It’s amazing how quickly the temperature in a market can change.
A week ago, the Vancouver Canucks were coming off of a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, their third consecutive winless performance. Their top players were struggling, goaltending was a question mark and the bottom four on the blue line was a massive concern (it still sort of is, but more on that later this week). Fans weren’t panicking — people understood it’s only been three games — but they were starting to get nervous.
Now, they’re suddenly rolling, having won three consecutive games. They’re up to a 3-1-2 record, having collected points in five of their first six games. The last two wins were against Chicago and Philadelphia, so it has to be taken with a grain of salt, but the vibes are good and the positive momentum is building.
Here are a few of my recent Canucks observations.
Brännström’s strong first impression
I was very intrigued to see what type of first impression Erik Brännström would make once he was called up.
The undersized 25-year-old was a full-time NHL defenseman, suiting up for 150 games over the last two seasons, and looked the part of a solid third-pair contributor. That gave hope that he could give the Canucks’ bottom four a spark of speed and puck-moving skill. On the other hand, his preseason with the Avalanche was truly awful. Two solid seasons is a much larger sample and should be weighed far more heavily than one bad stretch of preseason hockey, but the latter is also the most recent NHL action he had, and you never know what a rough patch can do for a player’s confidence.
Three games in, Brännström is showing that he deserves to stay in the Canucks lineup, even when Derek Forbort returns. Brännström’s season debut against the Panthers was only OK — his pair got caved for most of the night and he got caught too high up the ice on a play that led to a breakaway chance against — but context matters. He was coming off a long travel day, he didn’t have a practice day to get acclimated with his teammates, and Vincent Desharnais, his partner, noticeably struggled against the Panthers that night.
Brännström’s last two games have been really solid. He isn’t going to fix the Canucks’ bottom-four woes on his own — they’ll need to add a true top-four-calibre player at some point — but his smooth, effortless skating on the breakout has steadied the bottom pair, at least temporarily.
Let’s break down some of his shifts against the Blackhawks to show how he’s provided a boost, as well as some of the details he needs to iron out.
Here’s his first shift of the game, where he lifts Tyler Bertuzzi’s stick to snatch the puck away, wheels around the net with pace and connects a nice tape-to-tape pass to lead a controlled breakout:
Video courtesy of Sportsnet
In the next play, watch how poised he is on the defensive zone retrieval. Brännström calmly settles the bouncing puck, smoothly turns on his edges to shake off the forechecker, makes a neat pass under pressure and continues skating up the ice so he can receive it back and make another pass to drive an offensive zone entry.
I’m not going to include a video clip of every nice breakout he led, but there were a couple of other smooth zone exits too. He’s also given the Canucks another dynamic threat at the offensive blue line. He looked dangerous at times in the offensive zone against Philadelphia. Against Chicago, he walked across the line and pinged a shot off the crossbar.
All of this is great, but we have to acknowledge that his defensive play still had some ups and downs Tuesday night. He hasn’t been a liability, and he hasn’t been on the ice for a goal against yet in three games, but he’s made some mistakes that he’ll need to clean up to eventually build more trust.
Brännström took an unnecessary holding penalty on Bertuzzi in the corner during the second period. He missed the puck and put himself out of position when he pinched up the boards in the sequence below. The result didn’t look bad because the Blackhawks botched the quick breakout attempt the other way (and because Brock Boeser did a good job of covering), but a good team can torch you off the rush with a mistake like that.
He gave the puck away in the third period too, which led to a rush chance against.
Brännström made a couple of positive defensive plays, though. He recovered well to block Connor Bedard’s shot after initially failing to get the puck out. On another shift, he was well-positioned to disrupt a dangerous pass into the slot:
Overall, Brännström has had a promising start to his Canucks tenure.
What I’m seeing from Pettersson
When players go through a slump, they rarely go from being lost and completely ineffective in one game to dominating in the next one. It’s often a gradual climb back up over a few games or a couple of weeks of steady improvement and gaining confidence before they truly break out.
It’s no secret that Elias Pettersson’s had a slow start. He still hasn’t scored his first goal and has only three assists in six games. We’ve yet to see him take over a game with authority. But watching him closely over the last 2-3 games, it feels like he’s moving in the right direction. None of this guarantees that a breakout is around the corner, but there are positive signs that he can build on.
His lethal shot and dynamic play-driving aren’t back yet, but the sparks of elite playmaking vision were evident on this road trip.
In his first shift of the game against Chicago, there were several promising components. First, he threw a reverse hit with the puck and maintained possession instead of falling over. As the play developed, he took a smart route off the puck to get open in the slot. When Garland fed him the puck, Pettersson made a gorgeous one-touch pass to Nils Höglander on the backdoor for what would have been a wide-open tap-in if not for Petr Mrazek’s miraculous save.
In the second period, he feathered a sweet cross-seam pass to J.T. Miller off the rush that nearly resulted in a tic-tac-toe goal for Höglander.
Later in the same shift, he dished a pass through Connor Murphy’s legs to set up Hronek for a chance right in front.
Before Miller scored on the power play, Pettersson was responsible for winning a battle against Seth Jones in the corner to keep the Canucks’ puck possession alive. He also drew a penalty in the third period and had a couple of sharp defensive zone interceptions on the back check.
Pettersson needs to be doing more than just setting up scoring chances, making good defensive plays and drawing penalties. He’s an $11.6 million player, and that comes with the expectation of elite production and taking games over singlehandedly at times. That level of play has to come eventually. He also still has to find his killer instinct as a finisher in scoring areas, and he’s not dynamically driving play like he does when at his best. But we’re seeing signs that his IQ and playmaking are returning, that his confidence is slowly building and he’s picked up points in back-to-back games now.
None of this guarantees that a Pettersson breakout is around the corner, but it at least provides some fuel for cautious optimism.
Hughes’ defensive mastery
Quinn Hughes’ play-driving dominance is reaching new heights. We’re talking off-the-charts two-way results.
The Canucks have outshot teams by a whopping 81-42 margin and controlled 67 percent of scoring chances during his five-on-five shifts. Most of this is because of his outrageous skill. He can bend the game to his will because of his elite skating, lightning-quick puck skills, outside-the-box creativity and genius IQ. He rarely has to defend in the first place because of how often he possesses the puck 200 feet away from the Canucks’ net.
When he is forced to play without the puck, he quietly continues to impress defensively. The Sportsnet broadcast did an excellent job of picking up how effectively Hughes tied up Bedard in front of the net when a rebound came loose. This is the type of play that smaller defensemen often struggle with, but Hughes played it perfectly.
This won’t land on a highlight reel, but it’s another example of why Hughes is continuing to play at a Norris-quality level.
(Photo of Quinn Hughes: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
