The Vancouver Canucks won Saturday night’s game against the Ottawa Senators extremely shorthanded, even worse than how they entered it. They began the game without last year’s leading point scorer (JT Miller), leading goal scorer (Brock Boeser) and Vezina-calibre goaltender (Thatcher Demko).

Then, just halfway through the first period, they lost their true leader, captain Quinn Hughes, as he was ejected from the game for a boarding major. Despite the late efforts from the Senators, the Canucks managed to hold off the victory, winning 4-3 while being extremely shorthanded.

Hughes likely won’t see supplementary discipline for that hit, and he’ll return against the Boston Bruins on Tuesday. However, another player’s return is looming, as Boeser logged his first practice with the team in a non-contact jersey on Friday.

Now, there’s no game circled on the calendar for when Boeser will make his return; however, considering he made the road trip should be a sign that it will be at some point within their next five games.

But where would he play?

Normally, that question would be easy to answer: On JT Miller’s line. But with Miller taking a leave of absence from the team, there’s no obvious spot for him within the lineup.

So let’s explore these options and determine where the best place for Boeser to play will be once he’s ready to return to the Canucks lineup.

Before we begin, let’s all appreciate how good this Jake DeBrusk, Elias Pettersson, and Kiefer Sherwood line has been playing lately. It feels like the only consistent line that continues to produce in each game in and game out. So head coach Rick Tocchet probably won’t split that up, and these options follow that belief.

This configuration would follow how the Canucks would regularly do their lines had Miller been available for this game – of course, with Miller in the middle and Suter moving to the left wing, Höglander would drop to the fourth line. The top line stays intact, and you can afford to separate Suter from the Dakota Joshua and Conor Garland duo and not lose much offensively because of their experience with Teddy Blueger last season.

Boeser and Suter have chemistry dating back to last season when the two and Miller played 190:13 minutes of 5v5 ice time in the regular season – the third most 5v5 minutes of any Canucks forward line. Höglander might be replaced with Danton Heinen if they make that line more of a shutdown line. But if they’re injecting Boeser back into the lineup, they’ll want his offensive ability to help with the depth scoring, and Höglander is the better option in that regard.

Also, Tocchet mentioned wanting to get Höglander a shot higher in the lineup. And if he meant that, well, here it is.

Again, this lineup keeps the top line together but gives Boeser even more offensive upside, playing with Garland over Höglander. This would be a big ask, as you’re asking either Boeser or Garland to play their off-wing. But if you want to utilize Boeser’s offensive ability, playing him with a playmaker like Garland would give you the highest potential.

Now, you are breaking up the duo of Joshua and Garland with these lines. But it has taken Joshua a while to get his legs under him again while he recovers from his successful cancer removal surgery. It’s not a knock against Joshua because he probably had his best game of the season against the Senators. But dropping him down in the lineup and giving him less pressure might help him ease back into things as he finds his footing again.

Heinen and Höglander could again switch places if they want to turn that third line into a matchup role to defender opponents in the top competition.

Now, this isn’t my best work, but hear me out. This lineup would fully stack the top six. The only problem is you don’t have a natural centreman as your 2C. But remember, Joshua came into the league as a centreman.

In his rookie year with the St. Louis Blues, Joshua played just 12 games, averaged 8:58 seconds of ice time, but took 64 faceoffs. He won 37 of those faceoffs for a 57.81% faceoff percentage (FO%). Joshua followed that up with a 53.33% FO% on 75 draws in 30 games the following season. Once he came to Vancouver, he’s mostly played the wing, only taking 118 faceoffs in the three seasons with the Canucks, but he has a respectable 49.15% FO%.

So maybe? As it stands right now, Suter is the Canucks second best centreman, so he probably stays in that role. But it’s a fun idea if they want to surround Boeser with the highest possible offensive talent.

This is the only option that strays away from the belief we prefaced above that Tocchet would keep the DeBrusk-Pettersson-Sherwood line together.

Now, this would be stacking your top line. Would it hurt your depth? Perhaps. But the production you should get from the top line, especially when Pettersson is going right now, would be the highest. This allows you to keep Joshua-Suter-Garland together.

But let’s not forget how well Heinen-Blueger-Sherwood played together before Joshua returned and Miller was absent. The trio has spent the most 5v5 ice time together (95:19 minutes) of any Canucks line this season. They’ve controlled Corsi and Shot Share while scoring seven goals for – the most on the team – to just four against at 5v5.

The biggest dilemma here is: How do you demote Sherwood after what he’s doing in the top six? He’s scored in three straight games, with five points in his last four games with a plus-three rating, registering 11 shots on goal and 30 hits over that span. He even played over 20 minutes for the first time this season in their latest outing.

The thought process here is that you compliment his play and tell him it’s just temporary. Once Miller returns and the lines can be evened out again, he’ll be given his role back alongside DeBrusk and Pettersson.

I would imagine they would go with option one to start. Cause you don’t want to mess with a good thing. However, if the team needs a spark, Boeser will take Sherwood’s spot, and they’ll rock with option four for the time being until Miller returns.

What do you think Canucks fans? Which of these four lineup configurations would you like the Canucks to use once Boeser returns to action?