The 2020 offseason was one of great change for the Vancouver Canucks. But was it a caterpillar-to-butterfly sort of transformation, or a metamorphosis of the Kafkaesque variety?

In our For Better or For Worse series, we’re holding the 2021 Canucks up against the standard set by the 2019/20 roster to answer the offseason’s burningest question: did the Canucks get better, or did they get worse?

Previously, we looked at the goaltending and examined the defence.

Last time around, we told you we were tackling the forward corps, and that it would be the last edition of the column.

We lied! Today, it’s time to give some attention to the special teams.

2019/20: 24.2% (4^th)

The Canucks’ power play ranked in the upper echelons of the league throughout much of the season, and Tyler Toffoli was only around for ten of those games, so his departure from the unit may not seem like all that big a deal. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.

True, Vancouver was elite on the man advantage long before Toffoli arrived, ranking fifth in the NHL at 23.7% pre-trade. But they were even better after the addition of Toffoli — even with Brock Boeser on the IR for all but one of those ten games — clocking in at a staggering 28%.

Ultimately, Boeser is the superior player to Toffoli, and due for a rebound in the goal-scoring department, so it’s difficult to say that the Canucks really downgrade by putting their original top power play unit back together. Still, the loss of Toffoli is a loss that will be felt through the performance of the power play, regardless of who gets the minutes that would have otherwise been allocated to him. The numbers don’t lie; the Canucks simply scored power play goals at a preposterous rate with Toffoli on the ice.

Another underrated factor is the departure of Josh Leivo, who signed in Vancouver Part Deux as a free agent after suffering a season-ending injury in December. Prior to that, Leivo was actually one of the Canucks’ most effective power play forwards, putting in good work on the second unit and outproducing some of the top unit guys in terms of goals-per-60. Leivo was, in general, the best fit the Canucks found for their vacant top-six spot until they traded for Toffoli. He was, at the very least, also a nice option to have on the man advantage.

The combined loss of Toffoli and Leivo, with the only replacements coming from within the roster, adds up to a downgrade. The Canucks’ power play may still be one of the best in the league in 2021, but it should be just a little bit worse than it was at its best in 2019/20.

Nate Schmidt projects to get some minutes on the Canucks’ second unit, though he’ll be battling with Tyler Myers, Alex Edler, Olli Juolevi, and Brogan Rafferty for them. He wasn’t the first defenseman over the boards for the man advantage in Vegas, either, but Schmidt remains a valid and reasonably productive option, certainly more so than Chris Tanev, the player he’s effectively replacing on the roster.

Last season, Schmidt’s seven power play points would have tied Myers and Edler for second among Vancouver defenders.

The Canucks’ top power play unit will most likely consist of the same five players it did for much of 2019/20; Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser, JT Miller, and Quinn Hughes. The departure of Toffoli just means that none of them have to get bumped to the second unit. The youngest three of them have also yet to hit their prime years of scoring, and that expected further development includes power play production.

That second unit will also look very familiar in 2021. Leivo was the leading man in terms of PP ice-time, but Tanner Pearson, Adam Gaudette, and all those aforementioned defenders are still on hand.

The one player who seems destined to pick up more power play minutes next season is Jake Virtanen, who skated an average of just 53 seconds on the man advantage last year. Currently pencilled into the top-six, one has to assume that Virtanen is also expected to take on second unit duties more regularly. And that could be a good thing, as the Canucks’ power play scoring rate was actually better with Virtanen on the ice than it was with any of the top unit, albeit with a much smaller sample size.

The Canucks’ power play would undoubtedly be better if they had managed to keep Toffoli around, or even Leivo. The reality is, however, that those two played a combined 46 games for Vancouver in 2019/20. The players most responsible for the Canucks’ lofty place in the regular season PP rankings are all still in place, so don’t expect much of a drop-off here.

In fact, with a little developmental progression from the likes of Pettersson, Hughes, and Boeser, the Canucks could very well finish even higher in 2021.

2019/20: 80.5% (16^th)

What may, at first blush, look like an overwhelming list of departing penalty killers is not all that daunting when held up to the light.

Yes, the Canucks’ lost their number one PKer, in terms of ice-time, in Tanev. But Tanev’s underlying shorthanded numbers have really fallen off a cliff of late. He and Edler spent much of 2019/20 getting ventilated on the penalty kill, and it only got worse in the postseason. More of Tanev’s minutes spread around to the likes of Myers and Jordie Benn — who each had better PK numbers, albeit with less responsibility and easier competition — along with the newly-arrived Schmidt may not be the worst thing in the world.

Tim Schaller was a fine penalty killer through his time in Vancouver, but he probably would have already been usurped in his top unit role by Tyler Motte had he not been traded. Someone will need to replace his minutes, but coach Travis Green has multiple candidates.

Oscar Fantenberg was one of the worst penalty killers in the league, so his departure is addition by subtraction.

Troy Stecher achieved better results on the PK than any other Canucks defender, but he still didn’t earn the trust of Green with much regularity. His flight to Detroit is definitely a loss in penalty killing potential, but not much of one to the unit itself.

The departure that will really shake the Canucks’ shorthanded performance, however, is that of Jacob Markstrom. It’s a tired hockey cliché that “your goalie needs to be your best penalty killer,” but Markstrom was absolutely Vancouver’s best penalty killer in 2019/20, and they benefitted greatly from it. His save percentage actually got significantly better with the Canucks were down a skater, which is one of those stats that gets more impressive the more one thinks about it.

Markstrom took what had the makings of a questionable PK corps and elevated it to above-average. Without him, the Canucks are in serious danger of getting exposed.

As with the power play, Schmidt killed plenty of penalties for the Golden Knights, but wasn’t their go-to option. In terms of goals-against-per-60 with him on the ice, Schmidt performed worse than every Canucks’ defender save for Fantenberg, though that’s partly due to Vegas as a whole having some of the worst PK results in the entire league. His reputation is a little stronger than that, so it stands to reason that he’ll be a decent option for the Canucks and compete for minutes with Edler, Myers, Benn, and maybe Juolevi.

Even in a major down season, Holtby was reasonably successful on the penalty kill. Just nowhere near as successful as Markstrom.

The Canucks have seven of their top-ten most frequent penalty killers in 2019/20 still on hand — or six if you don’t count Loui Eriksson. While the defence will likely split shorthanded minutes fairly evenly, expect the trio of Jay Beagle, Tyler Motte, and Brandon Sutter to take on an even more exaggerated role.

At least one player needs to join them in that. Pearson and Miller did fine there last year, but their top-six and power play responsibilities will limit the minutes they can handle. It would be better if another member of the bottom-six, like Gaudette, Antoine Roussel, Zack MacEwen stepped up instead. At this point, Roussel looks to have the inside track, though the Canucks would be ecstatic if Gaudette developed this particular skill.

The loss of Markstrom alone seems to portend doom for the Canucks’ penalty-killing prowess. Vancouver’s PK was already middling in 2019/20, and it still relies heavily on old warhorses like Edler, Beagle, and Sutter that aren’t getting any spryer. Schmidt won’t be the saviour here that he is elsewhere in the lineup, and there’s no one else waiting in the wings to offer much assistance.

The Canucks should expect their penalty kill to take a step back in 2021, which really means it’s their discipline that will have to get better. Don’t, however, discount the difference that Thatcher Demko might make. He only let in one shorthanded goal total in 2019/20, and none in the playoffs. Replicating Markstrom’s MVP performance? A tall order for an NHL sophomore. Keeping the Canucks in the upper half of the PK standings? Now that’s doable.