Paul Cotter was clearly a priority target for the new Vancouver Canucks regime, as he was their first announced signing of free agent frenzy on July 1. And the bet on a toolsy, unproven 26-year-old makes sense for a rebuilding Canucks team.

Throughout his five-year NHL career, the 26-year-old winger has topped out at 16 goals in 2024-25 with the New Jersey Devils, and 25 points in 2023-24 with the Vegas Golden Knights. Cotter’s game is predicated on his speed and his shot.

According to NHL Edge, Cotter ranked in the 88th percentile in top speed burst (23.12 MPH) and in the 89th percentile in hardest shot speed (91.72 MPH). The problem with Cotter is that he’s never truly been given the opportunity to flourish offensively.

The Canton, Michigan native has never earned his coaches’ trust enough to average more than 13 minutes per night in any of his five seasons. To be fair to Cotter, he has played with the Vegas Golden Knights and New Jersey Devils, who have plenty of offensive threats ahead of him.

Defensively, Cotter struggles. He has been on the negative side of key analytics such as Corsi For %, Expected Goals For %, and Scoring Chances For % for most of his career at 5v5. His limited offensive opportunity hasn’t been enough to offset his defensive lapses. But he makes up for that a bit in his physicality.

Of all NHL players to play at least 1,000 minutes over the past three seasons, Cotter ranks 17th in Hits/60, averaging 14.31. In raw numbers, Cotter moves from 17th to 11th in total hits over that time frame with 477.

Now on a rebuilding Canucks squad, Cotter will have a chance to play higher in the lineup, and it seems like he’s excited for that opportunity in Vancouver:

“Vancouver right away was one of the first teams that showed a large amount of interest,” Cotter said in an offseason interview. “They saw my game where it was at and think that it could be really important there and be a big piece of the puzzle. The more that I looked into it, I am not going to be a younger guy or on the younger side of things, for once, which is different and cool. I can bring a little bit of a veteran presence. It looked like I was going to get the biggest opportunity there, so that is where we ended up.”

Does this story sound similar, Canucks fans? A depth player the Canucks sought out in free agency, who carries a tool set of speed, physicality, and an underrated shot. Sounds an awful lot like what we saw in 2024-25 when the Canucks signed Kiefer Sherwood. Of course, it’s a different regime. But let’s not forget that current General Manager Ryan Johnson was still part of the old regime’s staff and could have very well had a hand in bringing Sherwood in.

The biggest difference is in the defensive game, where Sherwood excelled and Cotter lacks. But could Johnson have found the next Kiefer Sherwood in Paul Cotter? What would his first season in Vancouver have to look like for Cotter to have that Sherwood-like rise with the Canucks?

As mentioned, Cotter’s speed is a big part of his game. And that is something that the Canucks lacked last season. According to NHL Edge, the Canucks ranked 18th in max skating speed, but half of their 23+ MPH logged speed bursts were from Max Sasson. Cotter’s speed will be put on display, no matter where he slots into the lineup.

Currently, Daily Faceoff has Cotter projected to play on the fourth line with Aatu Räty and fellow newcomer Brendan Gallagher. Playing him in a depth role, lower in the lineup, will shelter him away from top competition and will allow him to play more freely offensively. Cotter has scored double-digit goals in two of the last four seasons, so expecting him to do so again is a fair expectation to set in the goal department.

If that line remains intact, this projects to be a pesky, hard-hitting line. Once Sherwood was traded, Räty led the Canucks in the category, and even at his older age, Gallagher nearly put up 100 hits in 77 games last season. Cotter has logged 233, 244, and 192 in each of the last three seasons, respectively, so 200+ should be very well within Cotter’s reach in a healthy season.

Earlier in the summer, we discussed who would play with Elias Pettersson, who has struggled to develop chemistry with linemates. Jake DeBrusk, if he’s still on the team come training camp, and Linus Karlsson seem to be the frontrunners at this moment, but there’s an outside shot that Cotter could earn that role.

For the last few years, Pettersson’s skating speed has taken a step back. Placing Cotter on his wing could help boost the speed of that line. Not only would his speed be valuable, but Cotter also has an underrated shot and scoring ability. Alongside Pettersson for the majority of the season, Cotter could tack on four extra goals from his career high, and he could find himself at the 20-goal mark.

The worry about Cotter playing up the lineup with Pettersson is whether he could hold up defensively. As many Canucks observers have noticed over the last few seasons, Pettersson’s offensive game has dipped, but his defensive game has taken another step. Oftentimes, Pettersson is now playing in a defensive, matchup role against the opposition’s top competition. We aren’t so sure if Cotter could keep up.

But I’m a firm believer in that not every single player on a line needs to be defensively reliable. Many of the top point producers in the league struggle in their own end. Of course, we aren’t comparing Cotter to one of the league’s top offensive producers, but we’ve seen players who struggle defensively perform just fine in the top-six when surrounded by two defensively sound linemates. How does a Paul Cotter-Elias Pettersson-Drew O’Connor line sound?

Cotter logged a career high 244 hits in 2024-25, doing so while averaging just 13:05 minutes per game. If he plays in the top six, averaging 15+ minutes per night, 300+ hits now isn’t looking too far out of the realm of possibilities.

For a player with a season-high of 25 points while playing on a Vegas Golden Knights squad that made the playoffs that season, seeing Cotter not be able to produce for a rebuilding Canucks team would not be surprising. While we’re optimistic about Cotter’s skill set with increased opportunity, he’s far from a sure thing.

Cotter’s shot is a weapon, but he’s also got quite lucky. In four of his five NHL seasons, Cotter’s had a shooting percentage of 14.8% or higher. On a poor team, that is always likely to go down.

As we’ve touched on, he isn’t the most reliable in his own end. If that continues, he won’t feature on either special team, and he struggles to produce in a fourth-line role, then we may see more of a Nils Höglander than Kiefer Sherwood on our hands for 2026-27.

What do you think, Canucks fans? Do you think Paul Cotter could have a Kiefer Sherwood-like breakout in 2026-27? Let us know in the comments below!

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