After starting the year at home, the Vancouver Canucks road trip will keep them away until mid-January. What will the team look like when it returns?
Canucks Road Trip Will Answer Questions
Home for the holidays proved a mixed blessing for the Vancouver Canucks, going 1-1 bookmarking New Year’s. A miserable, lacklustre game against the Philadelphia Flyers ended 2023 and a chaotic win against the Ottawa Senators opened 2024. But it did provide plenty of rest with just two games in ten days. Hitting the road may be just what the doctor ordered.
Seven-game road trips are nothing new to Vancouver. There’s usually one every season out to the East, often hitting the seaboard with a stop out and back. This year’s big trip is no different, as far as the miles go. The team itself, on the other hand, is far from the typical Canucks wanderers. In other years, they played the part of bumbling tourists, getting fleeced by the local sharks.
This season, they have the opportunity to play the part of an invading horde instead. With the distant trade deadline approaching – not that it matters much to Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin – the next two weeks are pivotal.
About The Trip
St. Louis Blues – The Canucks smashed them 5-0 at home back in October, so how relevant that is now who knows. They changed coaches a month back, but any improvement has been modest. Not a playoff threat, but tough at home.
New Jersey Devils – A fun duel between brothers: Jack Hughes with three points, Quinn Hughes got two, and Luke Hughes had one. Not a great game, but a great ending with a roaring comeback at home stopped with 34 seconds left on the clock.
New York Rangers – Another October game, and one the Canucks “should have” won. That’s in quotes because luck always plays its part, and we all just saw the Canucks luck against the Ottawa Senators, right? One of the 51-point teams Vancouver’s tied with right now.
New York Islanders – Stories abound! Early two-goal deficit on back-to-back penalties to Ian Cole* and a goal by former captain Bo Horvat? That’s just setting the table for current captain Hughes to end it in overtime. A suspiciously good Islanders squad.
Pittsburgh Penguins – Speaking of stories, here’s a homecoming for Rutherford and Allvin. Pittsburgh is going to be this season’s “unfair team” if they don’t make the playoffs. If they were in any other division, they’d be in a playoff spot now or bumping up against one.
Buffalo Sabres – Ah, Bewildering Buffalo. Huge talent signed long-term, and they’ve spent the last three seasons feeling like they should be better. Leaning very heavily on very young players hasn’t worked out just yet.
Columbus Blue Jackets – An unmitigated disaster last season and on pace to duplicate those results this year. Missing three of their most talented players – and several others besides – isn’t helping.
The Results-Oriented Horde
No one, but NO ONE expected the Canucks to be near the top of league standings. Not early, and certainly not this late into the season. But here they are in January, one back of the Boston Bruins with three other 51-point teams.
So the big ol’ question is this: what are the Vancouver Canucks?
Our writer Joshua Rey went into some of the storylines heading into the new calendar year (linked above). Contracts for Filip Hronek and Elias Pettersson are the big headlines, of course. But which is responsible for what is a bit chicken-and-egg, if the chicken could score 100+ points in the NHL.
In the short term, the question is all about how hard the Canucks want to push right now. They clearly have a good team. They’ll be hitting the season’s mid-way mark on this road trip. The trade deadline this year is March 8th. Again, not like this management team pays much attention to it, but it gives us a marker.
The Canucks road trip – the one they’re on right now – can help management decide what direction to move in. Allvin, if he’s anything like Rutherford, is working the phones daily. Deals that are close may get a little extra nudge to cross the finish line from a swing here.
Victory!
The Canucks have been beating the teams they should this season, except perhaps the oddly frustrating Flyers. They’ve had some good wins against good teams, but an argument can be made that they haven’t faced enough good teams to really test themselves. And that’s fair: they have yet to play either the Los Angeles Kings or Winnipeg Jets, for instance. And both are direct competition.
The Rangers are, going by the standings, the toughest team Vancouver will face. But they’re also playing seven games in 11 days, all on the road and one in the afternoon. That isn’t an easy run, no matter who’s on the list.
But let’s say it goes well. They beat the teams they’re supposed to, drop the Rangers one outright, and lose another point to someone else. Coming home 5-1-1 would be fantastic. They’d have 37 games to get another 34 points.
What Happens: Vancouver’s 2024 first-round pick is up for sale, guaranteed. Add other young names to the list: Vasily Podkolzin, Aatu Räty, and even, if the deal was right, Arturs Silovs. Anyone but the top picks from the last two years – and call in your offers for Tom Willander or Jonathan Lekkerimäki.
In return, Vancouver will want players who push current NHLers down the list. A reliable top-six scoring winger and a solid mid-pair defenceman are minimum pickups. On contract, or at least under control, is preferred, but not essential. Young is fine, but they need to be performing well NOW.
Victory-ish!
So the Canucks road trip hits some bumps. Not entirely unexpected, but one of the weaker teams tags them. Just three wins and an overtime loss follow them home. There’s a two-game losing streak for just the third time this season, horror of horrors.
What Happens: A shake-up among the current players. Depending on Rick Tocchet‘s patience and Andrei Kuzmenko‘s production, maybe the trigger is pulled on him. Any moves Vancouver makes are likely to be from among the forward group. The team is going to reach the playoffs, and everyone knows you need as many defencemen as you can get then.
Victor? Never Heard of Him.
Okay, not terribly likely, but possible. The team manages just one win on the trip – let’s say it’s against the Rangers – and a couple of overtime losses. Their injury luck finally runs out and major players are sidelined. There is no joy in Rainville as the team limps home with a paltry four points.
What Happens: Probably what the team already had plans for at the beginning of the season. The players the management team doesn’t have much faith in – the ones they didn’t draft – are at risk. Prices come down a bit, but not too much. Anyone in the bottom six could go at any time.
The big ticket would still be Kuzmenko. If there’s a good enough deal, Brock Boeser could be on the move. But Nils Höglander, Dakota Joshua, Teddy Blueger, or anyone in the AHL will be feeling the heat. In this case, probably not Silovs. It wouldn’t quite be a fire sale, but a more aggressive series of moves to reshape the team to Allvin’s – and Tocchet’s – liking.
Again, the team is still going to make the playoffs, and everyone wants a good showing. It’ll be the first time in nine seasons, after all, and the owner is desperate for ticket sales. Rutherford has a habit of acting as soon as he sees a deal he likes, but in this case, might wait until closer to the deadline to act.
But the plans to be truly competitive? They’ll get pushed a few years down the road instead of their chips getting pushed into the middle of the table.
*Ya made up for it, buddy!
Main Photo Credit: Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports
