April 22, 2023
Alex Rickman
With another season of Canucks hockey having come to a close, the time has come to reflect on what went right and what went wrong with the last season. The 2022-23 season was full of peaks and valleys for the Canucks on and off the ice, with no shortage of attention being paid to the players' performances and the actions of Canucks ownership and the front office. With the regular season officially over and the Canucks players preparing for their off-season rounds of golf, let’s look back on the chaos that unfolded and take away what we can from this season.
The 2022 offseason was an exciting time to be a Canucks fan. Coming off the high of last season's new coach bump, and the excitement of adding new players like Andrei Kuzmenko, Ilya Mikheyev, and Curtis Lazar had people in Vancouver buzzing about what was to come. However, after a dreadful start to the campaign, with 8 losses in the first 10 games of the season, it became clear that something needed to change. Some tweaks were made to the roster, such as trading for Ethan Bear and Jack Studnicka and the demotion of Vasily Podkolzin, Nils Höglander, and Nils Åman to Abbotsford, but these minor changes weren’t enough to set the course right. Eventually, it became clear that a major change was needed to shake things up, but the front office opted against committing to rebuilding the roster like the fans hoped they would. Instead, the front office decided that firing beloved head coach Bruce Boudreau was the way to go, and on January 22nd after weeks and weeks of speculation, it was announced that Rick Tocchet would be taking over as the next head coach of the Canucks. The Canucks were heavily criticized for how Boudreau was treated during his final weeks as head coach by the front office and ownership, and that saga has left many Canucks fans with a bad taste in their mouth to this day.
Not long after Boudreau’s firing, some more major news would come in Vancouver, with captain Bo Horvat being sent to the New York Islanders in exchange for prospect Aatu Räty, winger Anthony Beauvillier, and a conditional 2023 1st-round pick. While most Canucks fans were sad to see a beloved player like Horvat go, the consensus was that this was a good deal for Vancouver. Horvat was given an 8-year, $68 million contract extension, which Vancouver simply couldn’t afford to do with their cap situation. Additionally, Acquiring a top prospect like Räty and a 1st-round pick, along with a talented young winger like Beauvillier, appeared to show a commitment from the new front office towards building for the future rather than trying to fast track a rebuild and win now like the Canucks have been doing for most of the last decade. Despite the poor play of the team at this point, there was still a good amount of optimism among the fanbase, with many people looking forward to what moves may come next on the trade market.
As the deadline approached, some minor deals were made, but none of the blockbusters Canucks fans were hoping to see were coming through at this point. Players like Luke Schenn and Riley Stillman were moved to Toronto and Buffalo for a 3rd-round pick and prospect Josh Bloom respectively, but these weren’t the major moves anyone expected to see coming out of Vancouver. Then, on March 1st, the bomb was dropped. Vancouver sent the 1st-rounder acquired from the Islanders in the Horvat trade along with their 2nd-round pick to Detroit in exchange for 25-year-old defenceman Filip Hronek and a 2023 4th-round pick. This deal was not received particularly well by Canucks fans, who questioned why a team so far down the standings at this point in the season would give up draft capital in such a good draft year to add a roster player. Additionally, this would be the Canucks last major move of the deadline, which was largely viewed as a disappointment in an important year for the Canucks future. Faith in the current front office has been up and down in their short tenure, but this certainly wasn’t one of the high points in fans' belief in Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin.
Despite the poor start to the season, Rick Tocchet did help get the team's performances back on track. From early on in his tenure as coach the beneficial effects of his tough, structured style of play on a team that was giving up leaky goals at the rate that the Canucks were. However, this improved play, along with the return to form of Thatcher Demko after recovering from an injury that saw him miss much of the season to this point, came at a cost. At points throughout the year, the Canucks were flirting with the possibility of ending up with top 5 draft lottery odds, giving them a realistic chance of a lottery win that could’ve seen Connor Bedard or Adam Fantilli end up in Vancouver. However, the Canucks finding their feet under Rick Tocchet saw them rocket up the standings to finish the season with the 11th-best lottery odds, giving them just a 3% chance at landing the top pick. While it’s not impossible for the Canucks to win the lottery, as it stands it’s nearly impossible to imagine a scenario in which Bedard ends up starting his NHL career with his hometown team.
The biggest positives that can be taken from this year would have to be the performances of individual players, either throughout the full season or in finding their way after difficult starts. Players like Elias Pettersson and Andrei Kuzmenko played fantastic hockey throughout the whole campaign, cementing themselves as key players for the Canucks going forward. There were also players like J.T. Miller and Thatcher Demko, who despite rough patches early in the season, finished the year strong and silenced those who doubted their abilities to recapture their form. But the player who stood out the most to me may be Quinn Hughes, who despite having drawn some ire from fans accusing him of being a weak defensive player, stepped up his game to such a degree that he’s now possibly the favourite to be the next captain of the Canucks. Hughes may have had some defensive errors early in the season, but rather than getting down on himself, Hughes went to work proving that he could be as good defensively as he is offensively, and his hard work has paid off. Hughes also showed a level of comfort stepping up into a leadership role after the Horvat trade and recently earned an endorsement from Rick Tocchet as one of his favourite choices to inherit the C for next season. Other players worth praising for their performances this season include some of the new faces in Vancouver, such as Dakota Joshua, Ilya Mikheyev, and Ethan Bear, rookie goalie Arturs Silovs in his 5 games of NHL action, and undrafted free agents Akito Hirose and Cole McWard, who impressed in their brief stints at the end of the season.
Although there were many individual performances worth praising, this season didn’t come without its fair share of disappointments. For starters, missing out on both the playoffs and a top-10 pick, especially in a year with a draft class as good as this year, will always leave a bad taste in fans' mouths. It’s especially frustrating when you think about the fact that the Canucks were, as previously mentioned, near the bottom 5 at several points, and shot up to 11th when the team's playoff hopes were realistically gone. Additionally, some of the team's higher earners, like Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Tyler Myers, were unable to play up to their contracts, and Brock Boeser once again struggled to perform after yet another injury kept him out of training camp and the preseason. We all know what these players are capable of when they’re at the top of their game, but unless they can hit those peaks again, the Canucks may struggle to deal with the weight of their contracts. Of the players mentioned, Boeser is the only one I see as likely to be moved this offseason, so it will be interesting to see how the front office goes about handling the cap situation the Canucks are currently in.
All in all, it’s hard to not be disappointed in the past season of Canucks hockey, but that’s not to say there’s no hope for the future. If players like Pettersson, Hughes, and Kuzmenko can keep playing like they did last season, players like Demko and Miller play like their late-season selves rather than their early-season selves, and Hronek can provide the help on defence the front office hope he can, there’s no reason the Canucks can’t be a playoff team next season. However, the front office does need to be careful to not force the team into full win-now mode too quickly and needs to stock the cupboards for the future to make sure the Canucks can sustain some success into the future. Young players like Silovs, Hirose, and Vasily Podkolzin, among others, are good pieces for any organization to have, but without many marquee prospects in the system and a roster that’s yet to show it can consistently compete at an NHL level, the Canucks need to tread carefully when trying to upgrade the roster. I hope that in next year's review, I can be talking about the Canucks performance in the postseason, but if that means selling the farm for a wild card spot, that can’t be considered intelligent asset management.