Teddy Blueger probably won’t remember his 2025-26 season with the Vancouver Canucks as one of his best. It was the worst team performance of his career, by far, and only the second time in his eight-year NHL career that he’s missed the playoffs (with last year being the first). It was also his most injury-laden campaign to date, with Blueger missing chunks of preseason, all but two games in October, all of November and December, and the majority of January, too.

But on a purely personal level, this could be considered Blueger’s best showing to date.

It was an odd season, to be sure, but one in which Blueger did the best he could with the minimal opportunity and support he received. Good enough, perhaps, for Blueger to earn a contract extension despite the organization’s move toward a rebuild.

His impact has been that positive.

It’s hard to talk about Blueger’s 2025-26 experience without talking about the injuries, so we’ll start there.

Blueger played in four preseason games, but sustained an undisclosed injury somewhere in there that was listed as “week-to-week,” and would ultimately keep him out of the first couple games of the regular season.

He returned on October 17 against Chicago, scored a goal two nights later against Washington, and then exited the lineup again. This latest injury was undisclosed, though it was later described as “lower body,” and it was unclear whether it was related to the first ailment. Either way, it would keep Blueger out of the lineup considerably longer.

Blueger himself described what happened next: “There were two setbacks throughout the process. I think the whole timeline ended up being double, if not more, than what kind of I originally anticipated.”

That doubled timeline wound up keeping Blueger away from October 19 all the way through to January 21. In the meantime, the Canucks had already fallen well out of the playoff race. But Blueger, for his part, picked up right where he left off, and then some.

There’s just no rest for a veteran body on an active Adam Foote roster. Blueger played 18:24 on that January 21 return, and would average 16:31 on the year, easily the most ice-time he’s ever received.

From January 21 onward, Blueger received 14:37 of even-strength ice-time a night, just four seconds behind Elias Pettersson at 14:41. In many ways, Blueger was played as a 2C down the stretch, and at times as a 1C. And, to be fair, he earned those minutes in several ways.

Blueger went through a couple tough stretches, including a four-game pointless streak in late February, a ten-game pointless streak in March, and a three-game pointless streak to end the season. Other than that, he got on the scoreboard most nights, ultimately ending up with nine goals and 17 points in 35 games.

That’s a pace for 21 goals and 40 points over a full 82-game schedule. Those would be career numbers across the board. This was Blueger’s best goal-per-game season ever, by a long shot, and his second-best point-per-game season. His only more productive season came in 2020-21 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, a team that featured names like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jake Guentzel.

Keep in mind, this 2025-26 performance came on the second-lowest scoring roster in the league. Put it another way: Blueger was directly in on about 19% of the Canucks’ goals from January 21 onward.

That’s pretty remarkable from a player who started out as either a 3C or perhaps even a 4C on the pre-season depth chart. Even more so from a player earning just a $1.8 million cap hit, well-below league-average and barely doubling the league minimum. Even more so when we consider that Blueger’s most common linemates were a rookie (Linus Karlsson) and two almost-rookies (Max Sasson and Liam Öhgren).

In fact, we’d hazard a comment that Blueger probably didn’t get enough credit for what turned out to be better-than-solid years for that trio of youngsters.

But since we’ve mentioned Blueger’s expected role as a bottom-six centre here, we better move this discussion beyond just the offence.

The defensive side of the game is a little tougher to parse for any 2025-26 Canuck. As bad as they were offensively, they were even worse defensively. Their 314 goals against were 19 more than the second-worst team (Toronto with 295).

So, of course, Blueger’s own defensive statline isn’t exactly sparkling. Pick a fancy stat, and it was probably the worst showing of Blueger’s career to date – a 43.79% Corsi, a 42.43% share of shots, a 41.92% rate of expected goals, and a dismal 40.42% control of scoring chances, all at even-strength.

Blueger and his linemates were outscored 19-34 at five-on-five.

But then, what more could anyone expect in a season like this? A season in which Blueger was asked to take on an increasingly difficult quality of competition, as demonstrated by this chart:

Keep in mind, Blueger was taking on those defensive matchups while supporting inexperienced wingers, and if he didn’t manage to keep his head above water, he at least avoided outright drowning.

It’s hard to measure his impact on a league-worst penalty kill unit, either, but it did seem to get at least a little bit better with Blueger on the ice, as one would expect.

To take all this on, and to still wind up with a career-high scoring pace, is actually pretty remarkable. It makes it all the more surprising that no other team managed to pry Blueger loose at or near the Trade Deadline.

On that, it makes the most sense to believe those reports that said there were offers for Blueger on the table, but that the Canucks set the price high and never had it met. It was further speculated that this was also an indication that the Canucks intend on re-signing Blueger, if they are able. Heck, some have even suggested it’s time for Blueger to get a letter on his chest!

That will have to be a decision made by a new Vancouver GM. But it’s hard to look at this season of work and not say that Blueger has earned an extension. In a season where the entire team around him took a step back, Blueger stepped up, and that’s got to count for something.

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