Tonight, the Vancouver Canucks play their 11th game of the season as they host the Carolina Hurricanes.

Plenty of ink has been spilled already about the Canucks’ first 10 games of the season here at canucksarmy.com/Daily Faceoff Vancouver. We’ve broken down every game, covered individual performances, and brought you the same wall-to-wall coverage and analysis you know and love.

Some of that coverage has, of course, focused on the Canucks’ blue line, and much of that discourse has centred on the Canucks’ young defencemen, whom the club hopes will become big pieces of its future when they’re ready to move from a rebuild into a contention window.

We’ve talked about Zeev Buium’s start, his decline in ice time, his rough performance in Long Island a week ago, and the flashes he showed towards the end of the road trip, too. We’ve also made sure to hammer home the fact that he’s only 20 years old, and that there will be ups and downs as he grows into the defenceman the Canucks believe he can be.

We, like anyone watching this team this year, have been impressed by Elias Junior Pettersson, who after a down sophomore season playing under Adam Foote in 2025-26, appears to have very firmly gotten back on the right track through 10 games of 2026-27.

And of course, we’ve also talked about 2023 11th overall pick Tom Willander, playing in his second full NHL season. He’s actually the inspiration for this article, as we couldn’t help but notice that his worst moments seem to come while playing alongside Jamie Oleksiak. The numbers seem to back that theory up, so let’s start there.

Note: For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus only on 5v5 results.

Tom Willander has spent meaningful 5v5 minutes paired up with Zeev Buium, Elias Pettersson, and Jamie Oleksiak so far this season. Oleksiak has been his most frequent partner, as the two have spent 106:15 of 5v5 ice time together. For comparison, Willander has spent 38:22 with Buium and 27:35 with Pettersson at 5v5 this season.

The stats we’ll highlight (all on a per-60-minute rate to account for the fact that the TOI of each pairing varies): Chances For (CF/60); Chances Against (CA/60); Corsi Percentage (Corsi%); Expected Goals For (xGF/60); Expected Goals Against (xGA/60); High Danger Chances For (HDCF/60); High Danger Chances Against (HDCA/60). 

What each of those stats means is pretty self-explanatory, but if you need a refresher, check out our advanced stats glossary by clicking here!

When we dive into these numbers, the results are what you’d expect from watching the games. The Oleksiak-Willander pairing has spent far too much time defending and giving up scoring chances while not creating many of their own, and the Buium-Willander pairing has been slightly better in overall chances, though they’ve given up an alarming number of high-danger chances against whilst not being on the ice for many high-danger chances going the other way.

What’s really staggering about the data is just how good the Pettersson-Willander pairing has been in just under 30 minutes of 5v5 ice time together.

Simply put, the Canucks have created more and gotten better defensive results in the minutes Willander and Pettersson spent on the ice together than any other pairing by a somewhat wide margin. Let’s look at those other pairings.

Here is every Canucks defensive pairing that has spent at least 25 5v5 minutes together this season. Any category a pairing leads the team in is highlighted in gold, while the worst pairing in each category is highlighted in red.

Now, as we always remind people when consuming data like this, consider things like score effects, offensive zone start percentage, limited sample size, and who a pairing is on the ice with, both in terms of forward line and the five opponents they’re matching up against. In other words, if the Canucks were to give the Pettersson-Willander pairing a longer run together against tougher competition and with more defensive zone starts, their numbers would likely come back down to earth a bit. But such a run is likely worth a shot, given how effective Willander and Pettersson have been together in a somewhat limited sample.

But what else can we take away from these numbers, alongside what we’ve seen by watching every game?

-Zeev Buium hasn’t found a home pairing just yet, and the numbers back his tough start to the season.
-Elias Pettersson has been the best partner for Filip Hronek to this point, but Pettersson has also been the best partner for Willander and Schenn as well.
-Might the Canucks give Oleksiak-Hronek a longer run on the top pair to help get the Pettersson-Willander pairing more time together?

In the end, it would appear that the Pettersson-Willander pairing getting a run together would not only be the best thing for both defencemen’s long-term development, but also the Canucks’ best chance at staying competitive in more games. That would be a win-win for any rebuilding team.