Game 82 is in the books, and the Vancouver Canucks’ 2025-26 season is, finally and mercifully, at an end. The Canucks did not manage to rain on the Edmonton Oilers’ playoff parade in their last matchup, but they did manage to go down swinging, at least, and that’s been a real habit of theirs lately.

There’s been a clear shift in the Canucks’ attitude toward fighting in general, and toward sticking up for one another in specific. The team had 15 fights on the 2025-26 season – their lowest total in recent memory – but eight of those fights came over the last four weeks of the season. Included in those eight were first NHL scraps for Zeev Buium, the younger Elias Pettersson, Drew O’Connor, and Filip Hronek’s first fight in six years.

This sudden spate of pugilism definitely added some much-needed entertainment value to the Canucks’ final month of play. But there’s also more to it than just giving the fans something to cheer for. The Canucks’ new willingness to drop the mitts could be an important change, and it leads us to three key takeaways for the future of this rebuilding franchise, both in the short-term and the long-term.

The first takeaway is that Curtis Douglas needs to be re-signed. Or, if not, someone very similar to Douglas needs to be acquired. Or, heck, maybe Douglas needs to be re-signed and someone else like him needs to be acquired.

It’s very clear that much of the Canucks’ recent spine-growth had to do with the arrival of Douglas. The 26-year-old was plucked on waivers from the Tampa Bay Lightning on March 6, 2026, and it was long afterward that the fighting began in earnest.

Now, Douglas himself only had two of those aforementioned eight fights, taking on fellow heavyweights Adam Klapka and Jeffrey Viel. But, for one, it’s hard to find willing opponents when you’re 6’9”. And, for another, it’s less about Douglas himself, and more about the rest of the players around him.

Anyone watching would be able to tell you that the Canucks have played bigger and bolder with Douglas in the lineup. That’s especially true for those who have found themselves directly on his line, like Aatu Räty and Nils Höglander. You’ve never seen those two throw their own weight around more than when they’ve had Douglas out there to accompany them, and that makes plenty of sense. Douglas’ own 6’9” frame is helpful, but so two are the figurative inches he seems to add to his linemates every time he steps on the ice.

Douglas is an unrestricted free agent as of July 1. One hopes that whoever replaces departing GM Patrik Allvin has negotiations with Douglas fairly high on their priority list.

The second takeaway from all this is that the Canucks’ team culture is not a total write-off. There’s still a lot of work to be done there, but this is not quite a Toronto Maple Leafs situation, or the kind of thing that Rick Bowness was just shouting about in Columbus.

The vibes around the Canucks have, in general, been a lot more positive and team-oriented since Quinn Hughes was traded. That hasn’t translated into any extra wins or points, but it definitely has something to do with all the fighting. Teams that don’t get along don’t tend to stick up for one another, and that was on display in Vancouver in recent seasons.

But that seems to have changed. These captainless Canucks found ways down the stretch to play for one another, and to punch for one another. With so much talk about adding toughness to the roster in this upcoming offseason, it was probably very important that the Canucks found at least some toughness within themselves first. You can’t get too far if all your muscle is hired.

This shift in culture was evidenced nicely by a quote from Buium, perhaps the most important piece of the future core currently on the roster. He said, of team culture heading into the final game, that ““You can tell it’s changed. I think just by the way we play, we’ve really come together off the ice and got to know each other and care about each other…All of us are really starting to come together and starting to move forward and not track back. And hopefully we can just carry that in the next game and next year.”

O’Connor and Pettersson, who each had their first NHL scraps in Game 82, and each did so to stick up for a teammate, obviously agreed with that sentiment.

Which leads us into our third takeaway, which is that Zeev Buium is already a leader on this team, and needs to continue to be developed into that role. We said that the fighting trend began with the arrival of Douglas, and that’s certainly true. But it also really started with Buium’s initiative.

He was part of that now-famous post-practice fight club with Pettersson and Tom Willander, and then it was Buium who first dropped the mitts shortly thereafter, kicking off that run of eight Canucks fights in the final four weeks. The Canucks clearly took Buium’s lead thereafter, and it’s not hard to see why. If a 20-year-old, ultra-skilled rookie is willing to duke it out for his teammates, shouldn’t everyone be?

That sort of buy-in really matters, in the long run. It’s why most would love to see this trend continue into the 2026-27, and beyond. The Canucks will make changes this offseason, but none of those changes are going to turn them into a playoff contender anytime soon. There will be a lot more of the team getting beat up on the scoreboard to come, but if the Canucks can just continue to push back against getting bullied on the ice, it’ll still count for something.