The NHL playoffs are right around the corner, and as Canucks fans we’ve known for a while that the Canucks are not going to be part of the fight for the Stanley Cup this year, so what should we be watching for instead?
There are a couple of options for fans to cheer for this year in the upcoming playoffs, but which one to choose first is always a hard decision to make. One option is to cheer for the Canadian teams that are in the playoffs, or for former players that are now on other teams.
The Canadian teams that have made it into the playoffs this year are the Edmonton Oilers, the Ottawa Senators, and the MontrĂ©al Canadiens. Form those teams, I’m probably going to be cheering for the Canadiens the most. I’m not a fan of the Oilers, for obvious reasons, and I’m not a fan of the players on the Senators, so the remaining team is an obvious pick.
Another option that was listed above is cheering for former players, and one comes to mind right away, and that is Quinn Hughes and the Minnesota Wild. After being traded to the Minnesota Wild, he has appeared in seventy-four games over the season, with seven goals, sixty-nine assists, and seventy-six assists.
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When he was traded earlier in the season, that was when I realized that the season was already over, especially when they traded such a beloved player to the fan base. Even though the Canucks got close during the 2023 season to the Stanley Cup, the team fell short against the Edmonton Oilers. Now with a new team, hopefully he can make it to the finals and lift the trophy, with a similar feeling to when Roberto Luongo lifted the trophy with the Florida Panthers.
If those story lines don’t interest you, there’s always the possibility of a team winning their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, and this year there’s a handful of teams. Those teams are the Minnesota Wild, the Buffalo Sabres, the Ottawa Senators, and the Utah Mammoth.
Having a first Stanley Cup for a team is always special, and since we haven’t been able to have that feeling as an organization yet for Vancouver, and sometimes we question if we ever will be able to have that feeling as fans, it would be nice to see it for one of the other teams that haven’t won a cup yet to win one as well.