The Vancouver Canucks are going into this season with higher expectations, both as a team and individually. They finished with their second-highest point total in franchise history, and many of their star players posted career-highs in goals and points. As such, it will be tough for everyone to replicate their success from last season. Hopefully, they don’t regress too much and Canucks fans will see the usual suspects lead the way again in 2024-25. With that said, let’s do some prognosticating for some of the major stat categories.
Goals: Brock Boeser
Brock Boeser‘s 2023-24 season couldn’t have started any better as he notched four goals in Game 1 against the Edmonton Oilers, including a natural hat trick. After that, he and the Canucks just kept on rolling, culminating in his first 40-goal campaign and a career-high 73 points. He didn’t slow down in the playoffs either, scoring a dramatic third-period hat trick in Game 4 against the Nashville Predators when he potted two goals in a matter of minutes to tie the game and send it to overtime. Elias Lindholm finished the job, but he was the catalyst, popping in his hat trick goal with just eight seconds remaining in the third period.
Related: More Canucks Season Preview Content
Boeser, unfortunately, saw his postseason get cut short by a blood clot in his leg heading into Game 7 against the Oilers, but still finished with seven goals and 12 points. He is reportedly healthy and ready to go for training camp, so barring any setbacks during the season, he should lead the way in goals again.
Assists: Quinn Hughes
Quinn Hughes was beyond a beast last season finishing with a career-high 92 points and walking away with the Norris Trophy by a wide margin of 172 first-place votes. Roman Josi was a distant second, grabbing only 12. He is now 77 points away from passing Alex Edler for the all-time lead in points, and he’s only 24 years old. He is by far already the Canucks’ best defenceman in franchise history and will be light years ahead of Edler when he retires. He led the team in assists with 75 last season, nine ahead of second-place JT Miller, and should do so again in 2024-25.
Hughes even thinks there’s another level to his game, saying, “I felt like I missed a lot of scoring opportunities last year…And even though my goal-scoring spiked, I think it can spike again. This whole summer, I worked on goal scoring — goal scoring from the dot, goal scoring from the top of the circles. So I think I can score more. I think that I can score 20 goals. As far as the other thing (100 points), I’m not sure. For me, I’m going to try to be aggressive every single night and push the pace, push my game, and then wherever that takes me, it takes me.”
Hughes is never satisfied, and that should scare opposing teams going into the season. If he can increase his goalscoring to the 20 or more mark, he will become an even more dangerous threat from the blue line – and he’s pretty lethal already. What more can he do? It’s going to be exciting to find out.
Points: Elias Pettersson
Elias Pettersson had a “down” season according to many experts, yet he still finished with 34 goals and 89 points – the second-highest point total of his career. The “down” part comes from the second half of the season, specifically after he dominated the month of January with 14 goals and 21 points in 13 games. He reportedly suffered an injury during that stretch, which nagged at him until the Canucks were eliminated by the Oilers in May. He only had seven goals and 21 points to finish the season, and a paltry one goal and six points in the playoffs.
After an offseason of rest, Pettersson should be back to his normal self once the puck drops on Oct. 9. He will also have some new linemates to pass to in (presumably) Jake DeBrusk, and either Nils Hoglander, Daniel Sprong or Danton Heinen. The hope is that he can build the same chemistry that Boeser has with Miller with at least one of the newbies, and form another dynamic duo on the second line. If that happens, he should see an increase in points and maybe, just maybe hit the century mark for the second time in three seasons. Miller, of course, will also be in the running after leading the team with 103 points last season, but I am giving Pettersson the slight edge, more so to send some good vibes his way going into 2024-25.
Power Play Goals: Brock Boeser
This is a toss-up between Boeser, Pettersson, and Miller, but I am going with Boeser again to lead the team in power-play goals. He had 16 last season, three ahead of Pettersson and six ahead of Miller, and with his newfound prowess in front of the net, he should be able to score at least that many again. According to NHL EDGE, he scored 22 goals in either the crease (five) or the middle quadrant in front of the net (17), which ranked in the 98th percentile of the league. He has become very proficient in the high-danger areas of the ice, which should serve him well on the power play again this season.
Hits: Dakota Joshua or Kiefer Sherwood
Dakota Joshua led the way in this department last season, throwing his weight around to the tune of 245 hits. Coming in second was Miller with 217, but considering Joshua only played 63 games to Miller’s 81, the small gap between the two is a bit inaccurate. Joshua averaged 3.88 hits per game, so over an 81-game season, he would have finished with 314 hits, far and away ahead of Miller. All that to say is that Joshua will lead the team in hits again this season. The only guy that has a chance to keep pace with him is fellow hit parade participant, Kiefer Sherwood, who finished with 234 hits over 68 games with the Predators. When all is said and done, if both of them stay healthy, the Canucks could have two players eclipse the 300-mark.
Average Time on Ice: Quinn Hughes
Hughes has been a workhorse on the blue line ever since he entered the league full-time in 2019-20. He has averaged 24:07 in time-on-ice over his career so far and has eclipsed the 25-minute mark in two of the last three seasons. He saw a small dip in ice time last season to 24:41 compared to 25:40, but that difference is negligible. Every head coach from Travis Green to Rick Tocchet has relied on him in every situation, throwing him out there whenever they can. The now Canucks captain and EA Sports cover athlete will be seen a lot again this season as I don’t see Tocchet reducing his ice time anytime soon.
Plus/Minus: Quinn Hughes
What do you know, it’s Hughes again. With how much ice he carves out there (according to NHL EDGE he skated 289.33 miles in 2023-24) and how much he’s involved in the offence, it makes sense that he would have a high plus/minus. He hasn’t always been proficient in this stat, but he’s come a long way from the minus-24 that he posted in 2020-21 when people were still questioning his defensive skills. He led the team with a gaudy plus-38 last season, which also ranked fourth in the league behind Mattias Ekholm, Dylan DeMelo and Gustav Forsling. If the Canucks keep up the same structurally-sound system and get good goaltending this season, he should lead the way in this stat again.
Canucks’ Stars Should Have Another Productive Season
Overall, the Canucks should have another season with their stars making noise on the stats sheet. I don’t see the core of Miller, Boeser, Pettersson, and Hughes slowing down, and with the additions of Heinen, Sprong, DeBrusk and Sherwood, they should have a lot of scoring depth to help them out. In any case, the season is just around the corner, and Oct. 9 can’t come soon enough!
