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JPat’s Monday Mailbag: How soon will the Canucks be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention?
Jeff Paterson's weekly Vancouver Canucks mailbag.
Jeff Paterson
Jan 12, 2026, 10:00 ESTUpdated: Jan 12, 2026, 12:42 EST
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So, how was your weekend? Or the last week, for that matter? I know, it’s hard to keep track of all the Vancouver Canucks goals since the last Monday Mailbag. (It’s four if you must know – and three of them came in garbage time in Buffalo last Tuesday). These are not the best of times for the local hockey squadron. But have you heard? The rebuild is on. The word is flying around these days. Here, there, and everywhere. So much rebuild. Grab a hardhat, tool kit, and reflective vest and let’s jump into this week’s mailbag. Here we go.
The Canucks have 37 points and, with 38 games remaining, can still max out at 113. So no, they are nowhere close to being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Now, their hopes of a late push for the President’s Trophy is in some serious jeopardy, but it will be months still before they get that sad little e beside their name in the standings denoting that they won’t be there when the playoffs begin. Seriously, if we use Los Angeles as the team to watch because the Kings are currently holding down the second wild card spot in the West, the Canucks tragic number is in the mid-30s in terms of the combination of Kings wins or outright Canucks losses to get to a point where Vancouver could not catch LA. But there are several other teams in the mix. So let’s put this question on the shelf until after the Olympic break, when the Canucks will be much closer to having their fate sealed.
I think it’s pretty clear by now that the 2023-24 season was an outlier where just about everything went right for the Canucks. It started with good health for almost every skater and allowed so many of them to reach career-best point totals which, as it turns out, haven’t been repeatable. Quinn Hughes racked up 92 points and won the Norris. JT Miller cracked the century mark and finished with 103 points. Brock Boeser by-passed the thirties entirely and reached the 40-goal mark. The old version of Elias Pettersson ‘chipped in’ with 34 goals and 89 points, although warning signs emerged after that All-Star break that season. But people forget that depth pieces on that team went goal crazy, too.
Nils Höglander scored 24, Dakota Joshua reached 18, and even Sam Lafferty scored 13 that season. Thirteen goals may wind up being the top three on this year’s team. Tyler Myers had 29 points, and Teddy Blueger had 28 points that year! It really was a fever dream of a season. And then on top of all that, management rewarded all of those players by going all in and parting with significant assets for both Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm who proved to be nothing more than rentals. In the end, it turned out to be a lightning-in-a-bottle kind of season. So sure, the drama dragged the organization into the gutter, but in hindsight, that 50-win and 109-point season feels like it was, in many ways, a house of cards that has since crumpled.
Based on the fact that Filip Chytil has been skating with the group since Boxing Day (in a non-contact jersey still it must be said) and on his own for a few weeks prior to that, he gives the appearance of a guy intent on resuming his National Hockey League career. I know, I know, I share the same concerns. But at this stage, it feels like the hockey club is holding a spot for him to give it another go. Now, he needs to ramp up the intensity of his workouts and show that he can absorb physical contact. And that’s no certainty given his lengthy concussion history.
So I can’t get to lost cause at this point, although I have my doubts that this comeback will last any longer than the last one. And so I don’t think there is a person on the planet that could possibly believe there is a long term plan for Chytil at this stage. But he’s got this year and next remaining on a contract that pays him $4.44 million. That’s a lot of cheddar still coming his way, so he’s not walking away from that. At least not yet. In a perfect world, he’d find a way to avoid contact and stay in the game. But it’s not a perfect world and it seems like each time he attempts a return, he’s risking further injury sooner rather than later.
We got a lot of questions about Adam Foote this week. I could have chosen any of them. I have plenty of compassion for Foote. He surely didn’t envision his first NHL head coaching job going off the rails the way this one has. And while it’s true the buck stops with the guy calling the shots behind the bench, and he has to take plenty of blame for the on-ice misery, Foote has also been dealt an incredibly difficult hand (pun intended). His management refused to get him quality NHL centres to start the season, and when injuries hit, the lack of organizational depth led this team on the fast track to the bottom of the league standings. I’m not sure Jack Adams and Scotty Bowman together would have milked a whole lot more out of this group. But Foote seems to have instilled a defensive system that simply hasn’t worked for the team he’s been given.
He may believe in it and in himself, but part of coaching is finding ways to bring the best out of the players on a given roster. The lack of centre depth has led to unimaginable droughts for many of the veteran wingers, it’s hard to pin a lot of that on the head coach. But the tweaks and changes to the preferred defensive system has led to nightly breakdowns and mayhem and carnage in the Canucks own end. How and why both defencemen end up on the same side of the ice while opponents set up shop uncontested in front of the Canucks’ net is hard to explain. And really hasn’t been. So Adam Foote gets some sympathy for the roster he inherited, but he has to be painted with the same brush of blame as so many others for the predicament the hockey club finds itself in.
That’s hard to quantify. With six, they’ve had twice as many fights as the Carolina Hurricanes. Does that answer the question? No? Okay, then how should we approach this? Kiefer Sherwood is second in the league in hits after setting the record last season. As a team, the Canucks are tied for 10th in hits. But I hear this lament frequently from Canucks fans. And I think it’s safe to say opponents don’t lose sleep the night before they face the Canucks – for a number of reasons. The team is into the new year and past the midway mark of the schedule and Connor Garland leads all forwards in fighting majors and Evander Kane’s only fight this season was more of a wrestling match with Philadelphia’s Nick Seeler.
But it’s not all about fights, of course. The Canucks, by way of their roster composition, are not an overtly physical or intimidating team. Even as the game changes, there will always be a spot for physical players and it’s fair criticism that the Canucks lack in that department. So it’s impossible to truly identify the softest team in the league. How about the Colorado Avalanche? They don’t hit anybody. Strangely, you don’t hear anybody calling them soft. I guess they don’t need to hit anybody since they have the puck all night and are generally depositing it in their opponent’s net at will.

What is their home record when wearing skate vs stick/orca jerseys? 🤷🏻‍♀️🏒💚💙

— 🇨🇦Cathy Canucks(🇬🇱🇺🇦) (@cathyrd.bsky.social) 2026-01-11T04:22:18.453Z

Do people still love the black skate? Like really love, love it? The team is 2-6-1 in black this season and has lost six in a row. Then again, the team has only won twice in its blue jerseys, too. It doesn’t seem to matter what the Canucks wear at home this season. Quite remarkably, the team is 2-6-1 in black and 2-6-2 in blue. Ugh. The club will be back in black for the first four games of its upcoming eight-game homestand and will be decked out in the skate for 11 of its remaining 22 home games. Black and blue — pretty apt if we’re being honest, given the way the team has been beaten up in front of the home fans this season. Maybe figure out a way to wear white at home. It worked for the Bruins on Saturday when they beat the Rangers 10-2.
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