We’ve seen and heard a lot of surprising statistics surrounding the 2025-26 Vancouver Canucks, but this one has to take the unexpected cake.

Speaking of unexpected, by now you’ve no doubt heard that Tom Wilson did the previously-thought-impossible and achieved a Gordie Howe Hat-Trick in Sunday’s Olympic matchup against Team France. Even more unexpectedly, he got away with it, skating away from the incident entirely suspension-free.

Now, to call what happened a ‘fight’ by NHL standards might be a bridge too far. But by Olympic standards, it was a genuine donnybrook, and any way you slice it, fighting majors were handed out.

Which brings us to eye-catching stat we mentioned in the headline there. Thus far, the Canadian Men’s Olympic Hockey Team has played three games in Milan. If we’re just measuring on a simple per-game basis, that’s one fight in three games. The Vancouver Canucks, meanwhile, have played 57 games thus far in the 2025-26 regular season, and only have seven fighting majors in that time.

That’s a rate that comes in at a little under one fight every eight games. In fact, by this measure, Team Canada is guaranteed to come out of this tournament with more fights per game than the Canucks, given that the maximum number of games Canada can play is now six.

This, again, in a tournament that explicitly bans fighting.

We do realize this is a bit of a silly comparison to make, especially given how bizarre that whole Wilson episode was. But it is a convenient jumping-off point to talk about how little the 2025-26 Canucks are fighting, and what that might mean.

There are those who will hear a fact like this on the surface – that Team Canada fights more at the Olympics than the Canucks do in the NHL – and immediately begin making pronouncements about the Canucks. That they’re soft, that they’re uninspired, that they don’t stick up for one another.

We won’t make any quite-so-dire commentaries ourselves, but will note that it’s an interesting truth all the same. And one that is fairly unique among NHL teams this season. Fighting has been a little bit on the rise over the past few seasons. The Tampa Bay Lightning have 29 fights themselves on the 2025-26 season already, a rate of one every other game. Only three teams – the Detroit Red Wings, the Carolina Hurricanes, and the San Jose Sharks – have fewer major penalties than do the Canucks this year.

And if we’re going to get into the ‘issue’ with the Canucks’ lack of fisticality, it probably starts with the observation that all three of the Red Wings, Hurricanes, and Sharks have had a lot more to play for throughout 2025-26 than have the Canucks.

Many will say that fighting is less relevant to the NHL game than ever, and they might be right. They will say that it doesn’t really make an impact on a team’s wins and losses. That fighting doesn’t really matter much in the grand scheme of things.

But at the risk of being overly blunt, nothing the Canucks have done on the ice has been of much importance in 2025-26. They did enter the Olympic Break as not just the worst team in the NHL, but with a seven-point gap between them and the second-worst team.

The Canucks have been absolutely abysmal, and it’s not hard to understand the perspective of those who say “if they’re going to be awful night-in and night-out, the least they could do is stick up for one another.”

And sticking up for one another has been called for, and not delivered, at several points along the 2025-26 campaign trail. Cheapshots have been handed out. Brock Boeser got domed in the head again, with even less response this year than last year. The Olympic-fighting Wilson annihilated poor Filip Chytil, and nobody blinked. Aforementioned revenge against the likes of Jason Dickinson never materialized. When he was still here, opponents were taking runs at Quinn Hughes like never before.

Yet, throughout all that, we can find just one instance of a Canuck fighting to defend a teammate. Marcus Pettersson dropped the mitts with Sam Carrick of the New York Rangers after Carrick caught Conor Garland with a hard hit at centre ice. Pettersson got walloped for his efforts, but the try was appreciated.

But that’s it. We’ve got a couple of corner scrums that turned into bouts (Victor Mancini v. Brandon Duhaime, Garland v. Darren Raddysh), a couple of instances of Canucks being called out for their own hits (Evander Kane v. Nick Seeler, Garland v. Jared McCann), one time where Max Domi jumped someone for little reason (M. Pettersson v. Domi), and one time where Evander Kane jumped someone for little reason (Kane v. Timothy Liljegren).

That last one is a good example of how pointless the Canucks fighting has been this season. Kane attacked a non-fighter seemingly out of nowhere, and laid some fists into him. The motivation seemed selfish, at best. And as a direct result, Sharks enforcer Ryan Reaves spent the rest of the game taking big runs at the rest of the Canucks as Kane continued to duck him. This is the opposite of sticking up for the team. This is the opposite of using fighting as a deterrent. This is fighting for oneself, not for one’s teammates.

And that really shouldn’t be the book on a team like the 2025-26 Canucks, that doesn’t have much else to play for but one another.

Those who tie this component of the game in to the long-term success of the rebuild may have a point to make. As the Canucks are set to go through some down years, and as they hope to continue to cycle young players into the lineup, team morale is going to be as important as ever. Rookies are especially vulnerable to being taken advantage of physically at the NHL level. Heck, there’s every chance the Canucks open up 2026-27 with multiple teenagers on the roster. It would be really nice if the Canucks could offer, if not a winning environment, at least one where players feel protected, defended, and stood up for. That absolutely has not been the case for the non-fighting 2025-26 Canucks.

How did it get to this point? The point at which Garland and Marcus Pettersson share the team lead in fighting majors?

Derek Forbort – who stuck up for the Canucks frequently in 2024-25 – missing the entire season with injury is a factor. Kane arriving without the bulk of his promised physicality is another factor. The departures of the likes of Dakota Joshua, Vinny Desharnais, and JT Miller over the past year are also factors.

But the most consequential factor is that the Canucks simply have not made this part of the game a priority.

Should that change moving forward? Now that the front office has seemingly committed to a long-term approach, one feels like the answer has to be at least a little bit ‘yes.’ No matter what one’s overall opinion on fighting is, now that the team is set on a couple of losing seasons filled with up-and-coming prospects, it would seem as though having this element on the team – or, at least, fighting more than an Olympic squad – is as important as it’s ever been.

Maybe the Canucks look to call-up someone like Joe LaBate after some deadline dealing is done. Maybe they take back some veteran cap dumps with rambunctious games. Maybe they actually go out and sign a genuine enforcer-type for the 2026-27 season.

Either way, the Canucks are fighting less than are the Canadian Olympians, and that’s probably something that shouldn’t be the case for much longer.

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