Aftershocks for the Vancouver Canucks

However, the tanking process has not been going according to plan since trading away their captain, Quinn Hughes. Since the trade, the Canucks are 2-0, winning back-to-back games for the first time since October 19th, when they had three wins in a row against the Dallas Stars, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Washington Capitals, respectively. Since then, the Vancouver Canucks have been brutally unable to find any momentum in the win column and have been slowly but surely drifting down the standings in the Western Conference. But as I said, since the trade, they’ve picked up two in a row, taking down the New Jersey Devils in a 2-1 win on Sunday, as well as taking down the New York Rangers in a 3-0 shutout win on Tuesday, where veteran goaltender Thatcher Demko notched his tenth career shutout.

To put the cherry on top of this massive ordeal, the three players the Canucks received for Quinn Hughes have been all over that boxscore in their first two games as Canucks. Liam Ohgren scored his first career goal as a Canucks in the 3-0 shutout win in New York, and Zeev Buium contributed on both goals in the 2-1 win against the Devils, potting one and dishing another. Although Marco Rossi hasn’t been able to officially get on the boxscore quite yet as a Canucks, he’s been proving himself on the defensive side with four blocked shots over two games, and as the core piece in the trade, he’ll find his way offensively soon enough as well.

To be fair, Rossi is coming off an injury, with the win in New Jersey being his first hockey game since November 11th, after being sidelined with a lower-body injury. Rossi also came into Vancouver with 13 points in 17 games with the Minnesota Wild this season as well as a 60 point season with the Wild last year, potting 24 goals and dishing 36 assists, helping to lead the Wild to a playoff berth last year, so there is still plenty of potential as well as possible untapped potential for Marco Rossi, who finds himself in a situation now, where he is a go to guy on a struggling team.

Obviously, there will be some growing pains on the chemistry side of hockey as the Vancouver Canucks will have to learn how to play without the heart and soul of their team for several seasons, in Quinn Hughes. On the bright side, there is a glimmer of hope for Vancouver Hockey, with three young stars coming into the mix and putting their skills on display immediately after putting on a Vancouver Canucks jersey. Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, and Liam Ohgren all seem to be making a case to become long-term members of this Vancouver Canucks core, and with none of them even close to being in their prime yet, what a core that would be.