New York Rangers
Minnesota WildThe Vancouver Canucks won 25 games last season and finished 32nd, the first time the franchise has finished last overall since 1971-72. They scored 216 goals and allowed 314. The general manager was fired in April, the president of hockey operations stepped down, the head coach was replaced, the Sedin twins were installed as co-presidents, and the club went into training camp in September without a captain and without pretending any of it was something other than a rebuild.
All of that is the correct response to what happened. What follows is the part nobody in Vancouver will enjoy: this team is going to look considerably better in 2026-27 without necessarily being better, and that is a genuine problem for a club that needs another high pick.
Two different kinds of bad
At 5-on-5 the Canucks generated 2.22 expected goals per 60 minutes, 30th in the league, and allowed 2.81, 31st. A 44 percent share, 31st. On the quality of chances alone this was one of the two or three worst teams in hockey, and no amount of arithmetic rescues that.
But the scoreboard was worse than the chances, by a lot. Vancouver scored 20.7 goals fewer than expected at even strength and its goaltending cost another 18.2. Together that is 38.9 goals below what the underlying play deserved, the second-largest shortfall in the NHL.
The individual numbers are grim in a way that is almost comic. Jake DeBrusk scored three goals on 12.8 expected at 5-on-5. Brock Boeser finished minus-34 in goal differential, the worst on the roster, on a 41 percent share. Kevin Lankinen allowed 160 goals on 140.7 expected, minus-19.3, the worst figure of any starting goaltender in the league.
Roughly 39 goals of that will not happen again. Over a season, 39 goals is worth something like twelve to fifteen points in the standings. Add nothing, change nothing, improve nothing, and this roster is a 70-point team rather than a 58-point one.
The moves were right
Give the new front office this: almost everything it did was defensible, and the biggest trade was good.
Marcus Pettersson went to the Rangers on July 1 for a conditional 2030 first-round pick. His raw numbers in Vancouver were horrific, minus-28 at 5-on-5, but that is what happens to a defenceman on a 44 percent team; his 2.61 expected goals against per 60 was the best of any Canucks defenceman. Getting a first-round pick, four years out, for a 30-year-old with five years left at $5.5 million is the single best piece of business any rebuilding team did this summer.
Jamie Oleksiak replaced those minutes on two years at $5 million.
Nils Hoglander went to Nashville for a third. Brendan Gallagher arrived from Montreal for future considerations with half his salary retained. Paul Cotter and Luke Schenn came in on one-year deals. None of the incoming forwards is a play-driver, and Schenn's 37 percent share in Buffalo is the worst number in this article, but none of them is signed past next summer either. Zeev Buium, 20 and one of the two young defencemen the Quinn Hughes trade brought back, signed an eight-year extension at $9.38 million that begins in 2027-28. The Canucks drafted third overall and took Caleb Malhotra, and added Adam Novotny at 24 with Minnesota's pick.
That is a coherent rebuild: sell term, buy picks, keep the books clean, extend the 20-year-old.
The two things that undermine it
The first is the crease. Thatcher Demko had hip surgery in January, has no public timeline, was a limited participant at camp, and is not guaranteed for opening night. He is signed through 2028-29 at $8.5 million. Behind him is Lankinen at minus-19.3 and $4.5 million through 2029-30, and Nikita Tolopilo at minus-7.5. If the plan is to lose honestly this season, the goaltending will oblige. If Demko returns and is himself, that is fifteen goals of improvement nobody drafted for.
The second is Elias Pettersson, the forward, who is signed through 2030-31 at $11.6 million with a no-move clause. He scored ten goals on 10.4 expected at 5-on-5, posted a 45 percent share and finished minus-22. There has been persistent reporting that Vancouver would move him and equally persistent reporting that nothing was ever close, which is what a no-move clause and $11.6 million a year through age 32 will do. He is 27 and two seasons removed from being a point-per-game player. Whether he rediscovers that is worth more to this rebuild than any pick the club owns.
The case for the summer, stated fairly
Vancouver has a new GM, a new coach and a new hockey operations structure, and it spent its first summer converting an expensive 30-year-old defenceman into a 2030 first-round pick while adding nothing longer than two years. Buium at 20 is locked up. The roster is young, cheap and clearly worse, with roughly $17 million in cap space and the top waiver priority in the league. That is what the first year of a rebuild is meant to look like, and the club has been honest with its supporters that wins are not the 2026-27 objective.
Where this lands
A first-round pick for Marcus Pettersson, nothing signed past 2027-28 except Buium's extension, $17 million of space, top waiver priority and no pretence about where the team is. The process is right.
Thirty-nine goals of bad luck are coming back whether Vancouver wants them or not, and a 70-point finish is the worst possible outcome for a team that needs elite draft position. Elias Pettersson's $11.6 million and no-move run to 2031, and the goaltending plan rests on a hip that has no timeline.
What it means
Watch the chance share, not the record. Vancouver was 44 percent at 5-on-5 last season. If that is still 44 percent in January while the team sits on 40 points, the rebuild is on track and the improved results are just the puck behaving normally again. If it climbs toward 48, Manny Malhotra has done something real with a roster that lost its best defenceman and added nobody of consequence. And watch Elias Pettersson's expected-goal share, which was 45 percent. He is the one asset on this roster whose value can still swing by tens of millions in either direction, and the rebuild moves faster or slower depending on which way it goes.