By any measure, Dakota Joshua had every reason to hit pause this season. A summer cancer diagnosis, major surgery, and the kind of mental weight that would rattle anyone — all and any of it could’ve been a justifiable excuse for a slow year.
But he isn’t interested in making any excuses for himself.
After a disappointing finish to the Vancouver Canucks’ 2024-25 season, Joshua sat in front of the media on Friday and summed it up with a blunt mix of accountability and frustration.
“It was better down the stretch,” Joshua said of his play. “That’s when I felt my best, but overall, a disappointing season on my part.”
He didn’t mention his late-summer cancer diagnosis unprompted. He didn’t mention missing all of training camp and over a month of the season while recovering from his treatment. What he did say speaks volumes.
“It came down to my play. It wasn’t good enough. It was unfortunate that that [cancer] happened, but by no means a reason or excuse for my play.”
That’s not false humility. That’s a player who knows what he’s capable of and wasn’t interested in lowering the bar.
Joshua had surgery in September after being diagnosed with testicular cancer. He missed training camp, missed the rhythm of preseason, and made his season debut on November 14th against the Islanders — a 5-2 loss in which he logged just over 12 minutes of ice time on the fourth line. But instead of leaning on circumstance, Joshua kept expectations high from day one.
That mindset didn’t yield instant results. Joshua admitted it was hard to feel good about his game for most of the season. The timing was off. Confidence wavered. The player who had posted career highs the year prior in goals (18), assists (14), and points (32) wasn’t there yet.
The thing with Joshua’s game is, he’s not just here to only score goals or play a specific role. He’s here to crash, bang, score, lead, and make people notice his strong two-way game and forechecking ability. And by the back half of the season, people were noticing again.
By the time the end of the season rolled around, Joshua looked more like the player we saw last year. Though his stat line wasn’t where he wanted — 7 goals and 7 assists through 57 contests to end the year — his impact through his last 10-15 games was a closer to back to where it was in 2023-24.
Now Joshua heads into the offseason with something to build on.
“I started to get it going late, just got to build off that and carry it into next season,” he said on Friday. He knows what he went through, and he also knows what he can do when he’s on top of his game. Joshua knows how much this team counts on him to set the tone, both with his play and 6’2 presence up front.
He called his season disappointing, but it ended with purpose. He was playing his best hockey of the year most recently with momentum to roll into the offseason, and did so after fighting a private battle he never used as a shield.
There’s a lot of talk around the league about “character guys,” and Dakota Joshua is one of them. Next season, with a full summer of training, a clean bill of health, and no desire to let standards slide, Joshua appears poised to be back in full force.
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