What is the Canucks’ ceiling if everything breaks right?

It seems like most Vancouver Canucks fans have already conceded that this season is going to be about the process rather than the standings. And that is probably (definitely) the right mentality to have. Vancouver is entering a long rebuild after finishing last season 25-49-8, and the betting market currently gives the Canucks the longest odds in the NHL to make the playoffs.

But before getting too deep into the day-to-day grind of analyzing prospects, development, and draft position, there is another way to look at this season. For one article at least, let’s put on the rose-coloured glasses. What happens if absolutely everything goes right?

This is not meant to be the most realistic projection of the Canucks. It is an exercise in determining the upper limit of what this roster could accomplish if the major question marks all break in Vancouver’s favour. So, with that disclaimer firmly in place, how good could this team actually be?

Pettersson has to bounce back

The first requirement for a dream season is obvious: Elias Pettersson needs to become Elias Pettersson again.

The 27-year-old centre followed up an 89-point season with just 45 points in 2024-25 and 51 in 74 games last season, establishing consecutive career lows in points per game. There are plenty of theories for what caused such a dramatic decline, but none of that matters for this exercise. The optimistic scenario is that a new management group, a new coaching staff, and a fresh start allow Pettersson to rediscover even a significant portion of his old form. Because Canucks fans have seen that player before.

Pettersson scored 102 points in 80 games in 2022-23 and finished eighth in hockeystats.com’s WAR metric ahead of players like Auston Matthews and Nathan MacKinnon. Going from a struggling second-line centre to a legitimate first-line driver would completely change the ceiling of Vancouver’s roster. It could have a huge ripple effect on Jonathan Lekkerimäki.

Pettersson developed obvious chemistry with Andrei Kuzmenko during his 102-point season, with Kuzmenko scoring 39 goals in his first NHL season. Since that season, Kuzmenko has not cracked the 15-goal mark in the NHL, showcasing Pettersson’s ability to drive play in his prime. Pettersson doesn’t need another Kuzmenko to become a star again, but putting him alongside a talented young shooter like Lekkerimäki could give Vancouver’s top line legitimate offensive upside.

Then there is Jake DeBrusk, who also has nowhere to go but up as a five-on-five finisher. He scored 23 goals last season despite being 11.9 goals below expected, according to MoneyPuck. A bounce-back there, combined with a Pettersson resurgence and a Lekkerimäki breakout, would give Vancouver an entirely different top line.

The rest of the forward core hits their ceiling

The Canucks also need Marco Rossi, Brock Boeser and Liam Öhgren to build on the chemistry they found late last season. The trio became a regular line down the stretch, and the results were encouraging. Rossi, Boeser and Öhgren combined skill, shooting and forechecking in a way that made them one of the few consistently dangerous combinations on a lacklustre Canucks team. Öhgren, in particular, looks like a player capable of taking another step. His skating, shot, physical game, and overall understanding of the game have all looked more refined entering this season.

Behind them, Max Sasson and Linus Karlsson provide another interesting offensive combination. The pair has already shown legitimate chemistry, and Karlsson has increased his goal total in each of his professional seasons. If that trend continues while Sasson takes another step, the Canucks could suddenly have considerably more scoring depth than expected.

The fourth line is not supposed to be spectacular. Aatu Räty, Brendan Gallagher, Paul Cotter, and Arshdeep Bains are there to provide faceoffs, physicality, and a little chaos. If all of those pieces hit their optimistic outcomes, Vancouver’s forward group could at least creep into the middle of the NHL pack.

The high-end potential defence

The Canucks’ defence, however, might have the widest range of possible outcomes on the roster. Filip Hronek is already an established top-pairing defenceman. The big question is whether Zeev Buium can take a massive leap alongside him. Vancouver clearly believes he can. The Canucks just gave the 20-year-old an eight-year, $75.04-million extension, making it clear they view him as a foundational piece of the rebuild. Buium’s rookie season was hardly disastrous, but the optimistic version of this story requires something much bigger.

In this scenario, Buium becomes substantially more reliable defensively out from under Adam Foote’s disastrous defensive zone system. His confidence with the puck also grows as his offensive instincts start translating consistently to the NHL.

That is not completely unreasonable. Before turning pro, Buium’s point totals in college rivalled those of Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar at the University of Denver, where he won an NCAA championship and established himself as one of the premier offensive defencemen in college hockey.

Tom Willander is the other major swing piece. If he takes a step with veteran Jamie Oleksiak beside him, Vancouver suddenly has two young defencemen progressing rapidly at the same time. With Hronek and Buium at the top, Willander and Oleksiak in the middle, and Elias Pettersson and Luke Schenn bringing some physicality to the bottom pair, there is at least a version of this defence that looks far more competent than last year’s group.

The ceiling of this group is a fringe top-12 defence core if Willander and Buium specifically take huge steps in their development. The floor for this group is admittedly frightening. But remember: sunshine and rainbows only.

Coaching can raise the floor

Another major variable is behind the bench. Manny Malhotra has replaced Adam Foote after Foote went 25-49-8 in his only season as Vancouver’s head coach. Foote’s on-ice systems and lineup decisions left most players and fans alike scratching their heads from night to night. Malhotra arrives after guiding Abbotsford to the Calder Cup and has a pre-existing relationship with many of the players in Vancouver’s organization.

The optimistic scenario does not require Malhotra to become the next great NHL tactician overnight. It simply requires the Canucks to receive more consistent structure, communication, and player development from their coaching staff. That alone could turn several of last season’s close losses into wins.

And then there is the giant elephant in the crease

Unfortunately, every optimistic projection eventually runs into Vancouver’s goaltending. Thatcher Demko is expected to return from hip surgery around Christmas, although the Canucks have not established a firm timeline. Until then, Vancouver will have to rely on its depth between the pipes, which is not necessarily a strength.

Their two rostered goalies, Leevi Meriläinen and Kevin Lankinen, finished as the worst and seventh-worst goalies, respectively, in terms of saves above expected per 60 last season. That makes the beginning of the season particularly difficult to project. Even in the most optimistic scenario, Vancouver’s goaltending is probably the biggest factor preventing this from becoming a genuine upper-tier team. If Demko comes back healthy and looks like the Vezina-calibre goalie Canucks fans have seen before, however, the second half of the season could look dramatically different.

But that is where one important disclaimer has to be made. If this best-case scenario takes shape for the Canucks, they shouldn’t necessarily push their chips into the middle and chase a playoff spot in the second half of the season.

Short-term wins vs. long-term success

If everything is going right, that should also mean Vancouver’s veteran players are driving play and increasing their trade value. That is where the Canucks’ front office will face one of its biggest tests: resisting the temptation to mistake a surprisingly successful season for a team that is suddenly ready to contend.

If Vancouver comes flying out of the gates, players such as Elias Pettersson, Filip Hronek and Jake DeBrusk could become significantly more valuable trade pieces than they were entering the season. The better those players perform, the more appealing they could become to teams looking for established NHL talent. For a rebuilding team, that potential return could ultimately be more important than the extra wins.

The Canucks’ new front office has already made it clear that this is intended to be a long-term rebuild. That process cannot suddenly be expedited because a few unexpected wins create the illusion that the team is closer to contention than it actually is. If Vancouver somehow finds itself playing at a 90-point pace, the organization should view that as an opportunity to maximize the return on its veteran assets, not necessarily as a reason to abandon the rebuild.

The worst place for a rebuilding team to end up is the middle: not bad enough to secure a premium draft pick, but not good enough to realistically contend for the Stanley Cup. So, ironically, the Canucks’ best-case season on the ice could create one of the biggest tests of the new front office yet.

Maybe everything does go right. Maybe Pettersson looks like a star again, Buium becomes the defenceman Vancouver believes he can be, Demko returns healthy, and the Canucks find themselves with an outside chance for a playoff spot in March. If that happens, Vancouver still has to keep the bigger picture in mind.

The goal of this rebuild cannot simply be to maximize the number of points the Canucks earn in 2026-27. It has to be to maximize the number of future opportunities this organization has to eventually build a team capable of winning for real. And that could mean selling off the very success this best-case scenario produces.

So what is the actual ceiling?

With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s put the rose-coloured glasses back on one last time. Forget the draft. Forget the trade deadline. Forget the long-term implications of finishing in the middle of the standings. For the purposes of this exercise, the Canucks simply want to accumulate as many points as possible in 2026-27. Put all of those optimistic outcomes together, and there is a path to something that would look almost completely foreign compared with last year’s team.

Pettersson returns to first-line form. Lekkerimäki breaks out. DeBrusk’s finishing rebounds. The BRÖ line becomes a legitimate top-six weapon. Sasson and Karlsson provide secondary scoring. Buium becomes a true top-pairing defenceman. Willander takes another step. Malhotra gets the team playing with structure. And Demko eventually returns healthy. That’s an awful lot of things going right. But if they do, somewhere around 90 to 95 points feels like a reasonable upper boundary for this roster.

That would put Vancouver squarely in the middle of the NHL standings and potentially within striking distance of a playoff spot in a Pacific Division that does not look particularly intimidating. The 2025-26 New York Islanders provide a reasonable example of what that kind of season could look like. New York finished 19th in the NHL with 91 points, led by a breakout season from phenom defenceman Matthew Schaefer. Veteran centre Bo Horvat helped drive the forward core during one of his better seasons as a pro.

If Vancouver finds itself somewhere around the middle of the NHL standings, though, the organization cannot allow a few extra regular-season wins to derail the larger plan already put in motion. So, yes, there is a world where almost everything goes right for the Canucks, and they finish around 90 to 95 points. There is even a world where that puts them in the playoff conversation deep into the season. But in the most optimistic scenario imaginable, that might not be the most important thing that happens.

It might simply be that, for the first time in a long time, the Canucks prove just how much potential this rebuild actually has and show that a bit of short-term success won’t take their eye off the more important long-term future.