Welcome to the Vancouver Canucks 2022-23 report card series. In this series, we at The Hockey Writers look back at each Canucks player from the past season, break down how their campaign went and assign a letter grade reflective of their overall performance. This edition will focus on defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Ekman-Larsson & His Foot Injuries
Before assessing Ekman-Larsson’s season with the Canucks, it is crucial to understand the hurdles he had to overcome. He suffered a broken foot on May 15, 2022, and throughout the summer, he spent time recovering rather than training. The time not spent refining his skills hurt his overall game, while the broken foot and its long recovery hurt his skating ability. His skating, once a staple of his game, became his biggest knock. An additional injury this season was undoubtedly a setback physically and mentally. Still, with a lengthy recovery period, he may be able to rekindle some of his defensive skills.
Following his broken foot recovery, which was already hurting his skating, Ekman-Larsson sprained his ankle on Feb. 15, 2023. The injury sidelined him for the remainder of the 2022-23 season. While hoping for a full recovery, expecting his skating, his biggest issue this season, to match anything similar to his pre-Canucks days is wishful thinking. Ekman-Larsson has a fantastic work ethic and will get his body where it needs to be. The Canucks took him off of the injured-reserve list in May. The fact is that the NHL is relentless on athletes’ bodies, and with age, it becomes harder to maintain top-end speed, even for Ekman-Larsson.
Ekman-Larsson’s Season
When Ekman-Larsson did hit the ice, he was nothing like the offensive dynamo the Canucks envisioned when trading for him at the 2021 NHL Draft. He scored two goals and 20 assists for 22 points in 54 games this season. He had 58 hits to boot and blocked 43 shots. He is an average to above-average offensive defenseman. While not bad by any metric, these numbers are not worth paying $7.26 million annually for the next four seasons. Former general manager Jim Benning willingly brought on the Ekman-Larsson contract, leading to the salary cap apocalypse the current regime finds themselves in, and that is not even looking at the defense.
Ekman-Larsson found himself in the 24th percentile in defense among all defensemen at five-on-five (from JFresh’s paid Patreon subscription service). Falling below 76 percent of all NHL defensemen makes sense. He had 25 giveaways, 22 coming in the defensive end, with an unflattering 11 takeaways. He had a 47 percent Corsi For, which is bad for a defenseman who only started 12.8 percent of his shifts in the defensive zone, the third lowest of his career.
The most notable contributor to Ekman-Larsson’s awful defensive numbers is the aforementioned broken foot recovery and sprained ankle. Recovering from a foot injury is hard for players, but coupled with his age made it impossible for him to keep up with the speed of today’s NHL. His footspeed led to the Canucks getting caved in regularly when he was on the ice.
Final Grade for Oliver Ekman-Larsson: D+
It takes a lot of mental work to fairly grade Ekman-Larsson. Did he have an objectively lousy season? Yes. Is it fair to say his defensive metrics would be better if not for a rough foot injury recovery? Probably. Unfortunately for his grade, he still played, and his contract, fair or not, also weighs down his letter grade. If he were not suffering from lower-body injuries, impacting his skating, and still had the statistics he did, he would be teetering on an F. Since he tried to battle through them and make the most of a bad situation while slightly bouncing back offensively, his seasons’ grade is slightly below average.
Advanced stats were taken from Money Puck
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