Key NHL dates for Vancouver Canucks fans to keep an eye on this week

We’re officially a week away from free agency, which for some reason in the NHL, means we’re also hours away from learning who will win the Stanley Cup, and days away from the NHL awards and NHL Draft.

Here’s everything you need to know from a Vancouver Canucks perspective ahead of a busy week for the NHL!

Yes, for some odd reason, the Stanley Cup will be awarded tonight, on June 24th. It’s been a thrilling Stanley Cup Final, as after dropping the first three games of the series, the Edmonton Oilers have battled back to force a game seven against the Florida Panthers.

The last time the Oilers played a game seven was when they beat the Canucks to advance to the Western Conference Final. Will they get the job done tonight? Will Roberto Luongo hoist the Stanley Cup? We’ll find out soon!

After the Cup is awarded tonight, the game’s biggest stars will head to the newly opened Fontainebleau Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Rick Tocchet has already taken home some hardware as this year’s Jack Adams Award winner, given to the league’s best coach. It’s expected that Quinn Hughes will take home the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top all-around defenceman as well. If Hughes wins the award, he will become the first defenceman in Canucks franchise history to be given the prestigious honour.

Thatcher Demko is up for the Vezina Trophy alongside Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky. Demko isn’t the frontrunner for this award, but there’s certainly a chance he finishes as the runner-up to Hellebuyck or even walks away as the surprise winner of the award given to the league’s top goaltender.

Elias Pettersson finished second in Lady Byng Trophy voting to Carolina’s Jaccob Slavin, and isn’t a finalist for any other awards this season.

So if you want to see Quinn Hughes’ acceptance speech, make sure you’re watching the NHL Awards on Thursday night! Knocks on wood feverishly.

And just 24 hours later, it’s day one of the NHL draft! Like every year, round one is sure to be a long and drawn-out process that isn’t really worth anyone’s time to watch in full. The Canucks don’t possess a first round pick, having moved the 28th overall pick to the Calgary Flames in the Elias Lindholm trade.

This means that you’ll likely want to pay a lot more attention to day two of the draft!

Day two of the draft typically moves much faster than day one, as teams complete their selections for rounds two through seven.

The Canucks have a pick in the third, fourth, and seventh rounds of this year’s draft, plus two picks in the sixth round. If you don’t know the names of players available in the draft, check out Dave Hall’s work, where he’s gone over potential targets for the Canucks with each pick!

We will have a draft day edition of Canucks Conversation following the final pick of the draft on Saturday, with Dave Hall joining me to break down each pick the Canucks make! And of course, we’ll have up-to-the-minute coverage of the draft here at CanucksArmy.

Yes, the past few weeks have felt like nothing is happening, and now, everything is happening all at once! On Canada Day (for whatever f****** reason), NHL Free Agent frenzy will open and teams will go out and make their moves to gear up for next season.

This year’s big fish is Jake Guentzel, whom the Canucks are reportedly very interested in bringing to Vancouver. With names like Nikita Zadorov and Dakota Joshua set to hit the open market, it will certainly be interesting to see how the Canucks go about rounding out their roster on July 1. Brenden Dillon, perhaps?