By: Brayden Fengler / November 15, 2024 The Canucks haven’t seemed to fall off a cliff yet in what is their sophomore season of being a good team again. However, Vancouver has not come out swinging quite as strongly as they did to start last season either.
Last year, while American Thanksgiving was fast approaching, and 15 games played, the Canucks were 4th in the league and second-best in the conference only bested by the league-leading Golden Knights at the time. This year the Canucks sit at 12th in the league by the same mile marker.
Many of the team’s key players are still producing, with some struggling a little more than others compared to last year’s start. However, Conor Garland in particular has seen an extremely strong start to his season. Garland’s value to this team seems to be endlessly rising, and it becomes all the more impressive the closer you look.
Garland as a Canuck
Conor Garland never once cracked 40 points in a season during his NHL career before joining the Vancouver Canucks. Since joining the team ahead of the 2021-2022 campaign Garland has never failed to fall below 40 points in a season. the 28-year-old winger is continuing to produce this year for the Canucks right out of the gate, with no signs of slowing down.
Last year Garland played a full 82-game season for the first time in his career, earning 20 goals (His best seasonal record as a Canuck), and 27 assists. This production put him behind Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller, Garland was the team’s most productive forward by the end of last season, and this year he looks to be making a run to be on the podium in this category.
Early Signs of Success
Through the first 15 games last season, Conor Garland played in every contest averaging 12:54 TOI with 2 goals and 3 assists. His efforts resulted in him averaging 0.33 points per game through that early stretch.
While a 15-game sample size is small, it is nearly a month and a half of regular season hockey, with a good mix of home and road games. It’s not a small enough sample to completely ignore any trends that start to develop in a player’s game.
By this time last year, Garland did not look to be on pace to be one of the team’s top producers. Petey Boeser and Miller were already the team’s top 3 most productive forwards by this point last season. Last year out of all Canucks forwards who had played 15 games up to that point in the season, Garland had only produced more than Pius Suter.
This year, after 15 games played Garland is the third most productive Canuck on the team beating out Elias Pettersson for that last spot on the podium. Averaging 18:46 TOI Garland is of course seeing much higher deployment to start this season than last, and rightfully so.
Garland has 4 goals and 7 assists to his name for a total of 11 points through the first 15 games. This more than doubles the production he had at the early stages of last season.
Garland Is Propping Up The Canucks Top Lines
Garland’s work ethic is unmatched, and it’s clear that his tenacity has helped him maintain the trust of head coach Rick Tocchet. Garland has grown to be a vital part of how Tocchet wants this team to play the game.
Even without having Dakota Joshua to pair with Garland to start the season, Tocchet did not let his inability to run back this pair, prevent him from deploying Garland as much as possible.
Last year Joshua and Galrand saw heavy deployment together. With the two of them and Teddy Blueger combining for the team’s most deployed line through the regular season. Their line produced 21 goals on the season, only one less than the team’s more flashy top line of Pettersson, Boeser and Miller.
Although Joshua has now rejoined the Canucks Tocchet has not immediately placed him back with Garland. Last year separating those two players by choice would’ve sounded unthinkable, but it just goes to show how vital of a piece Garland has made himself up the line-up.
Starting Joshua down the line-up as Tocchet has in his first few games back is allowing the returning forward to ease back into NHL action. But it also means that the Canucks don’t have to say goodbye just yet to Garland and Pettersson playing together.
Garland deserves a lot of credit for propping up Elias Pettersson so far this season. Garland has been deployed with EP40 regularly to start this season. A Garland-Pettersson combo of some kind accounts for three of the top five most deployed line combos for the Canucks.
Whether these two are joined by Nils Hoglander, Jake DeBrusk or Pius Suter it’s clear that Tocchet weighs heavily the importance of Garland and Pettersson staying together.
Garland has done such a good job, it might be hard to remove him from a top line with their struggling star.
Garland’s Season Ahead
At a cap hit of under $5Mil a season, Garland has been more than worth it for the Canucks in the last two seasons. The hope for Garland is that he keeps it up. The success of Garland takes stress off of Canucks who are still ramping up their games, and players like him that can succeed the way he does do not come around every day.