CanucksArmy’s Hot Take Survivor Episode 1: Our Canucks takes and the stakes!

10 months ago

Another brutally long offseason is almost over, and another hotly-anticipated season of Canucks hockey is nearly upon us!

What better way to move on from a painfully forgettable season than by playing a game of CanucksArmy Hot Take Survivor in anticipation of the team’s 2023-24 campaign.

2022-23 saw the Canucks go winless through their first seven games, fire their head coach, trade their captain, and trade 1st and 2nd round picks for four games of a bonafide top-four defenceman ahead of missing playoffs for the eighth time in 10 seasons.

What will 2023-24 bring to a team desperate for a better start, a better finish, and a better everything, really?

To help prepare for another season of Canucks hockey, we decided to play a game of CanucksArmy Hot Take Survivor. Acting as the de facto host, Jeff Probst, I reached out to all of our CanucksArmy contributors for their hottest takes for the 2023-24 season.

To make things fun and exciting, we’ve decided to list them anonymously to solicit your votes and eliminate the coldest of the hot takes, one by one, until the HOTTEST TAKE survives. Thus, declaring CanucksArmy’s first-ever Hot Take Survivor winner.

With that, here are your Hot Take contestants for this season:

1. Elias Pettersson will edge out Connor McDavid for the Art Ross Trophy in the final game of the regular season

Our first contestant is betting on the potential of “contract year” Elias Pettersson but is keeping it real enough by acknowledging that the race for Art Ross supremacy will come down to the wire. Is Pettersson the one to end Connor McDavid’s Art Ross win streak at three years? Or is this contributor’s hot take bringing a little too much heat to the kitchen?

2. Akito Hirose plays his way into the top four and becomes Filip Hronek’s partner for years to come

Our second contributor loved what they saw of Akito Hirose last season. Is betting on Hirose outplaying the likes of Ian Cole, Carson Soucy, or Christian Wolanin to be the club’s second-pair LD in his first full NHL season a sizzling hot take? Is the heat even on?

3. Arturs Silovs will play more NHL games than Spencer Martin this season

Spencer Martin was one of the first casualties of the 2022-23 Canucks atrocious season. After 10 straight losses on the backs of a 0.726 save percentage, Martin found his way back in the AHL, where he re-found his game while posting the second-best save percentage of his AHL career. Arturs Silovs turned heads with his MVP and bronze medal-winning performance at the World Hockey Championships. At 22-years-old, is Silovs’ outplaying Martin as the Canucks backup netminder a hot take or an expectation of the inevitable?

4. The Canucks finish top 10 in the league for fewest goals allowed at 5v5, but bottom 10 in 5v5 goals scored

Hahahahahahaha. Pain.

Like Silovs over Martin, is this prediction a hot take? Or is this a level of pain that Canucks fans are way too used to?

5. Anthony Beauvillier will sign a contract extension with the Canucks before Elias Pettersson does

Throughout this “fun” exercise, it dawned on me that CanucksArmy staffers are mentally preparing themselves for the worst-case scenario for next season. This may be one of the hottest takes on the docket, but Canucks defeatism may not allow it to win. The likelihood of this happening is too terrifying to fathom.

6. Nils Höglander will become a 25-goal scorer

Finally, another positive hot take!

Höglander led all Abbotsford skaters with 3 goals and 6 points during the Calder Cup Playoffs. He was head and shoulders above his competition and consistently gave Abbotsford a fighting chance against the AHL’s leading team of the regular season, the Calgary Wranglers. Carrying that confidence forward into a full-time NHL spot next season is one thing; becoming a 25-goal scorer in his NHL return is another! We like the heat of this take. But what about you?

7. Quinn Hughes scores 20 goals

Between Elias Pettersson scoring more points than McDavid, Nils Höglander scoring 25 goals, and Quinn Hughes scoring 20, it’s clear that CanucksArmy contributors are optimistic that the YOUTHS can take charge this season. Cracking 20 goals would almost triple Hughes’ career-high (8). This take here’s a sizzler. But is it possible?

8. Andrei Kuzmenko scores 50 goals and finishes the season with the highest-viewed Canucks goal on YouTube by the end of the season

The last 50-goal campaign came from Pavel Bure in 1997-98. Kuzmenko cracking the 50-goal plateau would likely earn him a bronze statue outside of Rogers Arena. Especially if the team made the playoffs. Holding the highest-viewest Canucks goal on YouTube would be icing on the cake. Too cold? Too hot? Or just right?

Voting

Let us know in the comments how you would rate CanucksArmy’s Hot Takes by the best/most amusing concept with the greatest likelihood of actually happening. One contributor’s take will outwit, outplay, and outlast the others, and it’s up to you to help us determine who has one aspect of next season figured out already!

Next week, we’ll reveal our votes and yours in determining the first elimination from Hot Take Survivor.

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