We have officially hit the mid-way point of the 2025-26 Vancouver Canucks season, following Saturday night’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins. And it hasn’t necessarily gone as fans, management, or the players had hoped.

At the time of this writing, the Canucks sit 31st in the NHL standings, three points ahead of the last-place Winnipeg Jets. Coming into the season, the strengths of this team were looked at to be team defence and goaltending. At the halfway point, they’ve allowed the fourth most goals against in the league.

This season was supposed to be about winning to keep their captain, Quinn Hughes. But that didn’t go as planned; he was shipped out in mid-December. Elias Pettersson was supposed to have a massive bounce-back and prove he’s worth the hefty price tag, but he’s on pace for just 22 goals and 56 points. The injury bug has hit nearly everybody on the roster, and

Everything that could have gone wrong, did. That being said, there have been a few bright spots this season. Let’s get into the letter grades at the halfway point of the season.

Criteria: players must have played at least 50% of the Canucks’ games. David Kämpf, Lukas Reichel, PO Joseph, MacKenzie MacEachern, Nils Höglander, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini, Braeden Cootes, Derek Forbort, Teddy Blueger, Nils Aman, Joe LaBate, as well as newcomers Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi and Liam Öhgren, will not be graded.

Offensively, Pettersson’s grade should be lower. Sure, he leads the team in points with 25 through 33 games. But that’s just not good enough for the $11.6 million man. His pace of 56 points – 62 for an 82-game pace – is that of a second liner. Not a premier player, as he’s paid to be. His rating gets a boost to a C+ because of his stellar defensive play this season.

Garland has been okay this season. He’s on his usual 45-50-point pace as he has been every year since coming to Vancouver. It’s just been a bit of a struggle to stay on the ice for Garland, as he has battled through numerous little injuries that have held him out of the lineup. He has seven goals and 22 points through 33 games at the halfway point. He deserves a higher grade than most of the other struggling offensive forwards on this team because, despite his smaller frame, Garland finds ways to stay relevant when the puck isn’t going in for him, as he did when he fought Jared McCann earlier last week.

Was there any doubt that Sherwood would receive the highest grade? In many games this season, he’s been the only Canucks player going, singlehandedly dragging his team into the fight of the game. Sherwood is not only the emotional leader with his hard work, physicality and passion on the ice, but he’s their goal-scoring leader, with 17 already this season. It’s a shame he will likely be moved, because he is a heart-and-soul player that teams typically want to keep around.

Had it not been for his resurgence after his healthy scratching, DeBrusk’s ranking could have been lower. However, he’s got the benefit of recency bias, coming off a seven-shot outing in which he was not on the ice for a 5v5 shot attempt against, and a three-point night the game before that. But the glaring issue with DeBrusk is that he has only one 5v5 goal halfway through the season. That’s just not gonna cut it. If he continues to play this way through, especially with Pettersson and Karlsson, that should change.

I’m sure most fans will want this rating to be lower. Has he been less physical than expected? Yes. Does he take some questionable penalties and have some effort issues on backchecks? Absolutely. But that was kind of how he was advertised before coming to Vancouver. He has six goals and 19 points through 40 games this season, which is kind of disappointing given his deployment. Canucks management probably has some buyer’s remorse after this offseason move.

The talk surrounding the Canucks struggles of late has been that their offensive forwards have not been pulling their weight. That starts and ends with Brock Boeser. Through the first month and a bit of the season (18 games), Boeser had eight goals and 14 points. However, Boeser has just one goal over his last 23 games, and zero in 16. In fairness to Boeser, he’s mostly been playing with Lukas Reichel and David Kämpf as his centreman. Regardless, he knows he needs to be better, especially as a leader for this group and would likely agree with a C letter grade.

It took him a bit to get into the Canucks lineup, but once he did, Karlsson hasn’t looked back. He’s continued to produce, despite playing in a bottom-six role for most of the season. He’s now up to 10 goals (tied for second on the team) and 18 points through 38 games. Karlsson’s efforts have earned him top-line and PP2 deployment, as well as a healthy raise to $2.25 million annually. For a guy who wasn’t expected to make a massive impact at the NHL level, he has blown expectations out of the water and turned himself into an everyday NHLer and is worthy of an A letter grade.

Like Karlsson, O’Connor gets a high letter grade because of his impact relative to expectation. O’Connor has been available for all 41 games this season, has scored 10 goals and 16 points and is one of the only Canucks to have a positive plus-minus rating. He has been trusted in more offensive situations, and it has paid off: O’Connor is on pace for a career year in the goal department, projected to hit 20 goals for the first time in his career.

Speaking of another player with a positive plus-minus rating, we have Aatu Räty. If you ask Adam Foote, Räty’s letter grade would be much lower because he hasn’t fully earned his head coach’s trust. But his underlying numbers have been solid. He has three goals and 11 points through 33 games and had a stretch in which he was in on five of six Canucks goals. Feel a C+ is a fair grade, all things considered.

Sasson’s speed alone earned an NHL contract. After what was a hot start to the Abby line, Sasson has slowed down. He’s been asked to play higher in the lineup because of the team’s centre deficiencies, but that hasn’t necessarily translated into production. He has eight goals and two assists for 10 points this season. Where he really struggles is in the faceoff dot, where he wins just 40.8% of his draws. He projects to be more of a winger on the team once they get some healthy bodies back and can afford to move him there.

Bains just had enough games played to make the list. He gets a failing grade just because of the opportunity he was handed to begin the season. With the Nils Höglander injury, Bains started the season in the top six on Chytil’s line. He even got penalty killing time. However, that was short-lived: he was quickly demoted and couldn’t perform against weaker opponents. He was placed on waivers and was not claimed. Seems like a fail is a fair grade.

Hronek was one of the best Canucks when Quinn Hughes was on the team. But that’s even more glaring now without Hughes. After a pair of points in Game 41, Hronek is now tied with Elias Pettersson for the team lead in points with 25. In the 10 games without Hughes, Hronek has nine points, and has logged 24+ minutes in eight of those games. Oh, he also leads the team with a plus-three rating while averaging over three minutes more ice time than the next highest Canuck. He’s been one of the few players to step up their game this season, so Hronek undoubtedly deserves an A+.

Has his season been perfect? No. But for a player who many believed needed more time to develop in the AHL before he made an impact at the NHL level, he’s been pretty darn good. There are always going to be growing pains for a 20-year-old defenceman as he transitions to the professional level, but he’s going through the motions and learning fast, which has kept him in the NHL so far. Heck, he’s even getting PP1 time now. There are so many dark spots surrounding the team this season, but watching the progression of Willander has been exciting.

It hasn’t been a great season for Myers. After back-to-back resurgent seasons, the 35-year-old looks to be hitting a decline. He isn’t the strong shutdown defenceman he moulded into over the past few years. Where he does hold value is in his veteran leadership and ability to help the young defenceman develop on a pairing with him.

Most of the same things can be said about Pettersson. By no means is he declining because of age, but it’s easy to notice that his game hasn’t fully translated to Foote’s new systems. The defensive defenceman has been logging heavy minutes, which has only increased since Hughes was traded. He has an even plus-minus rating, which, considering the Canucks’ team defence, is actually pretty good, so he gets the slight edge over Myers for those reasons.

It’s safe to say it hasn’t been the sophomore season DPetey was hoping for. After a strong, physical 28-game stint at the tail end of last season, Pettersson has often found himself serving as a healthy scratch as punishment for defensive mishaps. Now, it’s important to remember that Pettersson was sheltered in his minutes last year and is now being tested with harder minutes and some PK time. Young defencemen are going to make mistakes, and the best way to learn from them is to play through them. That said, the C- grade is deserving.

Demko has shown flashes of his old self this season. Although his 8-8-1 record may not reflect that, his 2.72 goals-against average and .906 save percentage might. He even had a stretch during the Canucks’ four-game winning streak in which he allowed two goals in three games. He’s slowed down since the Christmas break, but when he’s been healthy this season, Demko has been a bright spot in goal for his team.

Lankinen in the shootout? That’s an A+. But on his season as a whole, it may even be lower than the C-. Last year, he was the reason the Canucks were nearly in a playoff spot. But that has regressed to his worst season in the NHL, as he has a 3.37 goals against average and a .884 save percentage. How much is that him regressing after a breakout campaign, and how much is that the new team defence? The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Regardless, a first-half worthy of a C- for the Finn.

What do you think, Canucks fans? Which of these letter grades do you strongly agree/disagree with? Let us know in the comments below!