logo
CanucksArmy has no direct affiliation to the Vancouver Canucks, Canucks Sports & Entertainment, NHL, or NHLPA
The Stanchies: 3 positives, 3 negatives, rebuilding lessons, and more from Canucks’ loss to Canes
alt
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The Stanchion
Oct 9, 2026, 00:44 EDT
Comments
The bad news is the Canucks lost 7-2 at the hands of the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Carolina Hurricanes.
The good news is there is something downright quaint about watching the Travelling Hughes Brothers Circus continuing its journey elsewhere and knowing it has no bearing on Vancouver anymore.
Maintenance days? Contract extension still not signed? The group chat can’t hurt you anymore as the rebuilding Canucks continue on their journey towards rebuilding into a club you’d feel comfortable bringing home to Mom, even if things get a little too heated during a game of Skip-Bo.
Instead of locker room drama, we have Luke Schenn and Max Sasson putting on an acting clinic as they teased a new Canucks themed ice cream product coming out any day now.
My biggest takeaway is that’s an awful lot of Skate branding for a product launch. Makes you think.
On the ice, however, the Canucks did run into some issues. They clearly struggled against a Carolina team that looked to be in mid-season form, as the Hurricanes were clinging to Vancouver so much I was afraid of saying anything lest they start looking right at me before escalating into a “no, no, no, no, I thought we were having a nice date!” speech.
If Las Vegas gave the Canucks fits with their forechecking prowess, however, it should be no surprise that Vancouver had absolutely no answers for Rod Brind’amour’s crew. You watched the Knights handle Vancouver last game and you had to remind yourself “oh that’s right, Carolina absolutely spanked these guys somehow, that’s crazy!” But then you watched Carolina kill Vancouver with such ease it almost felt uncomfortable. Nothing should be that easy in life, but there was Carolina, barely breaking a sweat, putting Vancouver through the wringer. They didn’t even look sorry about any of it, they just sort of had that hardened hired assassin vibe of “sorry buds, nothing personal.”
It’s not just the fact they beat you, it’s that they give you very little choice in the matter. Want to move the puck out of your own zone? Good luck with that with three Canes players bearing down on you. And should you somehow manage to fling the puck over to your partner, good luck watching three more Canes players lock him down. And let’s say it’s your lucky day and your partner manages to flip the puck out of the zone, well good luck watching three more Canes players back checking and harassing your buddy the second he tries to enter the offensive zone.
I don’t know if Rod watches Star Trek but he clearly knows how to take the neutral zone seriously.
It just feels like Carolina has 12 players on the ice at time, as surely nobody can be covered by three guys at all times. Yet that’s where we found ourselves, watching the young Canucks defenseman having a come to Jesus moment as they tried, and tried, and tried again to figure a way to avoid the relentless pressure from the Hurricanes. I can’t say Zeev Buium turned to the camera and pleaded “help me” at any point, but I can’t say he didn’t do that, either.
It was essentially panic survival hockey for most of the night, and while it is very much another good teaching moment for this club, it’s also a teaching moment for the fan base that as the season progresses and as the top teams lock it in, we will see plenty more games like this.
For those looking to end this opener on an optimistic swing of things, fret not, for there are a couple. Elias Pettersson continues to make high level plays, showing signs of the beast within from many seasons ago. Jake DeBrusk has begun his annual “randomly get hot and score goals before hibernating again” start of the season.
And the team didn’t quit on the night, they honestly just got the shit kicked out of them by a better, higher skilled team. At no point watching this game did you feel like the Canucks weren’t doing their best, it was just their best pales in comparison to the Stanley Cup champs.
All of which is yes, made better by the fact this IS a rebuilding team and losses like this WILL happen. A far better fate to embrace compared to being told this team is a contender, and that they are one Derek Forbort away from competing.
Let’s recap this game.
Best killing you softly
K’Andre Miller opened the scoring just over a minute into the game when the defensive coverage seemed to fall apart after Paul Cotter attempted to stop Andrei Svechnikov only to find out that Carolina and WCW are where the big boys play:
Cotter stopped number 37 from scoring an NHL 27 cheese goal across the crease, but the Canucks started puck watching after that, falling behind with each passing second. This led to Brock Boeser completely abandoning up his post on the right flank, giving K’Andre the easy lay up.
That’s the kind of blown coverage where you know you made a mistake, and your buddies know you made a mistake, so nobody talks about it as they skate away. They just let it linger in the air until it goes away like a forgotten elevator fart.
Sorry, my journalistic integrity slipped there with the flatulent metaphor; let’s have another crack at that.
When one makes a mistake, sometimes it’s best to not speak of it. Let it sit there like an unwanted desire, something best left to the imagination. Could it have gone better? Might you have changed things? Worrying about things such as this is akin to wondering if magic is real and if an all-knowing being is indeed watching over you while you sleep. Sometimes it’s the not knowing the ultimate answer that gives us more clarity than discovering the truth. Learning to let it go is one of life’s greatest victories.
All of which is to say sometimes you can’t trust a fart.
That’s all I’m saying.
Best dog on a bone
I don’t want to go out on a limb here, but Carolina has a pretty solid power play. If you’re into that sort of thing that is. I’m more of a glass-and-out kind of guy.
Rod the Bod’s team went 3/3 with the extra man, as Svechnikov made it 2-0 after Victor Mancini, playing in the spot of healthy scratch Luke Schenn, chased after the puck with some real golden retriever energy:
Mancini made a good shot block to start the sequence, but gets stripped of the puck quite promptly by Svechnikov, leading to Mancini racing out of position after the play by the boards, which quickly breaks down the Canucks penalty kill structure. And as we have seen time and time again with Carolina, you cannot afford to make mistakes against them at the best of times, let alone all game long.
Which is both an indicator of how far Vancouver’s roster needs to go to compete with a team like this, but is also very much a “tip your hat to them” moment because Carolina made it look easy. Even veteran d-man Jamie Oleksiak ran into the “Carolina problem” when he failed to get the puck out of his zone, leading to another dangerous rush for the Canes:
Marco Rossi and Tom Willander are fighting for their lives to stay above water out there, to somehow escape their own zone with possession of the puck, leading to Oleksiak trying his best to dip, dodge, duck, dodge and dodge his way into a zone exit only to get beaned with a wrench in the head.
Playing Carolina feels like it would be a lot like finding out you have a three hour meeting at 9am on Monday morning about the companies road map for the year ahead. Like physically you’ll be there, but mentally you are just absolutely done.
Best 3 count
With Linus Karlsson taking a penalty for breaking the Treaty of Cheron, Svechnikov potted his second goal of the night on what many are calling a glorified tap in:
Fil Hronek biffs it big time on this play: he rolls to his left to cover Svechnikov immediately off the draw to stop the one-timer, then steps up briefly, releasing the Canes forward for the goal.
If I had to guess, I would say Fil lost track of the puck and didn’t realize the cross-crease tap-in was right there, but again, this is Carolina. You make a single mistake, and they murder you, and to be honest, I think part of them enjoys it. They just have this Dexter energy. I can’t prove it yet, but I will.
I will.
And again, the Canucks were trying to generate offence; they just couldn’t match wits with a Sicilian. Even when they managed a takeaway in the neutral zone, seconds later the Hurricanes pinched up and caused a turnover, this time in the form of a Logan Stankoven breakaway attempt:
He didn’t go full Stanky on the Canucks yet, but he would. He would.
They just don’t let you breathe, and we saw this against Vegas. The relentless pressure means you need to have a combination of good team structure, quick decision-making, and confidence and skill with the puck to escape it. You can make teams pay for playing a high-pressure game, but the Canucks don’t have those horses right now.
Best
The Canucks’ best chance of the opening frame? A breakout that relied on equal parts prayer and equal parts luck:
The Canucks are just launching the puck out of their zone, praying Carolina leaves them alone for a single solitary moment, but it leads to a breakaway for Paul Cotter.
Did he otter? No.
Should he have ottered? Yes.
Best shake and Jake
Fresh off of his disease and illness era, Jake DeBrusk played his best game of the season, which admittedly wasn’t the highest of bars.
But there is a small bit of Hammond to Jake’s game where when he wants to roll into a giant ball and crash the net, by God nobody will stand in his way:
He doesn’t score, but it was one of the better chances in the game, and his follow up effort led to Rossi sending in a searching point shot that Brock Boeser almost got a tip on.
Best John Weisbrod validation
Former Buffalo Sabres legend Mark Jankowski would then make it 4-0, completely spitting in the faces of Jake’s power play efforts, which felt kind of rude?
Again, many of these clips are of the Canucks merely trying to stay alive in their own zone. Fighting to get the puck out like their lives depended on it. But every time Carolina would almost laugh at them for being so stupid to think they could do that.
Aatu Räty throws it up the boards? Intercepted.
Drew O’Connor chases the puck down and throws it out of the zone? Nope, intercepted.
The end result are four Canucks players are caught up high in their zone, leaving Fil Hronek with two options, play the shot or defend a pass. Fil backs off and gives Kevin Lankinen the shooter, but I think he ends up overthinking it because he cheats off his post and The Jank Tank of Spank puts it top shelf where Mom keeps the DNA results.
Part of you watches that and just wishes Fil had been aggressive and ran right at The Crank Jank, but hindsight is a notorious busybody and all that. Maybe he makes the pass and it’s 4-0 anyways.
It was just one of those nights where it felt like every time the Canucks got aggressive they got burned and whenever they were too passive, they got burned.
If this was CSI I would have a witty cutaway to the next section.
Best burning with desire
Remember when Rick Tocchet wanted to coach that out of EP40’s game? Ah good times, good times.
We all know Elias Pettersson is at his best when the east and west coast are beefing, and his fantastic start to the season continued against the Hurricanes in the form of two assists. More importantly, they were incredibly smart assists that played an integral part of both goals.
We aren’t talking about a secondary assist where he blindly flings the puck down the ice only to pick up an assist while he’s on the bench, no no no, we’re talking about a confident skating Elias that holds onto the puck to open up lanes for his buddies, leading to a Jake DeBrusk goal:
The patience EP40 shows to hold the puck on his back hand until Jake gets a chance to skate into the lane lets this play develop, and the slick saucer pass he feeds back to Jonathan Lekkerimäki leads to the spinning shot in the slot that Shake and Jake ultimately cashes in for a goal.
This was the Canucks best line on the night, a feat made all the more exciting for Vancouver fans that Jonathan Lekkerimäki was a big part of that. For a guy that really needs to show fast gains in the NHL this season, his ability to make plays in the offensive zone and survive the physical nature of the big league has been a happy surprise so far.
We all knew he had the shot, but we needed to see if he’s got that dawg in him. Jury is still out, but promising signs so far mean you can put down those Patrick White accusations.
Best pinching off a hot one
For posterity sake, let’s hit up some clips of just how miserable it is to play the Hurricanes. You make a single mistake, and they are cramming that throat down your puck.
First up we have Paul Cotter failing to get the puck in the offensive zone. No problem, that’s far enough away from your net- Oh sorry there goes Sebastian Aho and Svechnikov on a 3 on 2 that almost ends in another tap in goal:
Tom Willander is watching Carolina get aggressive so he decides to go for it and jump up and make a nice forecheck, ah sorry mate, that’s a 2 on 1 now that D Elias Pettersson has to shut down:
It’s funny, you watch that clip and you see Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven just beeline out of the zone the second Boeser fumbles the puck. Which normally, one forward blowing the zone on a puck that isn’t 100% out yet is enough to lead to NHL coaches screaming. I think Rick Tocchet was arrested for attempted murder when Nils Höglander blew the zone once. But here we have two guys just seeing their boy along the boards and they are out of there faster than you are after filling up your tank in Merritt.
The crazy part is Brock Boeser has a play on the puck there, that is not a guaranteed out. But Carolina is so good at what they do that the majority of the time, this is how it plays out.
Which again, teams can make Carolina pay for being overly aggressive. Catching the Hurricanes cheating up the ice can burn them. But Vancouver isn’t there yet.
Hell, even Carolina’s goalie Pyotr Kochetkov caught the Canucks on a dump in, feeding the puck up the ice to Svechnikov, who came dangerously close to breaking Willander’s ankles:
They are just a filthy hockey club, what can I say.
Best
Carolina would flex their aggressive muscles once more on their fifth goal of the night, this time pressuring the Canucks power play into a turnover. The end result? Sean Walker making Fil Hronek look silly with a pass through his legs over to the Stank Tank for the goal:
Remember when I said it would have been nice if Fil had been aggressive on closing the gap on the fourth goal on Jankowski? But then we all laughed about how it didn’t matter because Carolina would have probably scored anyways?
This is what would have happened. Even when you try and get aggressive THEY PASS RIGHT THROUGH YOU.
And yes, Brock Boeser skating slowly, but valiantly, but also slowly, is a highlight in many of these goals against.
Best it doesn’t matter
I am going to level with you, it doesn’t matter who is in net for the Canucks, they aren’t changing the result of this game. Even Bubble Demko would have peaced out after the second period in this one.
That being said, I am very much here for a “let’s see what the new kid has going for him” run if it comes to that.
Either way, it was to be the last goal of the night for Kevin, who was sent to face the firing squad after this penalty from Max Sasson on Jackson Blake:
Which you know what, you’re down 5-1 and this guy is spamming the spin deke button, he deserved that cross check. Not all victories in life are obvious, but running a dude for stunting on your team is very much a thumbs up situation.
Alas, it meant another round of the Hurricanes power play, which ended Kevin’s night after Taylor Hall found Logan Stankoven for his second goal of the night:
Arshdeep Bains needs to control the stick of Stanky there, as he is slow to arrive to the scene of the crime, resulting in another goal for the home team. Bottom of the roster players can’t afford to be made into gifs like this!
Best optimistic outlook
Not a ton going on for Vancouver in this one, which is where we find ourselves celebrating Elias Pettersson shooting a puck on the powerplay:
For those who made it through last year, where the fan base was literally begging Elias Pettersson to take a shot, this is still a proud moment. He’s not quite Peter Pan yet, but it sure looks like he remembers how to use his imagination to eat food again.
Checking in on Leevi Meriläinen, he made a couple of nice stops on Blake right in his doorstep after the Canucks once again randomly thought “you know what’s cool? Abandoning the front of the net.”
Speaking of abandoning your post, D Petey gets super aggressive moving to the middle of the ice on Svechnikov, which opens up a CFL end zone of room for a William Carrier breakaway:
And if you liked abandoning your post, you are going to absolutely love Tom Willander and Zeev Buium both leaving Leevi Meriläinen all alone after they both dropped below the goal line for reasons. Bees? It was bees:
Fantastic glove save that you truly need Jim Hughson to really appreciate. What I wouldn’t give to hear a “GREAT SAVE, MERILAINEN!” by that golden throated legend.
You can see the defensive breakdowns, though, right? You see how this looks, right?
Best stank bomb
Once again I am asking the Canucks to clear the puck out of their zone:
Hronek makes a really nice “eff you” play to start this video by shouldering Taylor Hall into the ice, before passing it over to Raty, who then decides now is the time to dangle out of his own zone, leading to yet another failed zone exit.
Amusingly enough it’s Stankoven that picks up the puck from Raty, then gets the puck back in deep from the point, and then turns around and beats Raty back to the slot to score the goal.
Rough look for Raty who is fighting to stay in the lineup.
Best line with no name
They haven’t been together long enough to earn a nickname, but Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson were fun to watch on this night. And even though Jonathan Lekkerimäki didn’t get an assist on this goal, give him a gold star for the puck protection alone:
This dude went from “I hope that stiff breeze shan’t knock him asunder” to “Where did he find that Captain America serum and how can I get some” real quick this year.
And in case you missed it, Jake DeBrusk was able to score that goal because of this absolutely disgusting redirect from one Elias Pettersson:
That is superstar shit right there. That is the deftest of tips on that pass.
Again, he’s not Peter Pan yet. But boy does it feel like Captain Hook should be looking over his shoulder soon.
Best bounceback
Best three up three down
OK let’s hit these up and call it a night.
Three down
  • Defensive zone coverage. Yes, this is Carolina’s specialty, but it really felt like Vancouver made a lot of bad reads on the night. Gave up the middle of the ice far too often.
  • No Luke Schenn. Look, I get it, he needs to rest. 84 games is a lot of hockey. But damn it, nobody clear the crease when he’s out. The Canucks dawg/60 and aggressive defending of their goalie drops to dangerously low amounts without Schenn.
  • Aatu Räty. I just really hated everything about Stankoven’s third goal.
Three up
  • Elias Pettersson. Dude is bringing it every night. Making incredible passes and taking shots whenever he can. This is a guy carrying his line, which is a nice turnaround from last year when we never thought we’d see that again. Passenger Petey no more.
  • Leevi Meriläinen. Let the kid run with it for a bit.
  • Jonathan Lekkerimäki. I thought he would be lucky to break into the lineup this season, but he has played far better than I had expected. His handling of the physical side of the game has been eye-opening.
Best mayor of Flavour Town
Daily FaceoffPuckPedia
Editorials
MORE NEWS. IN YOUR INBOX.
CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Breaking News

vancouver-canucks
Vancouver CanucksTeam Cap Summary
PuckPedia

Cap Summary

2026-27
2027-28
Projected Cap Hit
$88,074,947
$71,329,167
Projected Cap Space
$15,925,053
$42,170,833
Current Cap Space
$16,699,785
$42,170,833
Active Players
23/23
13/23

Draft Picks

Round
'27
'28
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
1
1