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31 days, 31 questions: What should the Canucks be concerned about heading into 2026-27?
Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Aug 21, 2026, 14:05 EDTUpdated: Aug 21, 2026, 14:04 EDT
Welcome to a new series here at CanucksArmy, where over the month of August we’ll ask a new question each day about the Vancouver Canucks. We’re calling it “31 days, 31 questions”. Today, we’re looking into what the Canucks should be concerned about heading into next season.
After finishing last in the NHL during the 2025-26 season, there isn’t much mystery surrounding the Vancouver Canucks‘ expectations for 2026-27.
The Canucks have committed to a rebuild under a new management group and head coach Manny Malhotra, where development will carry more weight than the standings, and another spring without playoff hockey is far more likely than a sudden return to contention. But that doesn’t make the results irrelevant.
Vancouver still needs to establish which problems were symptoms of a disastrous season and which ones could follow the club into the next stage of its rebuild, and there were plenty to choose from last season.
Here are five areas the Canucks should be concerned about heading into the new season:
Can they generate enough at five-on-five?
Despite finding something on the power play late last season, even the best special teams cannot completely cover for an offence that struggles to create at even strength. Vancouver scored only 210 goals last season, and its underlying numbers help explain why.
According to NHL EDGE, the Canucks finished 24th in high-danger shots on goal, 27th in mid-range shots and 27th in offensive-zone time. They also ranked 28th in shot-attempt differential at minus-3.9 per game. That’s beyond just poor luck finishing.
Jake DeBrusk somehow led all NHL players with 121 high-danger shots on goal. Yet, the Canucks still finished in the bottom third of the league in that category as a team, routinely spending too little time attacking and generating too few opportunities from the areas where goals are most frequently scored.
There has also been substantial turnover among last season’s goal scorers. Kiefer Sherwood and Evander Kane combined for 30 goals before leaving, while Conor Garland, Teddy Blueger, and Nils Höglander are also gone.
The bottom line is that Vancouver needs to find more ways to create offence when both teams have five skaters on the ice. If that doesn’t happen, the Canucks could once again spend too much of the season waiting for their power play to rescue them.
Which Elias Pettersson shows up?
At some point, Elias Pettersson has to become more than a bounce-back candidate.
The 27-year-old finished last season with 15 goals and 51 points in 74 games, setting a new career low with 0.69 points per game. Since the 2024 All-Star break, Pettersson has produced at approximately a 58-point pace over 82 games after averaging close to a point per game through the first several seasons of his career.
Pettersson recorded only 39 shots from high-danger areas last season, matching his 2024-25 total after generating 80 in 2022-23. NHL EDGE also placed him in the 74th percentile for speed bursts between 32 and 35 kilometres per hour, down from around the 85th percentile earlier in his career.
His decline appears most visibly in how he attacks. Pettersson once drove play by carrying the puck through the middle, challenging defenders one-on-one and forcing opponents to react to him, and Vancouver needs to see some of that swagger and craftsmanship return.
A rebuilding team can live with a down year from almost anybody. However, it gets more complicated when the struggling player is supposed to occupy a premium position at a premium salary for most of the rebuild.
He doesn’t need to return to 100 points for the season to be a success, but another year around 50 while remaining passive with the puck would leave Vancouver with an even more distressed asset than it already has.
Can the goaltending hold up?
Thatcher Demko may have the widest range of possible outcomes of anybody on the Canucks roster. When healthy, he has shown he can perform at a Vezina Trophy level, but staying healthy has become the primary issue.
Demko started only 23 games in 2024-25 and 20 last season before undergoing hip surgery. He has not handled anything resembling a full starting workload since 2023-24.
Now his three-year extension begins at an $8.5-million cap hit with a full no-movement clause, which would be less concerning if Vancouver had received reliable goaltending behind him.
Kevin Lankinen went 11-27-5 in 43 starts last season and posted an .876 save percentage, the seventh-lowest mark among the 68 NHL goaltenders who played at least 1,000 minutes. Natural Stat Trick also had the Canucks allowing the second-most high-danger scoring chances in the league, so Lankinen was hardly working behind an ideal environment.
Still, that leaves Vancouver relying on either a healthy Demko or a significant rebound from Lankinen. Nikita Tolopilo is another capable option, but he has yet to establish himself over a large NHL sample.
To execute a rebuild, the Canucks don’t need elite goaltending, but they do need enough stability in net to evaluate the team playing in front of it.
If Demko’s health remains an issue and Lankinen’s struggles carry over, Vancouver could once again find itself chasing games before its young players have much opportunity to settle in.
The penalty kill can’t afford another season in the 70s
Few areas fell further last season than Vancouver’s penalty kill, and it wasn’t simply a matter of goaltenders failing to make saves.
The Canucks finished 2024-25 with the NHL’s third-best penalty kill at roughly 82.7%. But by the end of last season, that number had cratered to 71.5%, placing Vancouver at the bottom of the league and among the poorest penalty-killing seasons in recent NHL history.
Earlier in the season, opponents consistently found space through the middle of Vancouver’s defensive formation and generated opportunities from dangerous areas rather than being pushed to the perimeter. Those structural issues never disappeared enough for the overall numbers to recover.
This season, the PK will be rebuilt almost from scratch.
Marcus Pettersson handled significant shorthanded minutes before being traded, while several forwards who regularly killed penalties have departed. Filip Hronek logged more than 220 shorthanded minutes last season, and veterans such as Jamie Oleksiak and Luke Schenn will likely be asked to help stabilize the group.
Malhotra and his staff don’t have to turn the Canucks into an elite penalty-killing team overnight, but 71.5% cannot become the new normal, and at some point killing penalties will need to become an organizational philosophy.
A rebuilding team will already make enough mistakes at five-on-five, so giving opponents an additional advantage every time somebody takes a penalty makes development considerably harder.
Team speed
Are the Canucks fast enough?
Max Sasson recorded the fastest Canucks burst of the season according to NHL EDGE at 38.13 kilometres per hour. That sounds impressive until you compare it with the rest of the league: Vancouver’s fastest skater ranked only 18th among the 32 individual team leaders.
The team totals were even more concerning, as Vancouver recorded only 68 bursts above 35 kilometres per hour, ranking 18th in the NHL. In the 32-to-35 km/h range, the Canucks managed 1,475 bursts, good for 27th. The Colorado Avalanche recorded 2,468 in the same range — nearly 1,000 more than Vancouver.
That lack of pace can affect nearly every part of the game: it makes it harder to pressure opponents on the forecheck, recover when possession changes, create separation through the neutral zone and turn controlled entries into dangerous scoring chances. Vancouver’s bottom-tier totals in offensive-zone time, shot generation, and scoring chances make slightly more sense in that light.
And the offseason hasn’t obviously transformed that weakness.
Paul Cotter should add pace and physicality, while younger players such as Liam Öhgren and Jonathan Lekkerimäki could help. But a roster that has also added Schenn, Oleksiak, and Brendan Gallagher does not suddenly project as one of the NHL’s quickest.
Coaches can change systems, players can improve their reads, and young legs can take on larger roles; but skating is one of the hardest deficiencies to hide over an 84-game season.
In a rebuild, identifying the problems worth fixing is part of the process, and the Canucks don’t need to solve every one of these issues in 2026-27.
What they cannot afford, however, is to reach next April with the same questions unanswered.
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Vancouver CanucksTeam Cap Summary
Cap Summary
2026-27
2027-28
Projected Cap Hit
$86,185,833
$62,923,333
Projected Cap Space
$17,814,167
$50,576,666
Current Cap Space
$17,814,167
$50,576,666
Active Players
23/23
13/23
Draft Picks
Round
'26
'27
1
2
1
2
2
2
3
1
1