It took 20 games for the Vancouver Canucks to finally look human. After a surprising start to the 2023-24 season that saw the Canucks possess a 13-5-1 record, putting them second in the Pacific Division, the young squad was beat 5-2 by the Western Conference monster that is the Colorado Avalanche.
On Friday’s episode of "Daily Faceoff Live," Matt Larkin and Steven Ellis examine the Canucks and answer the question of if they’re finally falling back to Earth.
Matt Larkin: The Canucks have been quite the story this year, littering the NHL’s scoring race with Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson and J.T. Hughes. But they got a wake-up call on Wednesday, losing 5-2 to the Avalanche. We got to see a Norris Trophy battle between Hughes and Cale Makar.
I’m sitting here wondering, was that a litmus test that Vancouver failed? Is this a team that’s starting to come back to Earth?
Steven Ellis: I think they failed it when they played the Toronto Maple Leafs a few weeks ago. They peppered the Leafs with shots earlier in the game, then they fell apart, over-relying on Thatcher Demko to get the job done.
This is a team that didn’t do a lot over the summer to address their issues. The defensive side of that top pairing of Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek is still a little bit scary, Tyler Myers is not a great defenseman but he’s still getting a lot of ice time, and Brock Boeser is playing a bit above of what we expected him to do via shooting percentage.
Pettersson doesn’t look human at this point, which is great, but there’s still a lot of concerns. The scoring depth isn’t there, Connor Garland looks like he doesn’t want to show up to these games anymore. This is a team that still has a lot of flaws, but I still expect them to make the playoffs.
You can watching the full episode here…
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