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3 Canucks Stars of the Week: Brock Boeser nets 7th career hat trick
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Photo credit: © Nick Wosika-Imagn Images
Arielle Lalande
Apr 6, 2026, 12:07 EDT
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Welcome back to Stars of the Week at CanucksArmy! Every week, we’ll be bringing you our Top Three best and brightest performers on the Vancouver Canucks that week. Disagree with our picks or have your own stars to nominate? Let us know in the comments below!
So, the good news this week is that the Vancouver Canucks have suddenly remembered that they have to produce offence to have a chance at winning games. The bad news is that this happened with exactly six games left in the season, after they were already eliminated from playoff contention.
The phrases “bad timing” and “a little of Column A, a little of Column B” could probably describe the Canucks of the last 5-7 years in general, but it is still a joy to see they absolutely never run out of surprises – good or bad. 
This week, the Canucks put up the funniest performance they could think of and beat the number one team in the league, the Colorado Avalanche, 8-6. It was a ridiculous scenario to be in, and as much as the team and the fanbase alike should take the win and cherish it, it doesn’t overshadow how close it came to total collapse. The Avalanche fought back in the final period and almost came out with the win. Besides, it would have made perfect sense for the Canucks to fumble a sure thing at the penultimate moment completely. Thankfully, sense was nowhere to be seen at Ball Arena that night. The typical rules of laws and physics simply were not present. It was an outlier of a game, and a bonkers one at that. 
The universe was back in order for the remainder of Vancouver’s games this week, from a 4-2 loss against John Tortorella’s Vegas Golden Knights (one of the strangest sentences to type, still) a 5-2 loss to Quinn Hughes’ Minnesota Wild (an increasingly more familiar sentence to type) and finally, a 7-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth. That’s more the speed of this year’s Canucks team. 

Rock Bottom Stats Corner

Games played this week(s): 4
Games won this week(s): 1
Goals scored this week(s): 16
Goals against this week(s): 22
Total points gained this week(s): 2
Games since last win: 2
Games won in 2026: 6
Goals scored in 2026: 88
Goals against in 2026: 159
Players traded in 2026: 7

Brock Boeser

Boeser had a six-point week overall, but four of those were in one game, so it doesn’t really count…
Just kidding!
Without a doubt, Boeser was firing on all cylinders in Vancouver’s reverse-Uno game against the top team in the league. He did, in fact, have a four-point game against the playoff-bound Colorado Avalanche. Maybe the President’s Trophy curse has a head start this year?
Boeser topped off his seventh career hat trick with an empty net goal after he struck twice in a row in the second period. Still, that empty net goal came with 90 seconds to go and gave the Canucks the two-goal lead they desperately needed to secure the win. A minute and a half is plenty enough time to change the result of a game – it was almost exactly a year ago that the Canucks scored three times in one minute and eventually took the win in overtime against the Dallas Stars. It’s not over until it’s over, and no one knows that sentiment better than the Canucks. 
This was the best April Fool’s joke of a game, but Boeser was dead serious about reminding everyone that he is still Brock Boeser. 

Linus Karlsson

We have not taken a moment to talk about Linus Karlsson in 3 Canucks Stars of the Week for far too long, and that is an oversight in every way.
Karlsson had an early-season resurgence this year and established himself as a bona fide NHLer in his late 20s, and it’s looking like he is here to stay. In his 100th NHL game against Utah this week, he scored twice; first, a beautiful backhand shot that beat Karel Vejmelka, and the second, a tip-in on a great shot from Victor Mancini at the offensive blue line. 
There’s a kind of flexibility and “I’m just happy to be here” attitude about Karlsson that is hard not to love. He doesn’t take his foot off the gas, whether he’s nursing a hot streak or not. On the subject of flexibility, Karlsson has been playing on Teddy Blueger’s wing – who also has four points in his last three games, by the way – and Max Sasson moved over to the left wing. It’s an interesting combination that has, somehow, actually been working. We are officially at the “Eh, why not” stage of the year. 
Karlsson’s a hard worker who has absolutely earned his way onto the big club’s roster. It’s a feel-good story, to be sure, but he has the results to back it up. 

Jake DeBrusk

After discussing him last week, let’s have another ode to Jake DeBrusk and his special teams hot streak. This is not simply a power play merchant. He’s running the entire trade route. He’s coordinating the power play retail economy at this point.
DeBrusk had points in all four games this week. More specifically, he scored power-play goals in three straight games against Colorado, Minnesota, and Utah. If you’re keeping track at home, that bumps him up to 38 points this season (19G, 19A). Sixteen of those goals and five further assists came on the power play, meaning roughly 55% of DeBrusk’s points this year are power play points. 
Maybe it’s some kind of mysterious road trip energy, or maybe it’s luck, or maybe it’s a late-season sprint to the finish line. Whatever it may be, DeBrusk showing up, doing precisely the thing he is supposed to do, not more, and not less, is the kind of attitude we should all have heading into Q2 of the fiscal year.
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