Chef Boi RD wrote: ↑Wed Dec 17, 2025 7:23 am
Ya just know we ain’t picking top 5. The sooner we accept this the least disappointed we’ll be . My guess is we’ll be picking closer to 10th OA
I tend to agree that the Canucks will probably end up picking in the 6-12 range absent lottery luck. I think this team is going to play something like point a game hockey (or maybe even slightly better) from the Hughes trade forward. I am thinking a 76-84 point range.
2025: Teams with 76 points picked 6, 7, 8 (all knocked down in lottery); a team with 84 points would have picked 12 (Utah jumps).
2024: 76 points picks 5th, 84 points picks 11th
2023: 76 points picks 8th, 84 points picks 12th.
You get the idea. Now there's some reason to think any sub-500 team is going to be in better shape in the draft rankings than the typical season because the bottom of the league doesn't look near as bad (relatively) compared to most years. You can't point to 3 teams and know for certain they will be in the bottom 5. Not yet. Its not like you can use permanent marker to give San Jose or Chicago an automatic top 5 pick.
And of course, the Canucks ultimate record and relative draft standings are going to depend a fair bit on (1) who is dealt and when (and for what), (2) injuries, (3) the same stuff for other middling teams. But to date, I think it is fair to say that the Canuck injury situation has (1) been relatively bad and (2) contributed more to their record than it might otherwise. Just look at the goaltending. I can think of 2 games (maybe) where Lankinen outplayed the guy on the other side of the ice, 1 in which Tolopolio did. And of the remaining games, in more than half the Canucks goalie was objectively outplayed, with the remainder being games of relative equal goaltending.
Goalies can win games that shouldn't be won. And goalies can lose games that should be won. Some goalies are inconsistent, stealing a lot of games and blowing a lot of games (which is what Lankinen did last year). And there are a handful of goalies -- and I count healthy Demko as one, who rarely gets outplayed and can steal more than his fair share.
With a pop gun offense, its is all the more important to have a goalie that makes the timely big save and keeps the score close and doesn't put the team in a position to play a game they aren't designed to win. I know that the past two games are a very small sample size, but the Canucks just got off a stretch where their play was decent and the results were not. And then they play two games where they have the better goalie and win because of it. Think about last night -- Demko is not just making stops, but swallowing pucks on screened shots that Lankinen burps out for tap ins that "he had no chance on."
Even the Jets looked terrible once they lost Bucky. What were they, 3-8-1? While they have a little more scoring than the Canucks, they aren't an offensive juggernaut and when the goalie is a sieve and can't keep the game tight, they struggled badly.
I really don't see this team giving up. I think they play for Foote; the young kids for their futures. And I hate to say it, but if the health Gods smile on the Canucks (which is sort of like the Hockey Gods cursing them), Swede-Austrian-Czech (Chytil, not Kampf...)-Latvian/Finn is a pretty good set down the middle.... Still lacking offense (Hughes loss will be great), but there's some cause to think that the defensive set is really not too bad and should only improve as the season goes on. But bigger picture, this team still seems far more competitive top to bottom than those late 2010s teams that still managed to "earn" only a single top 5 pick. Those teams felt like legitimate contenders for worst team in the league; this team just isn't there, subject to more player movement and injury......
I really don't know yet where this goes. My opinion generally is that it is the truly exceptional players that create cup contenders. And the Canucks don't really have these guys outside healthy Demko and a still incomplete-turnaround for EP40. Possibly Buium or Willander can achieve this, but I they need something huge up front and I don't see it in the roster or the pipeline. They are complements to a core that doesn't exist -- the whole lot or them from draftees to NHL roster players. And without at least one more core forward when these younger guys peak, the ceiling I think is to be a bubble team. And that's with a Demko.
