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The Stanchies: Kings do not cruise to victory over Canucks on fan appreciation night
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Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Cody Severtson
Apr 15, 2026, 02:45 EDTUpdated: Apr 15, 2026, 02:49 EDT
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Am I a sicko for being sad that this season’s over?
Well, not completely over. But, basically there.
I guess I’m not ready for the season to be over becuase it means we’re steps closer to seeing the Canucks lose the draft lottery to the back-to-back Stanley Cup-winning Florida Panthers, or to J.T. Miller’s Rangers, or to the Nashville Predators, who are a franchise that has been as lost as the Vancouver Canucks since last making it to a Stanley Cup Final.
The uncertainty of what comes after Thursday’s finale against the Oilers brings me nothing but tremendous anxiety.
I remember being in a condo in Maui on April 29th, 2017, watching the NHL Draft Lottery unfold, as the 1st and 2nd-worst teams in the league (the Colorado Avalanche and your Vancouver Canucks) dropped to the 4th and 5th spots in the draft behind the New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers, and Dallas Stars. At least I had the glowing sun of Kihei, HI, to help me forget that tragedy.
I won’t be anywhere nearly as sunny as Maui when this draft lottery takes place on May 1st, 2026. So, yeah, I’m a little worried about this one!
Before, you could look to the 2017 draft failure and say, “Well, hey, it worked out, they got the 2nd-best player in the draft!”
You can’t really say that anymore, given how Elias Pettersson has performed across the last two seasons.
Owen Tippett, Marty Necas, and Nick Suzuki, all drafted between 10th and 13th overall in the 2017 draft, traded by the team that drafted them, all playoff-bound, and all have more points than EP40 does this season. Or, in Necas’ and Suzuki’s case, more points this season than EP40 has total in his last TWO seasons.
Suzuki has been the guy throughout Montreal’s rebuild era at a tidier-than-tidy cap hit of $7.875-million per year.
Necas has fit seamlessly beside Nathan MacKinnon as a replacement for Mikko Rantanen, and he’s about to begin a contract with the Avs that will carry an annual cap hit of $11.5-million per.
Canucks fans are hoping that it was because of Rick Tocchet, it was because of the loss of Kuzmenko (13 goals, 25 points this year, by the way), and that 18-year-olds Gavin McKenna, or Ivar Stenberg, or Caleb Malhotra will be the spark that motivates the soon-to-be 28-year-old Elias Pettersson to return to his once-elite form.
Since the Olympic Break, EP40 has five points at 5-on-5. Zero goals. Two primary assists and three secondary, including the one against LA on Tuesday night.
For most of the first period against LA, it felt like EP40 was sleepwalking up and down the ice while the youth of the team worked their tails off to keep their heads above water and create offence against a Kings squad that wasn’t messing around. Zeev Buium was dancing. Liam Ohgren was a buzzsaw. Nils Höglander was firing on all cylinders, Aatu Räty dominated in the dot, and Kirill Kudryavtsev showed better defensive IQ than the kind we’ve seen from most Canuck blueliners this season.
Then EP40 woke up just long enough to help push Vancouver to it’s third straight overtime game, channeling enough of his 2023-24 form to hand LA their 20th overtime loss of the season.
What a guy.
Let’s get into it.
But first!
Worst Recap (No, not this one)
Look, I’m not going to plug the site responsible for the above “article” because I think the people responsible for AI-generated slop content like it are a scourge to society. But thank you to Canucks reddit user /u/stretchyweenis for bringing this slop to our attention.
CanucksArmy takes its role in the market very seriously. AI-generated content is grounds for immediate dismissal. It’s not who we are, or ever will be.
Do you think AI is capable of something as polarizing and engaging as Hughes Week? No.
Do you think AI is capable of creating something as iconic and market-transcending as the Chaos Giraffe? No.
Do the owners of/contributors to the above website value their time so greatly that they deem it necessary to waste Earth’s precious resources for (what could only be) one-figure worth of ad revenue on an eight-hour-early AI-generated game recap of a meaningless, mid-April Canucks-Kings game?
I’ve run WordPress before to host The Farmies™ Utica Comets/Abbotsford Canucks game recaps. I can assure you, the clicks these folks generated did not offset the cost of energy to produce the slop that they did.
The modern confluence of passive-income/side-hustle grifting with lazy AI click-farm content is outright depressing.
I spent years fine-tuning my craft as a creative sportswriter. It isn’t exactly surprising that my write-ups take inspiration from the greats in fan-engaging, spicy, honest, and creative sportswriting like Jason Botchford, The Stanchion, Jackson MacDonald, and Sara Civian. The goal has always been to make even the most uninteresting subjects — like a mid-April Canucks-Kings game — entertaining, fun, honest, unafraid to be critical, and ultimately worth reading about, even if the team’s results are peepeepoopoo.
Writing the Stanchies as Wyatt’s #2, after several seasons of writing AHL recaps directly on Reddit formatting, and a barely-visited WordPress blog, felt like a grand accomplishment.
In my four short years with CanucksArmy, I’ve been fortunate (and unfortunate) to cover some major games and moments in Canucks history: The Boudreau crying game, the Kuzmenko pride night no-show, the Abbotsford Canucks Calder run, the start of Quinn Hughes’ Norris campaign, the first instance of NHL EDGE justifying a coach’s decision-making, and a return to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs!
This season, my wife and I have experienced the MANY highs and lows of raising a frequently-ill toddler (thanks, daycare!) without a village in one of the world’s most expensive places to live. I’ve been unfortunately sidelined from writing about the Canucks infrequent highs and MANY lows over the past two seasons.
I’m not trying to pretend I’m reinventing the wheel or writing the Grapes of Wrath over here. But, as newsrooms get shuttered, credentials get revoked, and jobs in journalism evaporate, it’s incredibly sad and frustrating to see AI sportslop try to usurp its place while watching from the sidelines.
The opener in that AI slop above reads, “The Los Angeles Kings headed to Rogers Arena on Tuesday night to take on the Vancouver Canucks in the final game of the NHL regular season.”
The laziness to avoid even basic fact-checking is annoying to me as a detail-oriented pedant.
I won’t even clip the part where the AI-generated article cites BRUCE BOUDREAU instead of Adam Foote, when describing the impact of losing Thatcher Demko.
For comedy’s sake, we’ll clock the article’s predictions over the course of the game, as proof of concept that shameless profession-insulting AI sportslop can never replace what the team at CanucksArmy brings to the fans, who still tune in daily to find out about their favourite floundering, directionless franchise.
With that rant out of the way, let’s get into Tuesday night’s action: a battle between the playoff-bound, minus-19 goal differential, Los Angeles Kings in their second-to-last game of the 2025-26 season against the lowly Vancouver Canucks, hot off their thrilling 4-3 overtime win against the playoff-bound, minus-15 goal differential Anaheim Ducks.
Boy, what a season for the Canucks (organizationally) to collapse like a dying star, and be forced into a rebuild they’d been ignoring for the better part of 15 years.
Best Lineup Available
Blurst Start (pre-game)
Across 56 games played during the shortened 2020-21 North Division season, the Canucks finished with 23 wins, with 17 of those wins in regulation.
Across 81 games in 2025-26, the Canucks have amassed a whopping 24 wins, with 15 of those coming in regulation.
Woof!
I’m not a marketing guy, or a community outreach guy, or a fan-engagement specialist. However, I don’t think you need to be any of those to acknowledge how goofy it is to hype “Fan Appreciation Night” by inviting fans to come welcome and celebrate the players responsible for one of the franchise’s most pathetic seasons.
Best AI Sportslop
Oh, wait, the team put this out? Two hours before puck drop on their second-to-last game of the season? Not an AI-content farm putting out hours-early prediction content like the website above did? Okay!
Honestly, this team just loves to do themselves and their players zero favours.
EP40 has had an atrocious year, and even his most passionate defenders know that “celebrating his status as the 2025-26 Canucks’ leading scorer” isn’t worth celebrating. Let alone celebrating, incorrectly, with two games left on the docket.
Like, at least wait for the season to be over before tweeting something like this. Or phrase it correctly, that he’s their current leading scorer.
For what it’s worth, EP40 was 136th in NHL scoring at the time of the tweet. 136th!
Elias Pettersson wasn’t even the leading scorer by the end of the first period against the Kings! He did regain that status by the end of overtime, but yeesh! Talk about “calling game” a little early!
Best Future Unsung Hero Award Winner
One of the most interesting storylines to follow during the Abbotsford Canucks’ 2024-25 season was the quietly impressive season of young Kirill Kudryavtsev.
In his rookie season, the Abbotsford Canucks outscored their opposition 40-25 with the seventh-rounder on the ice at 5-on-5. His absurd plus-15 goal differential at 5-on-5 was the team’s best.
That impressive control of goalscoring became only more absurd during the team’s Calder Championship run, when the Farm outscored their opposition 18-3 during Kudryavtsev’s minutes at 5-on-5. Across all situations, Abbotsford outscored their opposition 27-3 with him on the ice.
That’s an impressive stat considering his stature as a rookie playing predominantly 5-on-5 and 2nd/3rd-rotation PK duty.
Quietly, in his previous three games played in the show, the Canucks had outscored their opposition 2-zip in Kudryavtsev’s minutes at 5-on-5, while outshooting opponents 14-7, and out-attempting them 33-24.
Some players have benefitted from some incredibly prescribed roles that inflated their stats, but Kudryavtsev’s quietly impressive defensive reads and smart plays to get the play moving in a positive direction were apparent against LA early.
Early in the first period, Kudryavtsev did well, tying up Scott Laughton at the net front, before spotting a trickler, separating, and clearing a would-be tap-in out of Kevin Lankinen’s crease.
That little half-second stuck under Laughton’s stick proved just long enough for the rookie d-man to get under his veteran opponent for the impressive save.
Incredibly, Kudryavstev would be responsible for a second open-crease save later in the game, during the Canucks patented second-period collapse™.
On his second shift, there was still some of that rookie “greenness” apparent in his game when Joel Armi snuck up behind him from the d-zone to pick off his backhand pass through the middle for a two-on-one with Jared Wright.
Midway through the first, Kudryavtsev picked up his second point in as many games, assisting on Elias (the defenceman) Pettersson’s third goal of the season off a slick cut through the slot by Marco Rossi.
1-0 Canucks: Elias Pettersson from Kirill Kudryavtsev and Marco Rossi
It’s a goal sequence that the Canucks were sorely lacking in the dying days of the Quinn Hughes era. Movement, traffic at the net front, and quick decision-making.
Rossi’s skate through the slot draws in three Kings’ skaters, and Kudryavtsev recognizes this by not sitting on the puck for too long. He quickly rips the puck to a wide-open D-Petey for the wrist shot past a well-screened Kuemper.
The AI Sportslop article predicted that Kempe would give the Kings a 2-goal lead to start. Forty gallons of freshwater were wasted on that prediction.
Late in the first, Kudryavtsev was tasked with a d-zone faceoff off an accidental icing by Curtis Douglas. The Kings threw out their heavy-hitting fivesome of Anze Kopitar, Artemi Panarin, and Adrian Kempe, alongside Drew Doughty and Brandt Clarke.
Undeterred by a failed clear by his d-partner, the rookie Kudryavtsev took a glove-down pass from Lankinen with Kopitar on his back and calmly cleared the zone with a Tanev-esque casual board-and-out play.
Later in the second, Kudryavtsev shattered his stick on a point shot attempt, but calmly backed up into the d-zone off the ensuing Kings rush, executing a classic Myers-sprawl to take away the shooting angle.
Offensively, Kudryavtsev sshowed more of his quick decision-making prowess, taking a pass from Rossi off the entry and dishing a no-look relay to O’Connor down the left wing for a drive on goal.
It was actually pretty funny for me to watch Buium give Kudryavtsev directions on d-zone coverage after the latter stuck to like glue before casually peeling back toward the middle.
Kudryavtsev does so well to read Moore’s edges and angle him wide toward the boards for a reset toward the point. Moore is no slouch on his feet, and Kudryavstev sticks with him with ease.
Buium’s pointing catches Kudryavtsev offguard, and for the first time all game, looks uncomfortable with his coverage. Buium doesn’t close down on the shooter either, giving way to a dangerous shot for LA in the dying seconds.
Best Unsung Hero nominee
I couldn’t even find a tweet talking about Tom Willander from the first two periods. Which says a lot about Canucks fans’ patience for rookie blueliners, because he had a tough go through 40 minutes.
The relaxed nature of Kudryavtsev under pressure stood in stark contrast to fellow rookie Tom Willander, who froze on a two-on-one on the ensuing shift, leading to the Kings’ equalizer.
1-1 Tie
In this sequence, Willander should have the information edge. He has Brock Boeser in his periphery and should be able to clock that he can tag Quinton Byfield on the backcheck. Alex Laferriere should be Willander’s guy the second they cross the blue.
For whatever reason, Willander pinches on Byfield, then opts back for Laferriere. But the extra motion just gives the Kings’ forward time to thread his pass through Willander’s feet to Byfield.
It’s not so much panic as it is uncertainty under pressure. It’s his offside, so perhaps that plays into it. However, too often this season, Willander has struggled with gap control off the rush.
On the very next shift, Willander was matched against Byfield again, where he again reacted late to a developing play.
Least-inspiring period
One of the more surreal sequences in the first period was Zeev Buium cutting down the left wing with speed for a wrist shot off Kuemper’s shoulder.
Surreal in that the shot came off a zone entry started by a dump-in by EP40. I thought to myself, “Remember when EP40 used to do this? Shimmy his way off the line with the puck, look off his check, and rifle the puck toward the net?”
How is it that the most notable moment of a sequence these days is him slowly dragging behind on the back check after taking a bump?
It’s just so deflating watching him try to run pick plays at the offensive blue line, hoping to disrupt a potential 3-on-2, only to fail and be spared only by a poor entry attempt by the Kings’ third line.
He absolved himself later with a faceoff win, early in the second period, that led to Jake DeBrusk’s 22nd goal of the year. However, his work on the power play in the dying seconds of the first period left a lot to be desired.
Like, this was a disastrous puckhandling sequence from EP40 that closed the period. A failed saucer pass, a duffed control at the blue line, and a loss of possession.
2-1 Canucks: Jake DeBrusk from Brock Boeser and Filip Hronek
The sequence tied Hronek with EP40 as the team’s leading point scorers, and put Boeser within a point of both.
EP40 wound up playing just three minutes of even-strength ice time in the second period. Less than every other forward not named Nils Höglander or Curtis Douglas.
While admittedly not a fan of his performance in the first period, or his overall body of work these last two seasons, less TOI at evens than Ty Mueller, Marco Rossi, and Teddy Blueger is an insane bit of coaching from Head Coach Adam Foote. I don’t think an extra two minutes of even strength TOI is the differenece between “this EP40” and “All-Star EP40” but given the contract status of all four centers, it makes zero sense giving Blueger the lions share of even strength ice time aong centers over the guy this franchise desperately needs to find his game.
Scariest mid-game text
Let me tell ya. There is nothing more terrifying than pausing a mid-period write-up about Kudryavtsev’s first handful of shifts to help navigate a bedtime routine for a severely overtired 20-month-old, when a text rolls in from Quads that reads, “Oh no…”
All things considered, the Canucks had one of their better first periods of late. They were quick on pucks, forechecking well, cycling the puck efficiently and attempting looks from a multitude of angles. Unfortunately, their best efforts only resulted in a 1-1 draw heading into the first intermission ahead of the Canucks’ truest enemy of the 2025-26 season: second periods.
Twelve seconds after DeBrusk’s eight-trillionth power play goal of the season, Kempe equalized for the Kings after a tragic lapse in d-zone coverage by Willander, Marcus Pettersson, and Bleuger.
2-2 Tie
Willander sticks down low to stick with Panarin, Blueger ditches the guts of the ice to assist Willander in chasing down Panarin, Marcus Pettersson shoots up the middle of the ice to take on Kopitar with Blueger gone, and Kempe laughs all the way to the bank as he sits at the goalmouth with no one on him.
A minute and thirteen seconds later, it was Alex Laferriere’s turn to waltz to the goalmouth unencumbered to break the stalemate for LA.
3-2 Kings
The goal could best be characterized as a simple lapse from the Canucks’ MVP of the Season, Filip Hronek, who was slow to react to Laferriere’s swerve below the goal line and out to the top of the crease.
It’s not the worst thing a Canuck has done after being named MVP!
After all, the last two Cyclone Taylor MVP award winners asked to be traded in the year after they won!
Nearing the midway point of the period, Armia drew a holding penalty against Ty Mueller to give LA their first power play of the night.
Aatu Räty, who went 75% in the dot, won the PK faceoff, then led a shorthanded break alongside Blueger, which thoroughly disrupted the Kings’ early power play momentum.
A PK duo of Liam Ohgren and Boeser then took a turn generating a shorthanded rush after Panarin whistled a one-timer nowhere near a wide-open net. Then, 2025-26 Unsung Hero winner Drew O’Connor stole the puck from Brandt Clarke at the d-zone blueline for the Canucks third shorthanded chance.
The Canucks PK group outchancing a loaded Kings’ power play unit was a significant momentum changer for Vancouver.
Off an offensive zone faceoff—won by Höglander, no less—resulted in the game’s second equalizer of the period.
Best Exciting Player Award Winners (past and present)
Nils Höglander probably can’t wait for the season to be over. It’s been a disaster for him. Ever since he signed that contract extension following his “impressive training camp,” things have just not gone his way.
After reaching career highs in goals and points in 2024-25 (who among the Canucks didn’t do so that year, though, am I right?!), Höglander’s role and production have seen a precipitous decline that I don’t think anyone could have seen coming.
I had Höglander on my Team MVP ballot for his rookie campaign in 2020-21 because he was the only player who seemingly gave a bleep in all 56 games.
It’s odd because it’s not without trying. The guy works his tail off to create offence, but the points just haven’t come. He’s essentially Jake DeBrusk without the power play time, or defensive chops, or the trust in his head coach.
It’ll be a shame when he’s traded with a draft pick to an East Coast team that instantly salvages his value by simply letting him cook with a center who still moves his feet.
That Höglander won a faceoff draw that led to a broken stick, and one of the best passing plays featuring EP40 and himself for a critical equalizer was a great little reward for his efforts against LA.
3-3 Tie: Zeev Buium from Nils Höglander and Elias Pettersson
Worth noting too that Kudryavtsev was on the ice for the goal sequence, meaning the Canucks had quietly improved to outscoring opponents 4-zip with him on the ice at 5-on-5.
The secondary apple on the goal also absolved the Canucks social media content team of the early election call gaffe on Elias Pettersson as the points leader. A primary apple on the overtime winner for Vancouver would give the social media intern plenty of wiggle room to play “I told ya so” heading into the team’s finale on Thursday night against Edmonton.
Back to Höglander.
Off the failed 3rd-period power play opportunity, Höglander executed a Burrows-esque grab at the blue line to secure the zone for Vancouver, leading to dangerous shots on goal for himself and Hronek.
On his next shift Höglander wheeled around the zone before going cross-ice with a backhand saucer pass to DeBrusk, who tried to hit Buium with a pass after he’d waded down the left wing for a tap-in opportunity.
He should have arguably drawn a tripping penalty against Joel Edmundson in the final five minutes of the game, but it wasn’t in the cards.
Best Canucks Fight Club Revival
Somehow, this game ended up being wildly chippy over the final 25 minutes or so, and it all started with several big hits on Buium below the Canucks’ goal line from Byfield, Laferriere, and Trevor Moore.
Hronek certainly clocked the excessiveness of Laferriere’s hit, fighting Mathieu Joseph later in the third period after taking a roughing minor for the post-whistle scrum sparked by a cheapshot on Räty by Byfield.
We’re not sure how cheapshotting two players ends up in a 4-on-4, but whatever. It’s game 81.
Kevin Lankinen drew a goalie interference minor against rookie Jared Wright that gave Vancouver their second power play of the game. However, the Canucks failed to strike.
Approaching the midway point of the period, Hronek grabbed Mathieu Joseph for a “scrap.” Presumably, after the latter hit Buium up high.
Grabbing Joseph for the scrap meant that Vancouver would go back to the PK for the second time of the night.
The Canucks PK did well to thwart LA’s efforts for the first minute. However, a bizarre moment led to a prolonged stint stuck in the d-zone, after Brock Boeser stopped his backcheck to call for a whistle, after seeing referee Chris Schlenker trip over a Kings’ skater and smack the back of his head on the ice.
Might be the first time that being a nice guy resulted in a brutal shift stuck in the d-zone for the defending team. Boeser outright stops playing hockey to get Schlencker immediate medical attention and it cost his team. Fortunately, not on the scoreboard, but definitely tired legs.
Bless Boes.
Best “they can’t keep getting away with it!”
One sweeping save out of the crease by the Canucks with Kudryavtsev on the ice?
Two sweeping saves out of the crease by the Canucks with Kudryavtsev on the ice??
Three sweeping saves out of the crease by the Canucks with Kudryavtsev on the ice???
Buium’s denial on Byfield’s trickler opened the door for Vancouver to send a third straight game to overtime.
In OT, the Ex-Wild duo of Buium and Ohgren combined for a slick 2v2 centring play that almost ended it early for Vancouver.
In the final home game of the season, Willander, EP40, and DeBrusk combined for some spaced-out passing to hand the King’s their 20th overtime loss.
4-3 Canucks: Jake DeBrusk from Elias Pettersson and Tom Willander
Maybe Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg will be the difference…
Oh god, I’m being optimistic. Time to wrap up this final instalment of the Stanchies from yours truly.
Best case against (mlb) expansion
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BREAKING... Mayor Ken Sim is calling for the launch of a bidding process to bring a Major League Baseball expansion franchise to Vancouver. "We see an opportunity to position Vancouver as the next home for a franchise." #MLB #bcpoli #vanpoli dailyhive.com/vancouver/vanc…

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Damn!
Best Pat-stat
I sure hope the Canucks’ next coach finds more ice time and a greater role for Räty beyond simply, “win draw; change off.”
Late on the Kings’ third period power play opportunity, Räty won a draw with the blad of his stick, then tried to play the puck back to his d-man with the butt-end of his stick, before spinning the stick around for the proper clearing pass.
Räty only saw eight shifts in the final frame, but did see a shift in overtime where he promptly won a draw before b-lining it to the bench.
Best end of an era
Kopitar finished his NHL career with 18 goals and 46 assists in 75 career games against Vancouver.
Mercifully, his two-way reign of terror against Vancouver drew to a close on Tuesday night.
Best Bones about it
There’s been a ton of talk about culture in Vancouver by pretty much every single person involved in the organization except GM Patrik Allvin. Bowness has a history in Vancouver. If he isn’t long for Columbus, maybe his attitude in the video above is what this organization needs.
Assuming anyone would listen, of course.
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