Hughes in December once it sounded like he was not going to sign an extension right away this summer. At the trade deadline, they moved veteran blueliner Tyler Myers and right winger Conor Garland.
It must be a culture shock to Canucks players that a Vancouver team that signed veteran right winger Brock Boeser, goalie Thatcher Demko, and Garland to long-term contract extensions last summer has now decided to embark on a painful rebuild.
This team finished atop the Pacific Division and lost Game 7 to the Edmonton Oilers in the second round in 2023-24, only to miss the playoffs last season. Core players signed extensions in hopes that 2024-25 was a write-off, and instead, it was a sign of what was to come.
What Comes Next For The Canucks?
The good news is this prolonged stretch of terrible hockey will get Vancouver a top-three draft pick in this summer's NHL draft.
It's almost guaranteed now that the Canucks will have the best odds of winning the draft lottery for either the first or second overall pick.
The player Allvin chooses, whether it's Ivar Stenberg, Gavin McKenna or perhaps a center like Tynan Lawrence if they fall to third overall, will be a core member of the team going forward.
That player will grow alongside young Canucks players, such as defenseman Zeev Buium and Tom Willander, and center Marco Rossi.
But the job of Allvin and Rutherford is to push forward with the rebuild and add more top prospects when they trade veteran players who don't fit in a full roster reconstruction.
Star center Elias Pettersson, whose star has dimmed in the past two seasons, still has some value. He has 41 points in 61 games this season and 45 points in 64 games last season, a sharp drop from his career-high 102 points in 2022-23. His $11.6-million cap hit for six seasons may scare some teams, but a change of scenery could do him wonders.
The Canucks' trade block should also include Boeser, left winger Jake DeBrusk and Demko – the latter of whom should garner many assets in any trade. And D-man Marcus Pettersson is 29 years old, so he may also want to be dealt.
Trading all those players will hurt Vancouver's win column, but they're as low as they can get in the standings already.
That's the grim reality of a major rebuild. To acquire elite young talent, you must take steps backward. And taking backward steps is all the Canucks have been doing for the past two years.
It's encouraging that management is taking the most proven road to winning a Cup. It's no guarantee, as many teams have rebuilt for years with zilch to show for it. But it is the way the Florida Panthers, Colorado Avalanche, Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals and more squads built Cup winners over time.
Help is on its way for the Canucks as they turn the corner into a new era. With that, there will be burning questions about the future of nearly every veteran on that team and probably their coach and front office as well.
And as the Canucks finish up this season and try to flush it, it's more likely than not that a rebuilding team will be back in this spot next year. But the renewed patience the Canucks are now showing should pay off with something special – eventually.
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