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JPat’s Monday Mailbag: Are the Canucks better, worse, or the same as they were at the end of the season?
Jul 28, 2025, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Jul 27, 2025, 22:24 EDT
In a few days it will be August and then we can all say hockey season is just over a month away. While training camp doesn’t begin until September 18th, the Vancouver Canucks have their annual Jake Milford golf tournament set for September 8th which means players should be rolling back into town over the coming weeks. There’s still some idle time before players will take to the ice in Vancouver, but we’re getting there. Slowly. To help pass some of the time, we asked you for Canucks questions for this week’s mailbag. And as always, you came through. So let’s jump in and answer a selection of those questions.
The important part of this question is ‘at season’s end’ and as a refresher, we remind you that Elias Pettersson, Filip Chytil, Derek Forbort and Thatcher Demko were all injured as the 2024-25 season came to a close. And while he played the final few games, it’s unlikely Quinn Hughes was anywhere close to 100% after battling through a variety of injuries in the second half of last season.
Personnel wise, there hasn’t been an extraordinary amount of turnover. Pius Suter and Noah Juulsen left in free agency. The team added Evander Kane and Pierre-Oliver Joseph. There are still valid concerns about the centre ice position, but I’m going to say that the Canucks are better now than when last season ended only because of the health of key players plus the emergence of some of the key performers from Abbotsford’s Calder Cup run who should have a legitimate shot at big league roster spots to begin next season.
It’s important to mention that where the Canucks were as a team at the end of the season is without question a low bar in terms of where they need to be. But if everyone comes to camp healthy and ready to contribute from Day 1, then the Canucks should be a better team to start next season than they were when the last one ended.
Do you think a lingering injury has ruined Pettersson’s career?Remember ’Do Your Dekes?’ That seems to be a thing of the past with him.
I find it impossible to believe Elias Pettersson’s career has been ‘ruined’ by anything at the age of 26. Like most others, I will concede the past 18 months have been tough to watch and the Canucks are certainly hoping that EP40 can find his way out of the wilderness and back to being the player he was just three seasons ago when he racked up 102 points. The Do Your Dekes guy has been missing for far too long now.
But we’re led to believe Pettersson is healthy and has had a full summer of training back home in Sweden. All of that said, nothing matters now but how Pettersson performs once training camp rolls around. He needs to report in peak physical condition and then has to have that translate into success onto the ice.
The Canucks need him to be assertive and creative and have to have him to rediscover the confidence that allowed him to win the Calder Trophy and appear in four All Star games in his first seven NHL seasons. Pettersson may never get back to being a 102 point player. But there is too much talent deep down inside not to be a point-per-game player again. However, with a massive contract comes huge expectations. He didn’t come anywhere close to meeting those last season. So there will be pressure from Day 1 next season for Pettersson to perform.
It sounds like Brett McLean is going to handle the forwards with help from Scott Young. McLean was a 100-point scorer in junior days in Kelowna and had a 60-point season in the American Hockey League. While his NHL totals were far more modest, McLean still managed a 40-point season in Colorado. So he proved at every level as a player that he knew his way around the offensive zone.
And, while in a different era, Young was a 40-goal scorer in the NHL so he knows a thing or two about putting pucks in the net. Both are fresh voices with unique perspectives and the club is hoping that McLean and Young can impart some of their wisdom on the team’s group of forwards. McLean was an assistant coach with the Minnesota Wild for a couple of seasons before stepping back to take over the head coaching reins of their AHL affiliate.
Young has worked in player personnel and player development with the Canucks, but is at a point in his life where he now has the time to devote to being a full-time coach. He’s also a two-time Stanley Cup winner as a player so he knows what it takes to be successful. Beyond McLean and Young, the Canucks will have Henrik and Daniel Sedin involved in player development and Jason Krog returns as skills and skating coach.
As constructed, the Canucks are not a terribly imposing team. Sure, they’ve got some size on the blueline and they have the NHL’s hits king in Kiefer Sherwood. But even with that personnel in place last season, there were still examples of teams taking liberties with Quinn Hughes. The Canucks have added Evander Kane this offseason, but that was offset by the loss of Dakota Joshua in terms of size up front.
The Canucks will lean on the team toughness theory, but that’s likely to be put to the test as opponents aren’t going to let up on Hughes and will likely try to get a piece of the Canuck captain at every opportunity. While the idea of a designated policeman on patrol to protect Hughes may be the answer for some, the game has evolved to the point where those players no longer stay employed for long.
At the end of the day, however, hockey is still a physical game and the Canucks could certainly benefit from a little more snarl through their line-up. We’ll have to wait to see if this group can hold its own physically next season or if that is an area that opposing teams will try to exploit.
What are the chances Tolopilo plays with the big club at some point this season?
Now that Arturs Silovs is no longer in the fold, it seems quite likely that Nikita Tolopilo will get NHL games next season. He made his big league debut in Game 81 last season and came on in relief of Kevin Lankinen in the season-finale. One knock to either Lankinen or Thatcher Demko and Tolopilo will likely get the call to hustle down the highway from Abbotsford. The only wrinkle in the plan is where does Jiri Patera fit into the mix?
Patera missed most of last season with a serious mid-body injury, but he was signed by the Canucks to be a tweener and despite a lost season in 2024-25, he still has more AHL and NHL experience than Tolopilo. Still, Tolopilo looks like he’s set to be the main man in the minors and the first one to get summoned if and when the Canucks are in need of a netminder. So I’d expect to see Nikita Tolopilo make a handful of starts for the big club next season.
How can hockey be regarded as a family friendly sport when your family can barely afford to watch a professional televised game and have no hope of ever attending your teams game live due to unobtainable costs?
While hockey is entertainment for many, it is a business, too. And big business, at that. And with a $95M player payroll plus hundreds of staff, the Canucks – like all NHL teams – need to mind their bottom line. That means charging ticket prices that support the business operations. There is no question that rising ticket prices have reached a level that many can no longer afford. And that is truly unfortunate.
But with 18,000 seats to attempt to fill, it really is a matter of supply and demand and the Canucks feel they have done what they can to create varying price points for a premium product to meet the needs of fans with different budgets. Where I think the Canucks could do a better job and do more for fans who have been priced out of attending games in person is create non-game opportunities to get people in the building to see their favourite players in action.
Bring back an open practice (or two) during the season where for a nominal fee fans (especially families) can get access to the rink and watch the players perform. What happened to the annual skills competition? That was always a fun day for fans and again create opportunities to see the players in a semi-competitive environment. There was once a pre-season Canucks fan festival that allowed fans to interact with players and coaches and take part in various hockey-themed activations. Those opportunities have all sadly faded away through the years and I think it would make perfect sense for the Canucks to seriously examine ways to bring a few of those events back to help fans who can’t afford game tickets still feel like they still have access to the hockey club.
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