By: Brayden Fengler / December 13, 2024 What does a good end to 2024 look like for the Vancouver Canucks? That is a hard question to answer given all the unpredictable things that this team has gone through to start the season. For starters The Canucks are only just seeing both J.T. Miller and Thatcher Demko re-entered the fold for the team.
With key players elsewhere in the line-up only now just getting into form and some other players still struggling to produce, what do the Canucks need to do before the calendar hits 2025, to feel good about their season so far?
Get Those W’s
The Canucks have 8 more games to play before the year is over, and they currently have a 15-8-7 record, which is okay, but far from comfortable. Their record puts them fourth in the Pacific, above Calgary, Seattle, San Jose and Anaheim.
It’s good that the Canucks are above these teams, but concerning that they are below the other divisional rivals they really need to beat when it comes time for post season hockey.
Of their last 8 games of 2024, 6 will be on the road, which seems to be where Vancouver has done some of their best work this season, with 9 of their 14 wins coming outside of Rogers Arena.
The upcoming stretch for the Canucks features teams like Colorado, Boston and Vegas, so Vancouver will certainly have their work cut out for them, but the back half of their remaining 2024 schedule has the Canadians, Kraken and Flames. Those later teams are clubs that the Canucks should be able to put away handily.
Aside from the obvious wish, which would have the Canucks win every game for the rest of the year, realistically the Canucks should set their sites on 20 wins by the time the new year hits. This would mean they need to win 5 of their next 8 games.
Last year the Canucks had 23 wins to their name by the end of 2023, and only 5 of the 16 teams that ended up making the playoffs had less than 20 wins by the end of the year as well. Those teams who made the playoffs with fewer than 20 wins were Toronto, New York (Islanders) Tampa Bay, Washington and Edmonton. The lowest number of wins even those teams had last year was 17, so the Canucks need at least three more wins to reach that lower target.
Maintain Their Power Play
Vancouver’s powerplay has been respectable this year, running at 23.5% which puts them at 12th in the league, second in their division and third in their conference. Vancouver bests their closest divisional rivals in this category, only beaten by Vegas. This trend will have to continue into the new year.
The Canucks also have a higher powerplay percentage than some teams that are sitting higher than them in the standings. Despite Edmonton being ranked higher in the Pacific Division and two spots ahead of them in league-wide standings, the Canucks are outperforming them with their power play production, though only by 3.5 percentage points.
All that is to say that the margins are close in the realm of power play production across the league and while Vancouver has stayed competitive in this critical category they are still far from the best, and all it takes is a few games of poor production to have that momentum slip.
Take More Shots
One area where the team has objectively been lagging behind in is shots per game. The Canucks are 29th in the league with an average of 26.7 shots per game.
On the outset, this doesn’t seem terrible, as more than 20 shots in a game can often be respectable, however, all other teams in the league are producing more than 20 shots a game. The Canucks are only 2 percentage points above the worst team in the league in this category and the top 8 teams are averaging above 30 shots a night.
Vancouver is no stranger to lagging in this category as they finished last season 26th in the league last year, even with a higher average over this season with 28.4%
Quinn Hughes has alluded to his interest in shooting the puck more this season, and the rest of the team should follow his lead. The Canucks aren’t exactly playing an “if it ain’t broke” style of hockey, there is room to improve in a lot of respects this season and one of those ways is increasing the volume of shots on net.
Pettersson’s Production
Pettersson’s production has increased since the first two months of the season. Currently, he is on pace to get .29 goals per game but is on a .92 points per game pace. At this rate, Pettersson is only on track to score 10 goals before January 1st.
This is not good enough for what we know Pettersson can do, he needs to have his own goal numbers shine through. The aim should be for Pettersson to finish with 15 goals by year’s end. That would demonstrate a significant uptick in production and would be a great way to end 2024.
Get Demko Back Into It
Demko played his first game of the season on Tuesday, during the teams 3-4 OT loss against St. Louis. Kevin Lankenin is doing a great job in net as well this year, which has helped the Canucks by not forcing their hand to start Demko any earlier, still at some point they did need to start Demko.
The Canucks would do best to find 3-4 more low-stake starts for Demko before the end of the season. Demko should split the lesser half of a 60-40 workload to end the year, providing less stress while he gets back into the swing of things.
If Demko shows signs of struggling by year’s end, he’ll have the Christmas break to shake it off. If he’s for any reason feeling like the injury is still preventing him from jumping back into things at his highest level, the winter break allows for a nice cover if Demko feels he’s not ready for game action just yet.
Of course, if Demko is lights out right away, what great confidence that would give him going into 2025. There is no downside in ensuring that Demko doesn’t spend all his time riding pine before the year is through.
2025 here we come
No matter what the Canucks do over their last 8 games of the year, they have done enough to show fans already that there is a lot they can overcome. While they are not having the same breakout success that they had at the start of last season there is still promise in this version of the Canucks.
Their success overall is not a fluke and if they can hit these few milestones before 2025 they will be in a better place for their inevitable playoff run.