The Vancouver Canucks might not have set out to win a ton of hockey games in the 2026-27 season, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have an enormously difficult task in front of them. Losing a bunch of games while not losing things like confidence, the momentum of player development, or fan enjoyment is an incredibly tough line for a team to walk. But one month into the season, the Canucks are walking that line with Johnny Cash-like aplomb.

If the Canucks want to draft as high as possible at the 2027 Entry Draft, they need to lose, and lose a lot – ideally, more than any other NHL team. And on that front, they’re right on schedule. But not all losses are created equal, and if one were to ask the Vancouver fanbase what ‘perfect’ games might look like this season, they’d be close, entertaining games in which the Canucks had a real shot at winning, only to fall slightly short.

And so far, they’ve been pulling off a lot more of those than one might have reasonably expected.

It’s already a sharp contrast to the often demoralizing way in which the Canucks lost games last year. The 2025-26 Canucks got blown out on the regular, and ended the season with a -100 rating. The 2026-27 Canucks are already a -23, and yet they’ve really managed to minimize the blowouts. If we call an official blowout a defeat by four goals or more, these Canucks have only been blown out twice – a 7-2 loss to the defending Cup champs in Carolina, and that unfortunate 6-2 loss to JT Miller and the New York Rangers.

In other words, the Canucks are still losing a lot in 2026-27 – in fact, they’re losing even more – but they’re also losing better. And these losses, in particular, demonstrate exactly what we’re talking about.

The Canucks’ first loss of the season also set the gold standard for entertaining losses on the 2026-27 season. Having somewhat embarrassed the Oilers with a 6-5 overtime victory on opening night, the Canucks expected some heavy pushback in the follow-up, and they got it. The Oilers jumped out to a 5-0 lead a minute into the second period. By the halfway point in the game, it was 8-2.

But then, in the immortal words of Don Taylor, “cue the comeback.” Sparked by a literally last-second Arshdeep Bains goal to end the second, the Canucks started to pour it back on, scoring four straight goals and ultimately pushing it as close as 9-7 with a late Jamie Oleksiak goal.

It was a game every bit as exciting as that opening night overtime victory was. In fact, for those firmly on Team Tank, it might have even been more exciting.

The Canucks’ second loss of the season was very different from their first, but entertaining all the same. Against a division rival that has made mincemeat of them all too often in recent years, the Canucks stood tall. Paul Cotter opened the scoring with his fourth goal in four games, the Golden Knights potted two of their own, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki tied it up late in the second.

Sure, the Golden Knights responded to that by scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal less than a minute after that. But aside from that brief lapse, the Canucks skated with Vegas all night and gave themselves every chance to tie this one up again before ultimately falling short.

It was not just a one-goal loss, but an impressive one at that.

Against former captain Bo Horvat and the New York Islanders, the Canucks put together another ‘comeback loss,’ though this was one a little less eventful than the game against Edmonton. Once again, the Islanders took advantage of a brief Canucks lapse to score two goals in the span of a minute in the first period. Once again, the Canucks battled back, scoring two in the second period to even it up.

The Islanders scored about five minutes into the third, and won the game off that goal. But the Canucks came quite literally as close as they could to tying it without actually doing so. That’s because this was the game in which Elias Pettersson set up Marco Rossi for a beautiful goal that entered the net…0.2 seconds after the game had ended.

In many ways, it was the perfect game for this rebuild in this moment. The Canucks received no points in the standings for this one, but a huge moral victory in knowing that they almost got there in the end – and probably would have if the Long Island timekeepers had been a little more diligent.

This one stands out from the crowd as being a close loss and an impressive showing, but still a little demoralizing. That’s because the Canucks gave up a 2-0 lead against the much-improved Florida Panthers, ultimately falling to a Brady Tkachuk natural hat trick through the third period and into overtime.

Getting a point out of the Panthers? A huge moral victory. Losing to Brady Tkachuk, specifically? That was a little tougher to swallow. Still, it could not be called unentertaining.

This is the only non-one-goal game on the list, but it belongs all the same. Against the high-octane Tampa Bay Lightning, the Canucks hopped out to another early 2-0 lead…and then the heavy, heavy pushback began.

As the Lightning poured it on, the Canucks sank back into a defensive shell and gave their best to preserve the lead. They got five shots on goal in the second, and only two in the third. Ultimately, they fell short in their attempt to defend the lead thanks to two second period and two third period goals by the Lightning. But the fact that they almost held onto the lead was impressive in a slightly different way than their various comebacks had been, as was the fact that they dominated the Lightning at five-on-five.

The Canucks’ most recent loss, as of this writing, fits right into this narrative of close-fought, entertaining losses that can mostly be taken as moral victories.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but the Canucks once again hopped out to a 2-0 lead against the Sharks on goals by Drew O’Connor and Liam Öhgren.

And then, from there, they did a fairly remarkable job of holding the fort. In the end, it was another brief lapse – this time, three goals against in the span of 2:50 in the middle of the third period. But aside from that, the Canucks played about 57 minutes of good, defensively sound hockey against Macklin Celebrini and the gang.

Another loss, with zero points in the standings…and yet, a step forward, all the same.