The 2023/24 season was one to remember for Dakota Joshua. He set new career standards with 18 goals, 14 assists, and 32 points in just 63 regular season games, and then added eight more points in 13 playoff contests.

So far, the 2024/25 season has been memorable, too, but for all the wrong reasons.

Joshua was diagnosed with testicular cancer this past summer, and missed all of training camp and then the first month of the regular season while undergoing treatment and then recovering from said treatment.

Joshua returned to the Vancouver Canucks’ lineup on November 14, 2024. But by that point, he was decidedly behind the pace of play, and catching up is no easy business.

Joshua managed just one point through the remaining eight games in December, while averaging about 13 minutes a game, mostly on the third and fourth lines.

Joshua picked it up in December, with three points in 14 games, including his only two goals of the season thus far. Then he went pointless in seven straight games to end December and open up January, and then he got injured against the Nashville Predators on January 2, 2025, and is now out of the lineup “week-to-week.”

And, really, the injury could not have come at a worse time for Joshua. Despite that seven-game pointless streak, those observing the games noted that Joshua had just recently started to get his feet under him. Points aside, there’s some strong statistical evidence that this was true.

See, the thing is, the trouble with Joshua’s play upon his return to the lineup had a lot more to it than points. He was noticeably a step behind at most times, both in terms of literal footspeed and his on-ice decision-making. This wasn’t the cool-hand Dakota Joshua of 2023/24, not by a long shot.

That behindedness was made apparent in Joshua’s advanced statline.

Even now, with 24 games gamed, Joshua’s underlying numbers are among the worst on the team. At seven even-strength goals for to ten against, Joshua’s on-ice ratio is the worst of all regular Canucks’ forwards, and get used to hearing that.

Joshua also holds the worst rate of expected goals for a regular forward (45.47%) and the worst control of high-danger chances (just 37.70%). He avoids being the regular forward with the lowest control of overall scoring chances, because that’s Teddy Blueger somehow, but then Joshua is second-last at 46.07%.

Then there are all the other ways in which Joshua can contribute to a game. Hits, blocked shots, PK time, all that. Each has been down in a major way in 2024/25, all of which has combined to really hinder his on-ice effectiveness.

But here’s the thing: we’re only talking about Joshua’s season-long statline here. And that season-long statline starts with Joshua making his return a month late, without much time to train, and after undergoing some extreme medical difficulty.

A slow start for Joshua wasn’t just possible, it was a guarantee. And his coming back to a Canuck roster in turmoil probably didn’t help matters much.

Yes, this was a very slow start, and it went on for a couple weeks longer than most would have liked.

But when folks say it looked like Joshua was finally catching up and figuring it all out in the games leading up to his injury, they’re not just blowing smoke. It’s true that he’s currently still stuck in that seven-game pointless streak, and will be until he comes back to the lineup and records his next point. But whereas the underlying stats can show us just how deeply Joshua has struggled this year, they can also point to a turnaround.

Over the last five games prior to the injury, Joshua really ‘locked in,’ as the kids say. Those five games saw Joshua post a 66.63% rate of expected goals, highest of anyone on the team, including Quinn Hughes. That rate of expected goals is made up of offensive chances on one side, but the stronger side of it is Joshua’s on-ice defensive control. Once again, it appeared he was finding ways to take a direct hand in the pace of play.

Those five games also saw huge rebounds in Joshua’s Corsi (52.81%, second behind Hughes), control of scoring chances (54.55%, second behind Hughes), and control of higher-danger chances (62.50%, third behind Hughes and…Derek Forbort?!).

All this, with the ice-time slowly but surely being cranked up. Joshua skated a season-high 14:23 against Seattle on January 2, the game before his injury.

Speaking of which, the game of his injury against Nashville might have been the return of peak Joshua. He was all over the ice, controlling plays and engaging in the kind of physicality that draws notice from the other team. A hit on Filip Forsberg resulted in Joshua being challenged to a fight by Nashville tough guy Michael McCarron. Joshua managed to escape that unscathed, but was then injured in a collision behind the Nashville net.

And, really, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Joshua. After what had to be an excessively frustrating set of weeks, he’d just finally got fully back into the swing of things, and at a time when his team really needed him to. And now…

We don’t yet know how many weeks Joshua will miss. But we can assume that, upon returning, he’ll once again have to play catch-up. Hopefully, this time it doesn’t take quite so long to achieve.

And, hopefully, next time Joshua gets his feet back under him, those feet stay in the lineup thereafter.