Canucks' start to season is one of worst in modern NHL era

There should not have been many expectations for the Vancouver Canucks this season.

They are in the early stages of a massive rebuild; they were the worst team in the NHL during the 2025-26 season and did not really do anything this past offseason to improve the short-term outlook.

This team was always supposed to be bad.

Perhaps even by design. 

But after Friday's 5-1 loss to the New York Rangers, it is already starting to reach levels of bad that few teams in the modern era have experienced this far in a season.

Canucks off to one of the NHL's worst starts in years

With Friday's loss, the Canucks are a league-worst 3-17-1 through their first 21 games of the season. 

Their seven total points are four worse than the Chicago Blackhawks, even though the Canucks have played two additional games. 

Their .166 points percentage would work out to a 27-point pace over an 84-game season. By comparison, the Blackhawks' current pace would be 20 points better than that. 

Compared to their current league contemporaries, that is bad enough. 

It does not get any better when you compare them to past teams.

Just for context, they are just the 39th team in the history of the league (via the Hockey-Reference StatHead database) that has won three games or fewer through their first 21 games. Only two of those teams actually made the playoffs in that season (not that anybody should be expecting that to happen here). 

Only 11 of the previous instances have happened since 1983. They are also just the second team in the salary cap era (since the start of the 2005-06 season) to start a season this poorly, joining the 2017-18 Arizona Coyotes. 

It is also not likely to get better for the Canucks.

As bad as the roster is now, it is likely to get worse as the season progresses and the trade deadline nears. There are several more veterans on this roster, including Brock Boeser, Filip Hronek and perhaps even forward Elias Pettersson that could be moved for more future assets. It is all being done with the best long-term interest of the team in mind. It just means Canucks fans are going to have to watch a lot of awful hockey before it pays off. If it ever pays off. Given the lack of success from a lot of the NHL's recent rebuilds that have started off this way, there is no guarantee it will work.