The Vancouver Canucks have started the 2024-25 season with a 5-2-3 record after 10 games, two wins fewer than last season. But, thanks to two overtime/shootout losses, they are only two points back of what they had on Nov. 4, 2023, with 13 points instead of 15. All in all, while they are close to the same numbers record-wise as last November, their game isn’t nearly as solid or impressive. Since 10 is a good milestone number, here are a few thoughts about their first 10 games of the season.
Elias Pettersson’s slow start this season has been well-documented. He is now in the first year of the $11.6 million average annual value (AAV) contract that he signed last season, and so far, he’s not remotely lived up to it. Yes, it’s only been 10 games, but with only one goal and four points, he is well behind the pace he was on last year. On Nov. 4, 2023, he already had five goals and 19 points – 15 more than what he has right now. He hasn’t had a multi-point game yet, while he had seven before Nov. 4 hit last season. If he continues this slow-trodding pace, he will end up with a career-low eight goals and 33 points, indicative of a third-liner, not the top-six dynamo he’s being paid to be.
Power Play Struggling to Find Its Rhythm
With the amount of talent the Canucks have on their first unit (and second unit for that matter), they should have – at the very least – a good power play. But, it’s been far from that in the early going. Honestly, it’s been tough to watch. They struggle to gain the zone and set up, and when they do, they pass it around way too much, most of the time leading to a turnover and a clear down the ice. The infamous drop pass is somehow still part of the festivities, a holdover from the Jason King/Newell Brown-run power plays of the past, something that should already be ancient news now that Quinn Hughes is on the team.
Hughes should be directed to skate the puck into the zone or make one of his patented crisp first passes to an on-rushing forward instead of stopping at center ice and dropping it back to a forward. This should be the play 95 percent of the time with the drop pass rearing its head very rarely.
In addition to changing how they enter the zone, the Canucks should take a page from the 2000s Detroit Red Wings and adopt the two passes, then shoot mentality. No matter where you are in the zone, if you are the…
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