Canucks Time!

Posted on by

It’s almost that time of year again, aren’t you excited? It’s almost hockey season. I can’t remember the last time there’s been this much buzz about the Vancouver Canucks heading into the season, and rightfully so. The Canucks are looking to build off a season where they finish sixth in the league and captured the pacific division title. It’s going to be hard to top, but I think that they can do it.  The Canucks added to a roster which had five all starts with some key additions in free agency. 

 

They gave a seven-year 5.5 million dollar contract to Jake DeBrusk. They hope DeBrusk is the scoring winger who fits the mould to play on a line with superstar Elias Pettersson. They also added Langley B.C. native Danton Heinen from the Bruins, Heninen provides a great skill set. He can play up or down in the lineup and play center and winger. A player who I’m personally thrilled is a Canuck now is Kiefer Sherwood. Canucks fans saw a lot of Sherwood in the first round last year when he was playing for the Predators. Sherwood is a super physical player tallying 337 hits over the last two seasons. I think he will fit perfectly on Vancouver’s bottom six, as he’s another physical presence along with Dakota Joshua.

A player that’s going to be put under a microscope by a ton of Canucks fans is Elias Pettersson. Pettersson’s 8-year 92.8 million dollar contract that he signed last March is kicking in this year. During the second half of last year and throughout the playoffs, it didn’t take a rocket science to tell that Pettersson was clearly playing through an injury. He revealed that he had been playing through a knee injury since January. Pettersson recently commented on the talk surrounding his contract and his knee.  

 

“I feel recharged,” Obviously, it was a lot of noise (last season), but it was expected. It took a long time to sign, and then I signed and signed a big dollar and was not performing as I wanted. But that’s behind me now and I’m looking forward to what’s ahead.  

 

“I still feel it (tendinitis) sometimes, but it feels good now — better than where we left off last season. We had to work around it in the off-season training, but, yeah, I feel good and I feel better on the ice. It gave us more time to work on conditioning and work on speed. Everything is fine.” 

Another massive question mark for Vancouver and probably the biggest is the goaltending situation. Thatcher Demko was a massive part of the Canucks success last season. He finished as the runner-up for the Vezina Trophy and was poised to be the Canucks backbone in the playoffs. That all took a turn following the game one win against Nashville. Demko hasn’t played since due to a mysterious knee injury. Demko finally spoke on the matter a few weeks ago.

 

“When I first injured myself in the playoffs, it was such a rare case, such a unique injury, that we didn’t really have a lot of readily available research or case studies, or really any information to have a concrete timeline, We were told this might be a situation that we might find ourselves in, the one we’re in right now. “

 

“When I first felt the injury, obviously I wasn’t too sure what it was, but as we dived into some research and some things, it was a little bit ambiguous. It’s been a bit of a frustrating summer just trying to get some answers. Obviously, we’ve talked to all the specialists we can around the world… and this is the information we’ve gathered. Myself, the staff, and the organization are fully confident that we’re on the right track.”

 

As a Canucks fan that’s not stuff you want to hear. Reports are coming now that Demko might be out until December. Demko is one of the best goalies in the world and if the Canucks want to be serious contenders they are going to need him to be 100%. However, there is some silver lining. The Canucks have playoffs star Artrus Silovs in goal. Silovs was a massive reason the Canucks got to the second round of the playoffs without Demko. Vancouver’s going to need the 23 year-old Silovs to be lights out again between the pipes in the regular season as well to keep the Canucks in playoff contention before Demko comes back. 

 

So how do I think the Canucks are going to do this year? I know its going to be hard to top last season, but I think this team can get in done. The core is still here and has another year of experience under their belt. The team is still led by Norris Trophy winner Quinn Hughes on the backend, who is poised to have another great year. One of the league’s best center duos in Pettersson who we have already talked about and J.T. Miller who is coming off a 103 point season. As well as 40 goal scorer Brock Boeser. Who is looking to avenge a blood clot which caused him to miss game seven vs the Oilers.  

 

I definitely think this team can meet the high expectations that they have well earned. We saw first hand how vibrant the energy in this city is when the Canucks are winning. I think the additions Vancouver brought in on the defence are great fits. They are already starting to show in the preseason. The bottom six has me super excited. I can’t wait to see Dakota Joshua and Conor Garland build on their seasons, as well as youngsters like Aatu Raty and hopefully Jonathan Lekkermaki. 

 

We have a great team here in Vancouver and Canucks nation has every right to be excited.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *