With a 3-12-1 record through the first 16 games of the 2026-27 season, there aren’t a whole lot of positives to pull from the Vancouver Canucks.

While there hasn’t been much winning this season, the focus shifts to individual growth and development among the players on the NHL roster. So far, there’s been some great storylines to follow. Elias Pettersson’s (D) emergence has shot him up to playing top-pair minutes. Tom Willander has taken strides that have elevated his defensive partner analytically. But the bigger story has to be what Jonathan Lekkerimäki has done up front so far this season.

After struggling to find his footing at the NHL level through his first two seasons, Lekkerimäki is beginning to break out.

In a combined 37 games across the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, the Swede scored five goals and four assists for nine points while averaging a smidge over 12 minutes per game. Through just 16 games this season, however, Lekkerimäki has already bested his career goal, assist, and point totals, with six goals and seven assists for 13 points and an average of 15:09 minutes per game.

He has earned more minutes from the coaching staff, is regularly playing in the top six, and has taken Marco Rossi’s spot on the top power play unit. Lekkerimäki has played the majority of his minutes on a line with Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson. So, as one of his most frequent linemates, we asked DeBrusk what the biggest difference in the 22-year-old’s game this season is that’s leading to this success:

“He’s just confident in his shooting,” DeBrusk told Daily Faceoff Vancouver. “When I was playing with him at the beginning, obviously I know I have a shooter there, and I just try to tell him every time I give it to him, shoot the puck because it’s probably going to go in or has a good chance. … I can only imagine how much confidence that would be like when you have a couple of big games. Obviously, he has the big game in Anaheim, but that leads up to the next one, right?

“There’s gonna be highs and lows. But for him, I mean, as long as he’s shooting the puck, I told him, if you ever see me in front of the net, just rip it. You’re gonna probably score it. It’s a really simple process.”

DeBrusk joked after saying, “But I’m gonna start tipping these. I’ve been pretty off on the tips, so he’s getting lucky for now.”

And while DeBrusk has only played a lot with Lekkerimäki this season, Max Sasson has played with him going back to their days in the AHL with the Abbotsford Canucks. Sasson has been there to watch Lekkerimäki’s development firsthand, and he doubled down on his confidence being the biggest factor in this beginning to what appears to be a breakout season:

“I think it’s just his confidence,” Sasson told Daily Faceoff Vancouver. “Like, you saw how successful he was in Abbotsford, successful in the SHL. He’s been a scorer his whole life; he’s always had that shot. … Even off the ice, it feels like he kind of has that swagger, that confidence, and I think it’s translating on the ice. I think he’s always known how good he was, but I think now at the NHL level, he’s starting to find ways to use his abilities, like his smarts and his shot, to create more looks.

“People want to see these guys at 20 years old come in and start ripping it up. I think you’re seeing throughout the league that not like not a lot of guys can do it. So, I think he’s just really grown into his game and his body. It feels like he’s winning a lot of battles. I think it was only a matter of time before he started having success in Vancouver, and I’m really happy for him.”

Since coming overseas, Manny Malhotra has been Lekkerimäki’s head coach for the majority of his North American journey. Playing a role in his development in Abbotsford to now helping him carve out a role at the highest league in professional hockey, we asked Malhotra what the biggest difference he’s seen from the AHL version of Lekkerimäki to now the NHL edition:

“When you talk about things that are transferable and things that need to be seen at the NHL level, when you talk about his level of physicality in terms of getting through hands and recovering pucks, he did a really good job last game of creating offence by getting in on the forecheck,” Malhotra began. “Especially at the AHL level, when he was having a lot of success, when you look at where he’s scoring from, everybody wants to talk about how good his shot is, but he was getting inside. All of his goals were 10-15 feet from the net, if not closer. Again, the mindset for him of being physical to recover pucks and getting himself inside, those are the things that we’re looking for him to continue to do well.”

Malhotra talking about Lekkerimäki ‘getting to the inside’ is not the first time we’ve heard that. The then-Abbotsford Canucks head coach said that’s something he’s doing well at the AHL level, and Malhotra was right.

In his two seasons under Malhotra in the American League, Lekkerimäki was able to get to the middle with ease, and the goals followed. In 2024-25, Lekkerimäki scored 19 goals in 36 games, and followed that up with 13 goals in 21 games the next season. But against bigger, tougher competition in the NHL, Lekkerimäki couldn’t find that same success cutting to the middle. As a result, he scored just five goals in 37 NHL games.

How much of that is coaching? Because now that Malhotra is back as his bench boss, Lekkerimäki is finding those soft areas of the ice again, and the production is following:

“I think with him, when you talk about getting the inside, it’s about winning battles on the inside,” DeBrusk described. “I think he’s done a really good job at; if there’s an F1 with him, he’s been a really good F2. So if the puck’s kind of loose, he’s really good at kind of collecting it, then making a play. I think that’s playing on the inside as well. I think that’s a part of it because you could be on the inside of the inside, but if the puck dies and it doesn’t matter, you’ve got to keep the play alive. But he’s gone in those areas too. He’s gotten some goals there, so it’s been exciting to see.”

“Coming out of the corner battles, and even on the kickouts and transition, I think he’s doing a really good job of his first couple strides getting to the middle and getting the puck in a place where he can shoot it,” Sasson said. “So yeah, he’s winning the battles, but then when he gets the puck, he’s moving his feet to the middle, which I think has been huge for him. I think you’ll start seeing even more production from him five-on-five, like getting to the middle and using his shot because it feels like he has a couple looks a game now.”

Malhotra mentioned Lekkerimäki being physical to recover pucks, and that’s an underrated part of his success thus far.

Despite the slighter frame, sizing at 5’11” and 172 lb according to the NHL website, Lekkerimäki has not shied away from board battles and absorbing contact. In fact, his smaller stature may actually help him stay slippery in the corners and come out with the puck. Still, there’s got to be a willingness to go into those areas, even from players with his stature:

“There has to be the commitment to get there,” Malhotra explained. “It’s obviously a very difficult place to play and put yourself in tough situations against the defence pinching on you. It’s one of the skills he possesses: the ability to get out of tight spaces and awkward situations with people pressing him and getting off the yellow. He’s done a good job of that, but it comes down to the willingness to do it and the willingness to take those hits to make plays.”

“I think he has a knack for anticipating the game a little bit more,” Sasson said. “So, he’s getting in there quicker, getting that first touch. And I think he’s doing a better job of skating out of it. So like, he’s getting into his check and then using his skating and his smarts to kind of weave out of that, which I think maybe in the past he’s been struggling with, but now it seems like when he gets a puck, his feet keep moving, which we can all try to take something from that because that’s a big key.”

When everybody sees Lekkerimäki play, his shot is immediately the first thing that stands out. That’s undoubtedly his top NHL trait. Both DeBrusk and Sasson credited his hockey sense and hockey IQ as his most underrated asset, sharing that, as a goal scorer, he has to be able to open himself up in the soft areas of the ice.

Once Lekkerimäki finds those areas of the ice, he’s had success lighting the lamp. He has six goals on 28 shots, which is an impressive 21.4% shooting percentage. With a shooting percentage like that, you would hope he’d take more shots.

Lekkerimäki is averaging just 1.75 shots per game. But once he gets a bit more comfortable creating to make his own scoring chances, DeBrusk believes the shot volume and success will follow for the budding sniper:

“With shooters like that, it’s just about finding your opportunities,” DeBrusk began. “You can’t be given the puck every time. You have to create your own in a certain way. But also, once you score a couple, you’ll get force-fed, right? So it’s kind of a weird scenario. But then there’ll be times when the games don’t go your way, and there are no pucks around you. But for him, he’s a shooter from distance, so it’s different. He can shoot from off the rush and still have a chance. He can shoot from different areas, like the six-on-five; for example, he’s kind of by the blueline, and he’s got a hard enough shot, and he’s precise enough where he puts it into the top little half of the net or in different areas.

“So I think the best advice I can give him is to just keep shooting. He should have five shots a game. If he has five shots a game, I mean, what do you think his numbers would be at the end of the year? You do the math: 20% of that or 10% of that, you know.”

To answer your question, Jake, five shots per game at an 84-game pace would amount to 420 shots; 20% shooting is a bit of a far stretch to expect over a full season. So to use the 10% number, that’s 42 goals. I think Canucks fans would all sign up for that, right?

It’s only 16 games into the season, but what we’re seeing from Lekkerimäki so far is certainly encouraging. As Canucks fans embark on this lengthy, treacherous journey that most call a rebuild, development stories such as what we’re seeing from Lekkerimäki early in the 2026-27 season are what truly matter at this point.