Jim Benning and the Vancouver Canucks announced today that Brock Boeser’s injury will likely end his season, and Josh Leivo is expected to miss significant time as well, due to a fractured knee cap suffered in December.
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Brock Boeser and Josh Leivo to Miss Significant Time
Brock Boeser and Josh Leivo have both had good years. Boeser has 45 points in 56 games and Leivo has a career-high 19 points in 36 games. Boeser’s point total breaks down into 16 goals and 29 assists. Over his career, he has scored 75 goals and 86 assists for a total of 161 points. Leivo has 65 career points in 169 games. Seven of his 31 career goals came this year as well as 12 of his 34 assists.
The Impact of Boeser and Leivo’s Absence
This comes as a massive blow to the Vancouver Canucks. After their Stanley Cup Finals loss in 2011, the Canucks have never been the same. They never made it out of the first round of the playoffs after the heartbreaking loss and have failed to qualify since 2016. Brock Boeser was a huge piece of this franchises attempt to rebuild and get this team back into contention. In a close Pacific Division playoff race, the top five teams are all within two points of each other. Losing Boeser with fractured rib cartilage leaves a massive hole in their ability to score. With how tight this race is, losing him for the rest of the regular season could be what causes this team to miss the cut when the playoffs begin.
The loss of Josh Leivo cannot be understated either. Even though he is not a top scorer on this team and has not played many games in his career, he provides additional depth when players like Brock Boeser go out with injury. To lose both of these guys is a tough blow for the Canucks to take. The promising part is that should Vancouver still find a way to make it into the playoffs, Leivo could potentially make a return to the lineup.
The recent addition of Tyler Toffoli could help lessen the impact of the losses of the two forwards, but whenever a team loses a player like Boeser, it will impact their roster significantly.
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