The long wait is over. Opening night has arrived. Vancouver Canucks hockey is back.
With the puck set to drop on the most anticipated Canucks season in over a decade on Wednesday evening at Rogers Arena, we wanted to get ahead of ourselves with 10 bold (and not so bold) predictions covering off what we expect this upcoming Canucks campaign to look like.
Let’s get our predictions in under the wire so we have some baseline expectations we can track and update throughout the campaign. We’ve also assigned a confidence and boldness score for each one.
Will Elias Pettersson bounce back? Can Quinn Hughes score 20 goals? How active will general manager Patrik Allvin be on the trade market?
Here’s what we’re expecting from the Canucks in 2024-25.
1. Elias Pettersson will bounce back and lead the team in scoring
When Pettersson signed his maximum-term, $11.6 million extension in early March he was roughly on pace to hit 100 points for a second consecutive season.
Pettersson’s scoring, however, dried up and he finished 11 points shy of the lofty 100-point milestone.
He dealt with an injury; tendinitis in his knee, we’d later learn. His linemates featured a rotating cast of bottom-six wingers. And the noise around his future had lingered as a major distraction throughout the year.
All of that is context for Pettersson’s lack of form down the stretch, but the truth is Vancouver’s usually dynamic star centre simply performed at a level far below his usual standard in the second half.
Entering the first year of his new deal, there are questions among Canucks fans about Pettersson’s ability to bounce back and dominate. Such questions and concerns, we predict, will prove to be misplaced.
Pettersson now has legitimate weaponry to work with. His future is settled. He’s had a summer to train and recover.
We see no significant reasons why Pettersson wouldn’t retrieve the form that has made him one of the league’s best two-way centremen.
With J.T. Miller — who led the Canucks in scoring last season and in 2021-22 — likely to be tasked with handling the tougher assignments at five-on-five, we predict Pettersson’s bounce back will cause him to comfortably lead all Canucks skaters in points during the 2024-25 campaign.
Confidence: 60 percent
Boldness: 40 percent
2. Daniel Sprong will work his way onto PP1
Daniel Sprong is the ultimate heat-check player.
A legitimate efficiency driver who has scored at a superstar scoring clip throughout his NHL career, Sprong’s defensive and puck management deficiencies have caused him to be utilized almost exclusively in a bottom-six role. He’s going to get a major shot to play up the lineup when the Canucks open their season on Wednesday, however, and has a significant opportunity to change the league-wide perception about his game this year.
Whether or not Sprong actually holds down second-line minutes for Vancouver at five-on-five, he’s going to do some remarkable stuff with the puck on his stick this season. He nearly always does.
A brilliant one-shot goal scorer who is a legitimate weapon from the left-side flank with the man advantage and is also an underrated playmaker, Sprong’s offensive tools will leap off the ice this season. And that’s going to make it difficult for Vancouver’s coaching staff to avoid placing him on the first power-play unit as this season goes along.
The Canucks are slated to open the campaign with Jake DeBrusk taking over Bo Horvat’s old spot in the bumper on Vancouver’s first power-play unit. DeBrusk is a sharp player with an excellent shot, and will likely get a lengthy look with the first unit given the organization’s long-term investment in him.
As gifted as DeBrusk is as a goal scorer, however, he’s only occasionally been a full-time first power-play unit piece and only got intermittent opportunities in the bumper during his tenure in Boston. Perhaps DeBrusk makes it work and this prediction fails, but we’re left with the lingering sense entering this season that the Canucks will eventually find Sprong’s savant-like offensive toolkit irresistible and give him a look with the first unit.
If that does happen, you can bet Sprong is going to be able to eat in five-on-four minutes that he’d project to share with Brock Boeser, Miller, Pettersson and Hughes.
Confidence: 45 percent
Boldness: 33 percent
Nils Höglander will go from being used in fourth-line minutes last season to a top-six regular for the Canucks. (Simon Fearn / USA Today)
3. Nils Höglander will finish the season ranked among the top-six Canucks forwards in even-strength ice time
With a fresh three-year, $3 million AAV contract extension in hand, this is the year we’re expecting Nils Höglander to take his game to the next level.
Höglander already enjoyed an offensive breakout last year, potting 24 goals. That remarkable haul was driven largely by shooting efficiency rather than volume, as Höglander converted on 20 percent of his shots on goal.
There’s some regression risk on Höglander entering this season, but it could be offset by an increased role. If we follow the money, that seems like a reasonable thing to expect.
If it’s going to happen, it’s not going to be about the offensive production. It’s going to be about the level of his two-way play and the details in his game.
Now 23 years old, we predict Höglander will cement himself as a fixture further up the lineup than he’s ever regularly played before. In fact, we predict Höglander will go from being used in fourth-line minutes last season to a top-six regular for the Canucks whose minutes won’t necessarily get cut back when the team is working to hold a lead late in games.
Confidence: 30 percent
Boldness: 60 percent
4. Brock Boeser will hit 30 goals for a second consecutive season
Given the way Boeser generates shots at even strength, the fact he’s locked in as the first-choice net-front guy on power-play one and the way he’s improved as a garbage goal specialist in the dirty areas of the ice (while maintaining that special ability to beat set goaltenders with his lethal wrist shot), he should score 30 goals just by getting out of bed this season.
Boeser doesn’t need a fortunate bounce to tally 30. It’s going to happen naturally, provided he plays in over 75 games.
There’s a chance he can push his goal totals even higher this season. This is a player coming off of a 40-goal campaign, after all.
Scoring 40, however, will require that Boeser dines out on both his machine-like shot rate and some fortunate puck luck on occasion as well. It could happen, but we’re just going to bet the base rate here.
Boeser’s talent level is high enough, his role is secure enough and his goal-scoring track record is compelling enough that the winger will comfortably hit 30 goals this season — regardless of whether the puck bounces his way or not.
Confidence: 80 percent
Boldness: 15 percent
5. Conor Garland will lead all Canucks skaters in five-on-five goal scoring
Conor Garland has been one of Vancouver’s most important play-driving engines and its third-leading point producer at five-on-five since he arrived during the summer of 2021, but a lot of Canucks fans still aren’t convinced he has the finishing ability to be a top goal scorer.
That might be the popular perception, but the reality is Garland is as reliable an even-strength goal scorer as any player on the roster. Last season, for example, where Miller scored 20 five-on-five goals, a haul that trailed only Höglander’s for the team lead, Garland had 19.
Garland doesn’t need a lot to break his way necessarily to lead all Canucks skaters in five-on-five goal scoring this season. If he continues to play the way he’s played consistently ever since he arrived on Canada’s West Coast, that should be enough for him to hit 20 five-on-five goals, and if his ice time spikes — as it did in the playoffs — there’s a possibility his production could go nuclear.
There’s a lot of talent up and down this Canucks lineup at the moment, so finishing first in five-on-five goal scoring is a significant ask. We predict, however, that Garland will be up to the task this season and will pace the club in even-strength goal scoring.
Confidence: 33 percent
Boldness: 60 percent
6. Patrik Allvin will hit the over on 5.5 in-season trades
Canucks management didn’t expend a ton of energy avoiding long-term injured reserve (LTI) so they could toll cap space daily for fun. They did it intending to upgrade this roster as the season goes along.
Ever since president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford and Allvin took the reigns in Vancouver, this Canucks front office has been among the league’s most aggressive. That’s sure to continue this season, and may even go into overdrive if the Canucks get out of the gates quickly and profile as a Stanley Cup contender.
Last season, Allvin and company made five in-season trades, and that was with their books gummed up by the Tucker Poolman contract in LTI. Free from that administrative limitation this season, we’re expecting fireworks as the club looks to load up on the trade market for a playoff run.
Confidence: 80 percent
Boldness: 10 percent
7. Quinn Hughes will finish just shy of 20 goals
Coming off of a Norris Trophy-winning campaign that cemented him as unquestionably one of the best defenders in the sport — and the best blueliner in franchise history — Hughes has an opportunity to put together a career-defining campaign.
Hughes is going to be one of (if not the) most impactful blueliners in the sport this season. Regretfully, however, we don’t expect him to score 20 goals.
Hughes hitting the 20-goal mark is a relatively popular prediction in the Vancouver market at the moment. There’s no doubt he has evolved significantly as a shooter and overall goal-scoring threat over the past few years.
Where Hughes took a ton of point shots earlier in his career, he’s now far more active as a downhill attacker. The slap shots from the blue line have been replaced by drag shots from the high slot, shots that specifically target goaltenders while they transition.
Because of those changes in Hughes’ game, we’re not necessarily picking Hughes to regress, even though he did convert on a career-high 8.5 percent of his shots on goal last season. We tend to buy that he’s reached a new, sustainable level of production.
Quinn Hughes finished last season with 17 goals and 92 points. (Bob Frid / Imagn Images)
To hit 20, however, an awful lot has to break his way.
Last season, Hughes recorded 199 shots on goal on 540 shot attempts. Both numbers represented career highs for Hughes by a wide margin.
Hughes took nearly six and a half shot attempts per game last season and if he’s going to hit 20, that number probably needs to increase by nearly an additional shot attempt per game. At the very least it will need to get to about 7.35 shots per game, which would put him at about 600 attempts.
Not only does Hughes need to up the frequency with which he’s shooting, but he’ll probably need to get pucks through at a slightly higher clip, too. Hughes’ shot attempts found the net about 36 percent of the time last season, which is actually below the rate at which he got shots through during the two previous seasons, albeit at a much lower volume.
In order to hit 20 this season, Hughes will need to combine shooting at a slightly higher rate with upping the number of his attempts that hit the net to about 40 percent. If he can accomplish that, he’ll have a real opportunity to hit 250 shots on goal.
Even if he manages all of that, he’ll still need to maintain a shooting clip near 8 percent to reach 20 goals.
You never want to bet against a hockey genius like Hughes and we don’t make this prediction with significant confidence. When you really lay it all out, however, 20 goals is a bit too rich for us to pencil Hughes in for this season.
It seems more likely Hughes will finish somewhere in the range of 14-17 goals while positioning himself to be a more decisive goal threat in the highest-stakes games of the year.
Confidence: 30 percent
Boldness: 40 percent
8. The Canucks will generate shots on goal at a better-than-league-average clip five-on-five
As often as they scored goals last season, especially in the first half of the year, the Canucks’ Achilles’ heel was their relative inability to generate quality looks in bulk.
At five-on-five, for example, Vancouver’s shots-on-goals rate ranked 25th out of 32 NHL teams last season. Only one team that generated shots at a lower rate than Vancouver qualified for the playoffs.
The Canucks are aware of this issue. They spent the summer prioritizing speed and finishing ability on the wings. Their training camp was singularly focused on transition drills and breakouts. Those actions suggest they know they have to generate more offence more consistently if they’re going to get to where they want to go.
With the sharp way Canucks management and coaches have approached this problem, we’re buying they can take a significant leap forward as a team capable of generating a higher volume of quality looks rather than relying on opportunistic finishing from their skilled players. As a result, we feel comfortable predicting that the 2024-25 Canucks will find a way to generate looks at an above-average clip.
Confidence: 50 percent
Boldness: 60 percent
9. The penalty kill will re-emerge as a trouble spot in the first half of the campaign
By the 2024 playoffs, Vancouver’s penalty killing was a major strength.
The way Vancouver finished last season as a penalty-killing group, stifling the historically lethal Edmonton Oilers power play in the meat of their second-round series, represented a remarkable turnaround from the historically woeful efforts we saw during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 campaigns.
We’re not saying those bad days are coming back, but it’s worth noting Vancouver’s improvement in four-on-five situations down the stretch was largely driven by some key contributors who either moved to other teams last summer or are tracking to be unavailable at the outset of this season.
Elias Lindholm, for example, was a revelation for the Canucks on the penalty kill and might’ve been the singular lynchpin of the penalty-killing success in the playoffs. Ian Cole and Nikita Zadorov were two of the club’s three most frequently used penalty-killing defenders. Phil Di Giuseppe, who the club waived and re-assigned to Abbotsford this week, played a critical tertiary penalty-killing role for the club. And Dakota Joshua emerged as a plus contributor four-on-five and is out indefinitely at least to begin this season.
Now the club has brought in some quality penalty-killing personnel this summer, most notably Kiefer Sherwood, Vincent Desharnais and Derek Forbort. We’re absolutely not predicting the PK will be a fatal flaw this season overall, and realistically, the Canucks managed elite defensive results last season with a PK rate that was closer to average than it was to good.
At least in the first half of the season, however, we predict that the PK will re-emerge as something of a trouble spot for the Canucks and will be among the key areas they will look to address on the market before the trade deadline this spring.
Confidence: 66 percent
Boldness: 55 percent
10. The Canucks will be a genuine contender come playoff time, but will accumulate at least 8 fewer points in the regular season
The Canucks look poised to be among the best teams in the Western Conference this season, and perhaps among the very best in the league.
This is a deeper group with more offensive pop than the version of the Canucks we saw last season. Their defensive solidity gives them a very high floor, and their collection of elite skilled players provides them with substantial upside.
Vancouver should be expected to be a solid playoff team at least, and the case can be made that it enters the season as a genuine contender.
Now in a hard-capped NHL, no team is flawless. There are potentially significant question marks in goal, the Canucks may need to add another puck-mover on the back end, and their centre depth took a hit with Lindholm’s departure in unrestricted free agency.
Still, we can expect the Canucks to be nearly as good as they were last season, with a real chance to be a better team overall.
When you factor in how last season played out, how favourable the bounces were and how healthy the core was, we predict Vancouver will accumulate closer to 100 points than the 109 points it amassed last season.
Don’t confuse total points accumulated in the regular season as a true measure of overall team quality. While we predict that the results will take a small step back, our expectation remains that the Canucks will enter the 2025 playoffs with a chance to be an even more imposing team than the one we saw defeat the Nashville Predators and push the Oilers to the brink this past May.
Confidence: 45 percent
Boldness: 60 percent
(Top photo of Elias Pettersson and Nils Höglander: Derek Cain / Getty Images)
