The National Hockey League will announce the Vancouver Canucks’ quarter-century teams on January 21st, 2025.
The league made the announcement over the weekend, stating:
“The NHL will honor its best players from the past 25 years in a multi-phased Quarter-Century Team selection and celebration. The campaign will be rolled out in three phases, with each accompanied by a robust content campaign across all NHL platforms to reflect selections and encourage fans to participate in the debate.“Starting at the Discover NHL Winter Classic later this month and continuing daily through January, the NHL will reveal each Club’s First and Second Quarter-Century Teams. Both the First Team and Second Team will consist of three forwards, two defensemen and one goaltender. Each Club’s First and Second Quarter-Century Teams will be selected by a panel of media, retired players and executives specific to that Club. Players under consideration for selection are those who have appeared in a game for the respective franchises since Jan. 1, 2000.”
This isn’t an all-time lineup, so Canucks legends like Pavel Bure won’t be taken into consideration. Obviously, players from the Canucks’ 2011 cup run team will be featured in this lineup, and it’s safe to assume the three first-ballot Hall of Famers on that team — Daniel and Henrik Sedin along with goaltender Roberto Luongo — will make the Canucks’ First Quarter-Century Team. Additionally, it’s hard to argue that Quinn Hughes isn’t already the best defenceman in Canucks franchise history, so he is likely also a lock for the First Quarter Century Team.
From there, the debates should be fun to have amongst fans. Note that handedness and position — when it comes to centres vs. wingers — doesn’t seem to matter, so if you want to have Ryan Kesler, Elias Pettersson, and JT Miller on your second team lineup, have at it. On the backend, one of Alex Edler, Mattias Ohlund, Ed Jovanovski, and Sami Salo will be cut from consideration. Let the debates begin!
The rest of the NHL’s 31 teams will have their own Quarter Century lineups announced from December 30th to January 31st, and it will be interesting to see how teams like the Seattle Kraken turn out at the end of this exercise. You can find a full list of the rollout dates by clicking here!
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