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3 Canucks Stars of the Week: Willander and Lekkerimäki continue early surge

Photo credit: Bob Frid-Imagn Images

By Arielle Lalande

Nov 1, 2026, 18:29 EST

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Welcome back to Stars of the Week at Daily Faceoff Vancouver! 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!

The Vancouver Canucks have successfully done what many thought was impossible – they won a hockey game.

Jokes aside, the Canucks staged an impressive comeback against the Anaheim Ducks to win 6-5 in overtime, breaking their gruelling 10-game losing streak. Unfortunately, their good fortune seemed to begin and end there, as they lost a two-goal lead to the San Jose Sharks two days later, and fell 4-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs on October 31st.

The scariest thing about the Halloween game was not the plentiful costumes in the crowd, but the players on the ice. It feels like the Canucks spent most of the night being haunted by the ghosts of Canucks past such as Zack MacEwen, Dakota Joshua, Chris Tanev, Troy Stecher, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and Teddy Blueger – save for Luke Schenn, who seems to have a shared custody agreement between Vancouver and Toronto at this point.

Spooky scary losses aside, there are still glimmers of hope for this team despite the numbers on the final scoreboard. The Canucks are struggling to play a full 60 minutes of hockey right now, but they’re still inching toward improvement game by game, both as a group and as individuals. Let’s take a look at some of those standout individuals this week.

Jonathan Lekkerimäki

Lekkerimäki earned a star in last week’s installment, but that apparently wasn’t enough for him. He had to keep going. Lekkerimäki went on to have a three-point game against Anaheim, making his case for first star this week, too.

Lekkerimäki, man. Hot damn, that kid can shoot the puck. #Canucks

— Daniel Wagner (@passittobulis.bsky.social) 2026-10-28T04:36:21.853Z

His four-point week was launched with his two-goal-and-an-assist outing versus the Ducks, and he’s more than earned his jump in ice time. Lekkerimäki has been playing mostly middle-six minutes this season, but this week his total TOI climbed to over 19 minutes in not one, but two games. The overtime win in Anaheim makes sense, but he also played a round 19 minutes against the Leafs on Saturday night – a real vote of confidence from Manny Malhotra behind the bench. Lekkerimäki’s increased deployment is a rightful reward for a forward who is having an incredible breakout moment.

Tom Willander

Willander’s success has been somewhat understated because of the overall state of the team, but he has become one of Vancouver’s stronger blueliners this year. He is starting to look more and more like the player that was promised when he was drafted in 2023. Overall, he’s looked even more confident as a puck mover, has been a reliable force playing 5-on-5, and is already averaging almost five minutes more in average ice time than his rookie season. On the topic of ice time, Willander looked positively exhausted getting back to the bench after a three-minute shift against the Sharks, which definitely confirms the workhorse status that he’s working toward.

sarah

@sleeplesshockey

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they've got tom willander in some sort of medieval torture device

3:10 AM · Oct 30, 2026

Brock Boeser

Boeser has been struggling to stand out this season, but this week was one of his strongest weeks this year so far. Part of it could be his chemistry on the top line with Jake DeBrusk and his oldest pal on the team, Elias Pettersson. Or maybe it could be the pep talk over text he received from longtime Canucks fan Michael Bublé – not a joke; that did, in fact, happen.

Boeser scored two highlight-reel-worthy goals this week and even powered through blocking a shot with his foot against San Jose, which looked like it could be serious, before he was back on the bench and rallied for the rest of the game.

Brock Boeser is going as Pavel Bure for Halloween, apparently. Strong finish to Brocktober as well. #Canucks

— Lachlan Irvine (@lachinthecrease.com) 2026-10-31T23:39:03.493Z

Although Brocktober was quite muted this year, he finished it on a high note.

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