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JPat’s Monday Mailbag: Canucks player predictions for the 2025-26 season
Jeff Paterson's weekly Vancouver Canucks mailbag.
Jeff Paterson
Oct 6, 2025, 12:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 6, 2025, 01:16 EDT
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It is just about go time. We’ve all made it through the offseason, through training camp and through six exhibition games, too. Only a few more sleeps now until the Vancouver Canucks start playing for keeps. We thought we’d mix things up a little in the days leading up to the first real puck drop of the new hockey season. Instead of questions about this year’s Canucks, this week we asked you to pick a player and a statistical category, and we’d do our best to come up with an educated guess on a full-season projection (a few of you asked for team total predictions as well). So we’ve dusted off our crystal ball and will try our best to come up with numbers that make sense for the season ahead. 
Let’s start with the captain. Quinn Hughes looked sharp in the preseason and seems poised to have another big season. I’m going to say a career best 18 goals. And I liked what I saw from Thatcher Demko in his preseason starts. Fingers crossed for his continued good health, let’s go with 47 games played. 
With the contract and his spot on the depth chart – and the power play – the number has to start with a 3. So I’m going to predict 33 goals for Boeser this season.
Go sit in the corner, Jayslayer17. No one asked for your prediction. The object of the exercise seemed pretty simple. You pick a player and a statistical category, and you leave the professional prognosticating to me! If you want to start your own mailbag, that’s up to you. But around here, you simply have to follow instructions. Now, if you had asked about Jonathan Lekkerimäki and goals scored, I probably would have said 14. But you didn’t. 
As a refresher, the Canucks finished 23rd in the league with 233 goals last season. The year before, they scored 279. Despite being among the league leaders in the preseason, I still think putting the puck in the net will be a challenge for this group on many nights. I’m going to say they outperform last season, but not by many. Let’s go with 241.
I think the number will drop from the 462 registered last season. But Kiefer Sherwood seems to only know one way to play, and that’s to hunt pucks and finish checks. I still think he’ll lead the team by a wide margin. But I’m going to go with 400 on the nose.

Hard mode: GAA for Demko.

— Jeremy Bearimy (@mrbearimy.bsky.social) 2025-10-05T16:23:53.793Z

Hmmmm. Hard one, indeed. Demko has a career GAA of 2.80. He looks fresh and rested and ready to prove his value to the hockey club. The team defence in front of him looks to be a strength of this group. Let’s go with 2.62, which would be a solid improvement on the 2.90 that he posted last season.
I think Tom Willander will benefit greatly from a fairly full schedule of American Hockey League action this season. And with the depth ahead of him on the NHL roster, I am not expecting to see him much this year. But I do think he’ll play. So let’s go with eight games, which means he’ll get his rookie lap somewhere along the line.
I’m going to be optimistic here and say that Chytil gets in the bulk of the games on the Canucks schedule this season. He’s looked good since the start of camp. Obviously, his health history is checkered. But he has twice played 70+ games in an NHL season. I think he’ll do that here in his first full campaign with the Canucks. I’m going to suggest Filip Chytil dresses for 73 games this season.
It feels like a 17-goal season upcoming for Evander Kane. He looks to be starting in a third line role with unproven linemates. And it’s still unclear if he’ll see regular duty on PP1. Even if he does, others are likely to pull the trigger there. He’ll score because that’s what he’s always done throughout his career. But I think he may fall short of reaching the 20-goal mark but will still be able to use his size, speed and snarl to contribute in other ways.

Average ice time for Lekkerimäki?

— MountDoom🇨🇦🇺🇦 (@mountdoom.bsky.social) 2025-10-04T17:00:59.978Z

Let’s go with 13:34 per game. He averaged 12:30 in his 24 NHL games last season. He is a year older. He will likely see some power play time which will help boost his totals. But he’s still officially a rookie and he still has to prove his worth to a new coaching staff. It remains to be seen how much a guy like Lekkerimäki will see the ice in the third period of tight games if the Canucks are protecting leads. There are bound to be some growing pains still as he learns on the job at the NHL level. He may earn more opportunities with his play, but I still think there will be some nights where he’s in tough to see double digits in ice time.

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