Hockey can’t be fun for Vancouver Canucks sniper Brock Boeser right now.

Not only are the Canucks 31st in the NHL standings, but he’s not producing right now, either. He is in the worst stretch of his professional hockey career, with zero goals in his last 17 games. To put it in perspective, Boeser has not scored since November 28. That’s over a month since he last lit the lamp.

He’s clearly got a case of the yips right now, gripping his stick a little too tightly, resulting in him mishandling the puck or fanning on a shot in a dangerous scoring position.

This must seem like deja vu for Canucks brass, as they went through a similar slump from another scoring winger, Jake DeBrusk.

DeBrusk had a stretch in which he scored one goal over a 16-game span and had one 5v5 goal through 37 games. At that point, Head Coach Adam Foote decided it was best for the player to watch from the press box as a healthy scratch for a game.

But that healthy scratching worked, as DeBrusk returned to the Canucks lineup with new juice. He was ready to prove to his coach that this was just going to be a one-game stint. He did not factor in the scoring in this return, but in the following game against the Seattle Kraken, DeBrusk tallied three points (one goal and two assists) and finished with five shots on goal. In fact, since DeBrusk’s scratching, he has been the Canucks’ highest volume shooter, logging 19 shots over a four-game span.

That begs the question: is it Boeser’s turn to take a seat in the press box? Would he benefit from a night off?

Now, there are a few reasons why it would and wouldn’t make sense.

For starters, as we’ve already discussed, it would make sense because of his scoring troubles. And, for a goal scorer who’s paid to be an NHL goal scorer, not scoring is kind of a problem. That’s his role on this team. Sure, sometimes when a player isn’t going offensively, they stay in the lineup because they’re helping the team in other areas: shot volume, penalty killing, defensive/physical play. But Boeser isn’t bringing any of those intangibles right now.

Over that span since his last goal, Boeser is an extra on the penalty kill, sometimes going games without helping out the penalty kill. He isn’t going defensive either; before Wednesday’s slate of games, Boeser is dead last in the NHL with a plus-minus rating of minus-22. In fact, Boeser is a minus-16 and has not finished a single game as a plus-player since his last goal.

As a sniper, you’d figure what’s keeping him in the lineup would be his shot volume; he just wasn’t capitalizing on those chances. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Boeser has just 30 shots on goal in that 17-game goalless stretch, good for an average of 1.76 shots per game. That’s nearly a full shot on goal less per game than that of his 40-goal season, where he averaged 2.51 shots per game.

If one were to separate the name from the player, and saw somebody getting paid north of $7 million annually, who hadn’t scored in 17 straight games, wasn’t shooting his regular volume, and was carrying a league-worst minus-22 rating on the season, a lot of people would question why he’s still in the lineup.

However, that’s not the case. It’s not as easy to separate the name from the player when it’s Brock Boeser.

Boeser is beloved by his teammates in the locker room and by the fanbase. After all the chaos last season, with the team trading his long-time linemate JT Miller, or the public shaming from his General Manager regarding the trade deadline, or how the team nearly let him walk away and lose him for nothing had it not been for a rejected Christian Dvorak offer, Boeser still decided to take less money than what he would have made on the open market to stay in Vancouver.

That commitment to the team has earned him recognition all season for his leadership, as he has worn an ‘A’ on his sweater in every game he’s played. It’s one thing to take another veteran in DeBrusk out of the lineup, but taking the one consistent assistant captain out of the lineup? That might be too big a shock to the rest of the players on the bench.

When DeBrusk was made a healthy scratch, it made a bit more sense. The Canucks had the likes of Aatu Räty and Nils Höglander already sitting out. They could just replace DeBrusk with another NHL-calibre player, and it wouldn’t hurt the team as much. Now, with Marco Rossi and Conor Garland injured, the Canucks don’t have that same luxury, as the extra forward is Arshdeep Bains, who has just five points in 26 NHL games this season and previously cleared waivers. It’s not the same situation as before.

Of course, it’s not just been a bad stretch of games, but a bad season for Boeser as a whole. He is on pace to score 18 goals and 40 points in 80 games, which would be the lowest totals of his career. But what’s been the clear correlation between Boeser and his success? He’s as good as the centre he’s playing with.

Boeser’s best years came when he was flanking the likes of JT Miller, Bo Horvat and prime Elias Pettersson. This season? Three of the four centremen he’s spent the most time with this season are David Kämpf (116:31), Lukas Reichel (94:43) and Max Sasson (79:04). If we’re being fair to Boeser, those three aren’t NHL-calibre centremen that are going to lift their wingers around them – which is what Boeser needs.

The other player on that list is Pettersson, with whom he’s spent the second most time (105:07). And last game, when Foote put Boeser back on Pettersson’s wing for the third period, their line controlled 69.2% of the shot attempts, 59.7% of the expected goals, out-chanced their opponents 4-1, and scored a goal at 5v5 in less than five minutes of ice time.

Have Boeser and Pettersson worked out lately? No. They’ve actually proved the opposite. However, when Boeser isn’t going right now, putting him on a line with a true NHL centreman like Pettersson could be the answer to turning him around, or at least getting the monkey off his back.

We can see both sides of the argument. Separate the name from the player, and there’s no doubt the player should be sat. However, the Canucks aren’t in the same situation with a couple of NHL players already in the press box. Does Foote lean into what he saw out of Boeser with Pettersson in that third period and hope that’s enough to get the goal scorer going?

What do you think, Canucks fans? Do you think the Canucks should make Brock Boeser a healthy scratch for a game? Will that help him get back in the goal column? Let us know in the comments below!