As the Vancouver Canucks put a tumultuous 2025 behind them, we all await to see what the new year will bring for the beleaguered hockey club. Regardless of where the Canucks sit in the National Hockey League standings, there will always be heavy interest in the daily dealings of the top professional sports team in this market. We just don’t know at this point what the key talking points will be over the next 12 months. But we can guess.

Here are eight storylines that are likely to produce plenty of discussion over the course of 2026:

How will new-look Canucks fare over the second half of the season?

As the new year approaches, the Canucks are as healthy as they’ve been since the second week of the season. How will that impact the hockey club’s ability to compete over the second half of the schedule? After the Quinn Hughes trade to the Minnesota Wild, Adam Foote has more forward depth than he’s had in months. He also has a star-level netminder that is bound to get the majority of the starts. Additionally, the Canucks have a run of games over the next month that should give them an opportunity to secure points. All of this suggests the Canucks may very well work their way up the standings, which in turn could significantly impact their position in the draft lottery. Are the Canucks headed for a return to the mushy middle? Or have they dug themselves a hole that is simply too deep to climb out of?

While many in the fanbase are rooting for the Canucks to remain at the bottom of the standings, the team itself surely has other designs. So it’s going to be worth monitoring the type of lineup the coaching staff elects to go with on a nightly basis. Are the Canucks playing to win every night the rest of the way? Or will the front office take steps to peel players from the roster, making it more difficult for the coaching staff to guide the team to any sort of success?

Will management commit to the necessary steps to methodically reconstruct the roster?

When the Canucks dealt Hughes to the Wild, President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford used the word ‘rebuild’ in the team press release announcing the trade. Since then, however, Patrik Allvin has described the club as being ‘in a retool of the hybrid form.” Regardless of the terminology used to describe it, is management fully aligned and committed to sticking to the rebuild/retool and acting like a franchise intent on doing things required to methodically build a championship contender? And what if the team – as noted above – starts to have success and flirts with the playoff bar in a weakened Western Conference? The Canucks can’t have it both ways.

If they’re all in on a rebuild, then it’s imperative that the front office doesn’t get fooled by any sort of mid-season surge should it occur. This is an organization that is in no position to part with assets to add to the current roster. If young players show promise and continue to develop, that’s terrific. That’s what the fans want to see. Give those young players ample opportunities over the second half of this season. But as an organization, be prepared to accept the results if those young players still show signs of growing pains with their performance.

Kiefer Sherwood trade

The Vancouver Canucks need to maximize the return on a Kiefer Sherwood trade. As much as Sherwood has done for the hockey club with his goal scoring and his physical play, the team simply can’t afford to commit to yet another 30-something winger with a long-term contract.

It’s unfortunate because Sherwood is the kind of player the Canucks should want on their roster. But with Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk and Connor Garland all locked up long-term well into their 30s, Sherwood is a victim of the numbers game with the Canucks. So a trade only makes sense. And Sherwood should be one of the most coveted assets ahead of the March 6th trade deadline.

Can the Canucks find a partner willing to offer a first-round draft pick? That’s certainly the hope. At the very least, the Canucks should be able to snag a second-rounder plus other assets. At a time when the organization is looking to harvest picks and prospects, a successful Kiefer Sherwood trade should go a long way to helping the Canucks reset the team’s path.

Is there a market for the team’s other pending UFAs?

While there is no question the Canucks will have multiple bidders for Sherwood’s services, moving the remainder of the club’s pending unrestricted free agents offers far more uncertainty. Evander Kane has not done much to boost his trade stock this season. He won’t be sought after by every team in the league. That’s for sure. But is there one team that thinks the 34-year-old can still do enough that it’s willing to make the Canucks some kind of offer?

David Kämpf has shown next to nothing offensively since signing with the Canucks in mid-November, but he has defensive utility and can kill penalties. Is there any kind of market for a player with that sort of profile? Beyond that, both Teddy Blueger and Derek Forbort would have likely been trade chips for the Canucks to turn into late-round draft picks, but neither has played a game since mid-October. That certainly hurts their trade stock, and it’s now fair to wonder if it has curtailed any interest at all that playoff-bound teams would have in either veteran. The hunch here is that indeed it has.

Draft Lottery

Cross your fingers, and your toes, too. And grab a rabbit’s foot and any other kind of lucky charm you can find while you’re at it. The Canucks will likely need some lottery luck when the ping pong balls are drawn from the hopper. In a year with several potential game breakers at the top of the draft, how the Canucks fare in the lottery could very well shape the story of the franchise’s future. The date for the lottery draw has yet to be finalized, but no single day on the 2026 calendar may hold more meaning for the Canucks and their fans. This is an organization that has not enjoyed much good fortune when it comes to lotteries through the years. So maybe, just maybe, the Canucks are due.

NHL Draft

The lottery will set the order, but the draft itself is when the Canucks – and all of the other teams – will see how the NHL’s annual talent showcase plays out. While it’s fully expected the Canucks will have one of the top picks based on their place in their standings, the club will have at least one other selection in the first round (Minnesota’s first round pick). And depending on the outcome of the expected Kiefer Sherwood deal, it’s conceivable the Canucks could have three first-round selections. Dare to dream.

The opening round of the draft is where the bulk of the difference makers come from in the NHL. And the Canucks are badly in need of some game-changing talent up front. We’ll have to see how many first-rounders the Canucks ultimately wind up with, but the 2026 NHL Draft has the potential to be a watershed day in the history of the hockey club.

Will Braeden Cootes be ready for a full-time NHL job in September?

As the Vancouver Canucks go about reshaping their roster, one of the key pieces in their plans is already in the system. The team’s top pick in last June’s draft has already played NHL games. The question is, will Braeden Cootes be ready to stick with the big club next September?

Just 18, Cootes showed so well through his first big league training camp and preseason that he was on the Canucks opening night roster and logged three games before being returned to his junior team in Seattle. A smart, two-way, right-handed centre who projects to be a big part of what the Canucks are trying to put together, it’s going to be interesting to see what another year of junior does for the Sherwood Park, AB native’s growth and development.

Will he be ready to make the jump to the NHL on a full-time basis? Or will he be better served to hone his game in AHL Abbotsford under a new wrinkle in the CBA that will allow 19-year-olds to play in the minors? Cootes has had a solid six months since draft day, proving doubters wrong by making the Canucks and then earning a spot on Canada’s World Junior Team. Don’t be surprised if he’s ready for more NHL action beginning next October.

Are ticket-buying fans prepared to support the rebuild?

Canucks fans purchasing season tickets last summer thought they were buying into a competitive team trying to prove to Quinn Hughes that Vancouver was a place he could win the Stanley Cup. Hughes no longer plays here, and that trade puts the immediate direction of the hockey club in a state of flux.

Fans will have a decision to make this offseason. Will they stick around for what could be a few more lean years? The Canucks have not exactly inspired with their play on home ice over the last season and a half. So you can understand if some of the paying customers decide to pass on renewing their season seats. It’s a massive investment of both time and money. There are already prominent patches of empty seats at Rogers Arena almost every night these days, and with 22 of the final 35 games on home ice, that is a lot of inventory for the hockey club to fill. It wasn’t that long ago that there was a lengthy sellout streak intact, with a waiting list for season tickets to help support it. That is no longer the case. So will a fan base that wants a rebuild pay top dollar to support it? Or will we see attendance at home games take a dip for the remainder of this season and continue into the 2026-27 schedule?

Fans in this market want to support a winner. However, they haven’t had that opportunity often enough over the past dozen years. So will they continue to head downtown to see NHL games in person? Or perhaps 2026 will be the year we start to see fans stay away in significant numbers, and dwindling attendance at Canucks games becomes a legitimate story.

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