Wednesday night’s matchup between the Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins marked game 21 of the Canucks’ season, meaning the club has officially hit the quarter-mark of the 82 games they will play in the 2024-25 NHL regular season.

There have been plenty of storylines so far this season. It’s become painfully clear the Canucks need a top four defenceman, could likely use a right-handed centre for the bottom six, and we haven’t even begun talking about the players who the Canucks have been missing this season.

What we are going to do today is dish out letter grades and report cards for everyone on the 2024-25 Vancouver Canucks, starting with the forwards, with defencemen and goaltenders to follow tomorrow.

After a rocky start to the season that looked like a continuation of his struggles last season, Elias Pettersson has started to look more like himself over the month of November. That being said, we’ve seen Pettersson reach a level even higher than the one he’s operating at right now, so for that reason and the slow start, Pettersson gets a B for his first quarter of the 2024-25 season.

It’s fitting we’re giving out JT Miller’s grade right after doing Elias Pettersson’s because Miller’s start to the season was basically the reverse of Pettersson’s. After starting the season with nine points in nine games in October and playing against the opposition’s best, Miller’s play began to slip in November. It reached a boiling point, of course, when Miller was benched for the third period of the Canucks’ 5-3 home-ice loss to the Nashville Predators. With Miller now on an indefinite leave of absence, Miller’s quarter-season sample size consists of 17 of the Canucks’ 21 games.

Teddy Blueger’s impact on the Canucks may not seem like much, but when you consider what other centres signed for in free agency — Alex Wennberg’s two year deal at $5 million annually comes to mind — Blueger is performing well relative to both his cap hit and expectations.

Our first A grade goes to Pius Suter, who like Blueger, is outperforming both his cap hit and expectations. He shares the team lead in goals with Elias Pettersson at seven, and actually hit the mark before Pettersson did against Pittsburgh. If Suter could bump up his 35% faceoff percentage, he’d be an A or maybe even an A+, because right now, this team needs him at centre.

Winning a job out of training camp was already a major win for Aatu Räty. The AHL demotion came after just three games, and upon returning, there were multiple instances of Räty looking out of place at the NHL level. But in the past week, Räty seems to have turned a bit of a corner. He’s helped lead the charge in turning the Canucks’ fourth line into a strong forechecking line, and has even potted his first two goals in Canucks colours over his past two games. Given that nobody really expected Räty to even be in the NHL this season, a B- for what he’s turned in so far seems fitting.

Now, it’s hard to criticize Dakota Joshua too much given what the player has gone through. But with just one point through seven games, the on-ice results aren’t there just yet. That’s not to say Joshua can’t turn things around, of course. He just clearly hasn’t found his A-game yet, and that’s fine. It will come.

Speaking of Dakota Joshua, how about we talk about “the next Dakota Joshua” in Kiefer Sherwood? After signing a two-year deal with the Canucks in free agency, Sherwood’s $1.5 million cap hit makes him one of the best signings in the entire NHL, let alone among the ones the Canucks made. Sherwood is on pace to shatter the NHL’s hits record and, perhaps most impressively, hasn’t been caught out of position while trying to chase hits. He’s been effective all over the lineup, and is already up to 12 points through 21 games this season. He is our first A+. Can’t ask for much more than what we’ve seen from Sherwood’s first 21 games.

Brock Boeser was off to a great start to his season before he went down with an upper body injury after taking a blindside hit from Tanner Jeannot that caused him to miss seven games. Boeser is still on pace to surpass 30 goals once again, but his missed time may cost him from posting back-to-back 40 goal seasons. The one real slight against Boeser through the 14 games he’s played is that the power play has struggled, and Boeser is a part of those struggles.

Right from the start of the season, Conor Garland has proven himself to be a vital part of this Canucks team. He’s played in the top six, and been effective basically anywhere he’s played. A B+ is a strong grade, and Garland’s 18 points in 21 games certainly make him deserving of a strong grade.

Nils Höglander’s season got off to a hot start when he was playing with Elias Pettersson and Conor Garland, but he quickly lost that spot and ended up back in Rick Tocchet’s doghouse. The situation doesn’t appear like it’s going to get better anytime soon, and there’s a reason Höglander keeps being brought up in trade discussions. The head coach clearly isn’t crazy about the defensive side of Höglander’s game, and for good reason.

Danton Heinen may be one of the most forgettable players on this team, but he’s done his job just fine. You never seem to notice him for the wrong reasons, and he’s put up 10 points through 21 games this season. The only issue for me is that I can’t recall a single one of those points, but hey, the stats don’t lie, right? That’s solid value for a middle six winger.

Historically, Jake DeBrusk has been a streaky scorer, and that’s what he’s been in Vancouver so far. His production is fine at six goals and eight assists through 21 games, but that’s all it is — fine. The Canucks certainly want to see more consistency from the player who entered the season with aspirations of hitting 30 goals and signed a seven-year deal with the club this past offseason.

Arshdeep Bains works hard and is rarely caught out of position. It’s why he’s got more of the coach’s trust than a player like Höglander does, but the lack of offensive output from Bains can’t be ignored, especially when he was playing in the top six alongside Elias Pettersson. But if we’re going to highlight Bains’ play away from the puck, it’s also worth mentioning that he’s got a plus-minus rating of -4 this season. So even if the puck isn’t going into the Canucks’ net because of Bains — like it is with Höglander — it’s still going in with him on the ice, and not many are going into the opponent’s net. For those reasons, Bains gets a C+ so far this season. As a young player, there is plenty of room for improvement here, and the fact he’s even getting a grade in this article means he’s already greatly exceeded expectations from when he first signed with the Canucks out of junior.

Something you likely notice with all of the forwards is that few received an A, and that’s because most of them simply haven’t found their “A-Game” just yet. As a whole, the Canucks wrap up their first quarter of the season with an 11-7-3 record, good for third in the Pacific Division by points percentage. Just six points back of the Vegas Golden Knights with two games in hand, the top spot in the Pacific is certainly within reach for the Canucks down the final 3/4 of the 2024-25 NHL regular season.

Tune in tomorrow for the defence and goaltending report cards, where the grades are certain to be much lower than they were for the forwards!

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