NHL.com provides an in-depth look at the rosters, prospects and fantasy matchups for each of its 32 teams from Aug. 1 to Sept. 1. Today, three big questions face the Vancouver Canucks.
1. Can Thatcher Demko get through the season in good health?
Demko was a Vezina Trophy finalist as the league’s top goaltender last season, finishing second in voting to Connor Hellebuyck of the Winnipeg Jets after setting NHL career highs in wins (35), shutouts (five) and save percentage (.918) despite being limited to 51 games by a season-ending knee injury.
This is the third straight season since becoming a starter that Demko has missed time with a lower-body injury.
The 28-year-old was sidelined from March 9 to April 16 and, while he was able to return to start the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Demko injured the same knee in Game 1 of the Western Conference first round against the Nashville Predators. He was close to returning when the Canucks were eliminated in Game 7 of the second round by the Edmonton Oilers, but it’s unclear whether he’ll be 100 per cent by the start of training camp in September.
“We’re hopeful he’ll be up and running and ready for the season,” Vancouver general manager Patrik Allvin said.
2. Which one Elias Pettersson are they going to get?
Pettersson was eighth in the NHL in scoring at the end of January with 64 points in 49 games, but he barely cracked the top 100 over the final two and a half months of the regular season, ranking 95th over that span with 25 points in 33 games, and continued to struggle offensively throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
He finished the playoffs with one goal and five assists in 13 games and said in his year-end news conference that he had been dealing with a worsening knee injury, which coach Rick Tocchet later described as tendinitis, since January.
Pettersson is entering the first season of an eight-year, $92.8 million contract signed March 3, and Vancouver has focused on finding better options to play wing with the 25-year-old center. The pressure now is on him to perform as he did for the first two-thirds of last season and for most of his six-year NHL career, which includes 412 points (170 goals, 242 assists) in 407 games since Vancouver selected Pettersson with the fifth overall pick in the 2017 NHL draft.
3. Will Rick Tocchet manage to find the right balance?
Tocchet won the Jack Adams Award as “the NHL coach considered to have contributed most to his team’s success” in his first full season with the Canucks, adding structure and accountability that helped them return to the playoffs for the first time in four years.
The challenge now is to build on that success after adding four new forwards, at least two of whom appear destined to play on the top two lines, and a new third pairing on defense, while trying to generate more offense without sacrificing the strong defensive play that defined last season’s turnaround.
Allvin believes he has given Tocchet enough good pieces and trusts the coach and his staff to find the best way to put them together.
“Tocc has made it very clear many times when he’s talked to you that he’s a puzzler, he’s looking for different combinations,” Allvin said. “I think Rick is one of the best coaches when it comes to in-game adjustments and bench management as well, so you can never have enough good players for him to work with.”
