The first full season under head coach Rick Tocchet was a successful one as the Vancouver Canucks not only made the playoffs but won the Pacific Division and were one win away from the Western Conference Final. Fans also saw Quinn Hughes win the Norris Trophy after a career-high 92 points, JT Miller hit 100 points for the first time, and Brock Boeser surge to 40 goals. Those were just three milestones that were hit last season, and there will be plenty more to come in 2024-25, including another big one for the superstar who leads the blue line.
Quinn Hughes Set to Become All-Time Leading Scorer Amongst Defencemen
Yes, you read that correctly, at 24 years old and only in his sixth season in the NHL, Hughes could become the Canucks’ all-time leading scorer amongst defencemen. Right now, Alex Edler holds that title with 409 points, but Hughes has been hot on his tail ever since he entered the league full-time in 2019-20. He has 333 points in 365 games and needs only 77 to pass Edler and become king of the mountain. If Hughes continues at the pace he’s going at, no one will be able to catch him by the time his career is over. In fact, he could even touch the 1,000-point mark that only eight have hit in NHL history.
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Hughes is by far the best defenceman the Canucks have ever had. No disrespect to Edler, Jyrki Lumme, Mattias Ohlund, Ed Jovanovski, Doug Lidster, and Kevin Bieksa, but none of them were the generational talent Hughes is. He almost became the 16th defenceman to hit the century mark in points last season, something he will probably do at some point in his career. Heck, he could be in the company of all-time greats Bobby Orr and Paul Coffey when he retires.
As for when Hughes will officially become the leading scorer amongst Canucks defencemen, he had 77 points after his 68th game last season, so I would expect it to be sometime between March 15-18 when the Canucks are on a three-game homestand.
JT Miller
- 800 games
- 700 career points
- 500 points in a Canucks uniform
- 150 goals in a Canucks uniform
Miller will hit the 800-game milestone whenever he plays his first game of the season. Barring an injury, that will be against the Calgary Flames on Oct. 9 at Rogers Arena. He debuted in the NHL on Feb. 5, 2013, at 19 years old, and has suited up for 798 games since then along with 238 goals, 401 assists, and 639 points. 364 of those games have come with the Canucks, eclipsing the 341 he logged with the New York Rangers.
Miller could also hit 700 career points with another 61 points this season. That is almost a guarantee given what he’s done in Vancouver so far. The only time he had fewer than that was during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season where he put up 46 points in 53 games. Last season he scored his 61st point in his 45th game, so that means he should hit 700 points sometime in January 2025.
Five hundred points in the Orca is also possible for Miller. He currently sits at 402 points and only needs 98 to eclipse that mark. The 500-point club only houses six other former Canucks – Thomas Gradin (550), Stan Smyl (673), Trevor Linden (733), Markus Naslund (756), Daniel Sedin (1,041), and Henrik Sedin (1,070) – so he would be entering Canucks royalty with that milestone.
And finally, Miller is seven goals away from 150 in a Canucks uniform, something only 17 other players have done in franchise history. He would join Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser as active players and nine others who either have their jerseys retired or live in the Ring of Honour. He scored his seventh on Nov. 6 last season, so he should secure this milestone pretty quickly into 2024-25.
Elias Pettersson
- 500 points
- 200 goals
Pettersson nearly had another 100-point season in 2023-24, but came 11 points short. If he hadn’t been injured and went into a slump that saw him score only seven goals and 25 points after January, he would have blown past it. He had 14 goals and 21 points in that month alone, then reportedly suffered an injury that nagged at him for the rest of the season. Hopefully, that is behind him now and he can return to the point-producing ways that had him score a career-high 102 points and secured him his current $11.6 million average annual value (AAV) contract. If he does, he will eclipse 500 points in his career and join the same six-man club Miller is gunning for.
Pettersson is also 30 goals away from 200 in his career. Even though he had a frustrating end to the season, he still finished with 34 goals and 89 points, the second-best total of his career. If he gets to 200 goals and 500 points, he will join an exclusive group of Swedes, which only contains 30 in the former and 35 in the latter.
Tyler Myers
- 1,000 games
- 100 career goals
Tyler Myers re-upped with the Canucks in the offseason on a three-year deal, which means he will be in the blue and green when he plays his 1,000th game in the NHL. He is currently only five games away and will likely hit the milestone on Oct. 19 against the Philadelphia Flyers. Selected 12th overall by the Buffalo Sabres in the 2008 Draft, he won the Calder Trophy in his rookie season on the back of 11 goals and 48 points. He then spent parts of six seasons in Buffalo before being dealt to the Winnipeg Jets in a massive seven-player trade that brought back Evander Kane and Zach Bogosian. After 270 games with the Jets, he signed a five-year deal with the Canucks in free agency.
Myers has played 360 games with the Canucks and is only five games from matching the same amount he had with the Sabres. By the time his contract is over, he will have played more with the Canucks than the team that drafted him. While he has never lived up to the Calder Trophy-winning season he had in Buffalo, he’s become a pretty solid two-way defenceman that can be relied on to log time on special teams, and now, even be a shutdown option. One thousand games is a pretty huge mark for a defenceman to reach as only 176 have done it in the history of the NHL.
In addition to the guaranteed 1,000-game mark, Myers could score his 100th goal in the NHL if he can bury seven this season. Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against him as the last time he did that was back in 2018-19 when he had nine.
Brock Boeser
- 200 goals
- 400 points
- 500 career games
Boeser should hit three personal milestones this season. He needs only 21 goals to grab his 200th, 16 points to hit 400, and 21 games to log 500 in the NHL. He had 21 goals by Dec. 12 last season, so that could be done before the calendar turns to 2025. 400 points will come much sooner, though, as he had 16 by Oct. 24. Finally, 500 games should come on Nov. 27 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, barring injury, of course. Basically, if everything goes well, Boeser should have this trio of milestones wrapped up before the middle of December.
Other Milestones to Watch For
- Jake DeBrusk – 500 games, 300 points
- Danton Heinen – 500 games, 100 goals
- Nils Hoglander – 100 points
- Filip Hronek – 400 games
- Daniel Sprong – 400 games, 100 goals, 200 points
Canucks Should Have Another Great Season
After the third-best record in franchise history at 50-23-9, expectations will be high this season to either match or eclipse it. The Canucks certainly have the roster to do it with one of the best one-two punches down the middle, a Norris Trophy defender leading the blue line and a Vezina Trophy-caliber goaltender in the crease. They also have the reigning Jack Adams Trophy winner behind the bench. GM of the Year finalist Patrik Allvin even managed to upgrade his team in free agency, making it deeper and tougher to play against. The Canucks should be comfortably in the playoff picture again, and hopefully, the personal milestones described above will just be the icing on the cake of a Stanley Cup-winning season.
