Canucks Army Player Profiles: Jannik Hansen

Don’t worry, guys! Of the two guys on the Canucks named Jannik/Yannick, this isn’t the one who completely destroys referees with hits that he’s clearly learned from tier-one murderer-on-ice Jake Virtanen. 

This is the one who brings his own folding chair to the game. 

(Yeah, I’m not ready for this season either.)

Jannik Hansen seems to follow the trend of pretty much every other Danish player in the NHL; fast, shifty, and seemingly allergic to scoring 20 goals in a single season (hello, Mikkel Boedker, hello Lars Eller). 

Born in a suburb of Copenhagen, Hansen didn’t begin playing hockey until he was eleven — and although he’s openly admitted that the lack of Danish-born NHLers when he was growing up left him without a desire to head to North America and go pro, Vancouver’s selection of the right shot right wing 287th overall in 2004 changed the course of his career for good. 

Since the year after Vancouver drafted Hansen, he’s only played in North America. He opted to leave pro hockey in Denmark and Sweden — Hansen has played for both the Rødovre Mighty Bulls of the Danish hockey league and Sweden’s Malmo Redhawks prior to crossing the pond — to spend a year with the Portland Winterhawks of the WHL. He went pro in North America during the Canucks 2006-07 playoff run and has never looked back.

Hansen holds the distinction of being one of eight players on Vancouver’s full-time roster who has never played for another organization or their affiliates; he’s also the first Danish born and raised player to record a point in the NHL post-season. Only Frans Nielsen — who is the only Danish-born skater to score twenty goals in a single season, a feat he’s only accomplished once — has recorded more NHL points than Hansen, and Hansen’s 64 post-season games are the most by a Danish-born player to date. 

Hansen is a member of the Danish Men’s National Ice Hockey team, and he’s competed in three U18 tournaments, three U20 WJC, one Olympic Games, and five World Championships. 

As mentioned above, Hansen is one of a handful of Danish-born players allergic to scoring 20 or more regular season goals. His advanced numbers, though, are (I can’t think of a better way to put it) hella consistent. Jannik Hansen plays high middle-six minutes, and he produces — in scoring, possession, and playmaking — like a high-end middle six forward. 

One good thing about Hansen is that, despite going through hot streaks, his cold streaks are never completely worthless. You don’t lose Hansen on the ice when he isn’t scoring — he’s still setting up plays and helping drive possession, he’s still giving you good defensive support — so even when he isn’t finding the back of the net, he’s still worth having on the ice. The same can’t be said of every hot-and-cold goal scorer, so that gives Hansen the edge over some of his contemporaries.

Unless Hansen has magically developed a tolerance to his 20-goal allergy, expect somewhere around 15 goals and 30-ish points from the 29 year old winger. He’s never been anything but reliable in his slightly-above-average stats, and last year certainly didn’t see any regression, so there’s little reason to believe he won’t stay the course. 

Always a fan-friendly guy with a good sense of humor, Hansen is a nice piece to keep in the locker room heading into a season like the Canucks may be primed to have; even if they end up absolutely collapsing, it’s hard to believe that Hansen won’t both keep it together on the ice and when facing the camera. 

The biggest thing to watch for with Hansen, of course, is his seemingly uncanny ability to get injured in really silly ways. Broken thumbs, broken hands, and that ridiculous collision with his own goalie last year have kept the Danish forward from recording more than two full NHL seasons over his career. 

Milestones