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JPat’s Monday Mailbag: Blueger for captain? Can EP40 be part of the rebuild? And is Lekkerimäki running out of runway?
Jeff Paterson's weekly Vancouver Canucks mailbag.
Jeff Paterson
Apr 13, 2026, 14:00 EDTUpdated: Apr 13, 2026, 13:23 EDT
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You saw the celebrations from the Vancouver Canucks over the weekend after back-to-back wins for the first time this calendar year. I sort of imagine those same sort of celebrations from Canucks fans when the weekly Monday Mailbag drops here at CanucksArmy. The team delivered wins in San Jose and Anaheim, and now it’s our turn to deliver answers to your many questions. So, soak up the late-season victories, sit back and enjoy this week’s Monday Mailbag.
Sure, it has. Perhaps you’re not old enough to remember a half-full Pacific Coliseum in the late 1980’s. Times are different now. Social media wasn’t around then to give fans an outlet to vent their frustrations. They did so with their wallets. And we’re starting to see that again as the Canucks cross the finish line on their worst season in decades. However, there have certainly been dark days in the past that tested the patience of this passionate fan base. Hardcore fans are checking out on this hockey club, and casual fans have long since stopped caring as this season slipped away. There is no question that the Canucks brand has taken a beating this season, and it will be interesting to see how the club responds. For years, the Canucks have felt untouchable in the market, and their actions have indicated as much. But this season is different. They are dead last in the standings by a mile, have been forced to trade their franchise player, and have finally been forced to utter the word rebuild. But this is an organization badly in need of rebuilding both on and off the ice. There needs to be some accountability for the mess they’ve put themselves in. A show of humility from the top would be a great place to start. It will be interesting to see the tone of Fan Appreciation Night on Tuesday in the team’s final home game of the season. The Canucks ought to go out of their way to make the fans in the stands truly feel appreciated for their support through this dismal season. Fans have options in this market. Some have already stepped away from the team. And others will surely follow in the offseason. 
I’m not sure I’d pin the C on Teddy Blueger, but I’d certainly consider making him a formal part of the leadership group – if he returns next season. It was interesting to see Blueger front and centre, presenting Evander Kane with a team gift for reaching 1,000 NHL games last week. That seemed to say something about his role within the group. When healthy, Blueger has had a fairly productive season, and this weekend was a clear indication that he’s in the battle to the bitter end. He scored the tying goal late in the third period on Saturday in San Jose and on Sunday stuck up for Liam Öhgren after his young teammate had been flattened by noted wrecking ball Radko Gudas. Blueger has an easy way about him and seems popular in the locker room. He’s well spoken and accountable. It’s still remarkable a playoff bound team didn’t want to add him ahead of the trade deadline. So if he’s back as a veteran and mentor next season, I’d certainly include him as a letter-wearer for this group. And now, as I consider it, perhaps he should be in the running to be the Canucks next captain.
This is something I’m curious to see as the club goes through its rebuild. The modern game is predicated on skill and speed, and the Canucks need a lot more of both. But hockey, at its core, will always be a physical sport, and the Canucks could certainly stand to add some grit and toughness, especially to the forward ranks. And I’m not talking about fighting. I’m talking more about adding guys that can play an abrasive style and bring that mindset to the rink on a nightly basis. Guys who initiate rather than react. Guys who are the hammer rather than the nail. Kiefer Sherwood brought an element of that, but he doesn’t play here anymore. Even with Sherwood here, but certainly since he was dealt, the Canucks have not been an aggressive bunch or terribly difficult to play against from a physical standpoint. And this comes a day after the club had its first two-fight night of the season in Anaheim. It was great to see Curtis Douglas score his first NHL goal and engage in a scrap in the first period on Sunday. I think the jury is still out on whether he can be an everyday NHLer. But as the Canucks put their blueprint in place and continue to add more young players to the mix, it would be nice to see them surround those players with a few more everyday players that show up to the rink in a bad mood and guys that look to make opponents pay a price on almost every shift. 
I suppose the performance of centre Elias Pettersson is no longer an elephant in the room. The entire hockey world has been watching and talking about his steady decline for two years now. But it is remarkable how his lack of production overall – but goal-scoring in particular – just seems to be accepted now and has basically been swept under the rug as the season slips away. As RJ points out, the two-goal game against the Florida Panthers on March 17th is the only time in the last 34 games that Pettersson has scored. Those were both power play goals. So he has gone 34 games without a 5-on-5 goal. He has just eight 5-on-5 points over that span and has only one point at 5-on-5 over the last 10 games. Whatever contributions Pettersson’s managing to make these days are on the power play as a half-wall distributor. Oh, and he’s still blocking shots. That’s not much return on the club’s annual $11.6M investment. But forget the price (if you can), it’s more about his general inability to impact games. And to that end, it’s tough to see how the club truly moves forward with him still in the mix. 
Really, we’re going to get worked up about how the Canucks handled a fourth-round draft pick? I’m not. I look at it and say great for Riley Patterson that he jumped into the Abbotsford lineup over the weekend and scored his first professional goal as a just-turned 20-year-old after a terrific 40-goal and 84-point season in OHL Niagara. Riley Patterson is exactly where he should be at this stage of his young career. Giving college players NHL games late in the season is a mechanism to get guys to turn pro. They have the option of remaining unsigned and going back to school. Patterson was signed by the hockey club, which was already a signal of faith in the player. It’s a massive jump from junior hockey to the NHL. It’s still a large leap from junior hockey to the AHL. So I think the Canucks are doing right by this young player to get him into the system, give him a look at professional hockey and allow him to see where his game stacks up. And based on his first weekend as a pro, his game appeared to allow him to fit in at the next level. By virtually every measure, Riley Patterson is tracking to be a very successful fourth-round selection. But there is a process to all of this, and the Canucks are following that process as they should. Ty Mueller was selected in the fourth round the year before Patterson (2023). He has seen NHL call-ups at the tail end of each of his first two seasons in the minors. Patterson should look at Mueller as both an inspiration and an example of how the development system works. 

Is the end of Lekkerimaki’s NHL runway in sight?

— JDavid (@jdavidh.bsky.social) 2026-04-12T21:46:47.028Z

No. Not at all. I think people lose sight of the fact that Jonathan Lekkerimäki is still just 21 years old with a remarkable goal-scoring profile at the American Hockey League level. Lekkerimäki scored 13 goals in 21 AHL games this season while playing through a shoulder injury that ultimately required surgery. Over the past two seasons, he has 32 goals in 57 minor league games. That’s an outrageous production before the age of 22. So is he running out of NHL runway? Nope. Does he have to get quicker and stronger and find ways to use his elite skill as a shooter at the next level? Yes. And does he also have to round out his game to be effective at the next level? Absolutely. Questions abound about Lekkerimäki’s ability to translate his production at the AHL level to a job as a full-time scoring threat in the NHL. And now he has to prove that shoulder surgery won’t be a setback or impact his ability to snipe. The Vancouver Canucks are bereft of elite-level talent. So they can definitely use what Lekkerimäki offers. And surely, he is viewed internally as a big part of this rebuild. But saying it and actually having it come to be are two different things. Opportunity is knocking for the young Swede. But he’s going to have to put in the work necessary to overcome the shoulder issue and come to training camp looking better than ever at the next level. There will come a day when the end of his development path comes into sight, but I don’t think he’s anywhere close to that point yet.
Of all the players who will meet with the media before scattering for the summer over the next week, I don’t think there is a more interesting figure on the roster to hear from than Thatcher Demko. He hasn’t spoken publicly since being shut down for the season in mid-January. How is his health? How is his recovery from hip surgery coming along? How does he feel about being part of a rebuild? What does he think about the fact that so many of the guys he’s played with over the years have been dealt away? And does he believe he can live up to the contract extension that kicks in this summer? So there are a lot of questions swirling around Thatcher Demko as there so often are. But the most important ones are about his ability to play a wildly demanding position with a 30-year-old body that has betrayed him too many times. Initially, I thought your question was whether Demko would play 40 games total over the rest of his career. I think you’re asking about a season’s workload. My hunch is that the ultra-competitive Demko believes he can still handle a starter’s role in the NHL. As of this writing, 27 goalies have started 40 or more games this season. So it’s a relatively small number. Not even one per team around the league.
Demko doesn’t have much choice anymore but to take a ‘less is more’ approach. Although he may want to return to the net as a legitimate number one goalie, that next injury feels like it will always be hovering over him, and he no longer gets the benefit of the doubt that he will be able to stay healthy. So why push it? Instead of yet another season being derailed by injury and ultimately being cut short, Demko should set 40 starts as a ceiling for himself and stick to it. To answer your question, I am going to say there will be one more 40-start season for Thatcher Demko. But it probably has to be next season. The longer he goes without getting to that number, the more difficult it will be for him to attain, especially if injuries are part of his story once again next season. At this stage of his career, these injuries surely have a compounding effect. The longer he goes without re-establishing himself as a true starter, the more difficult it’s going to be to ever get there again.

PRESENTED BY STAKE

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