Potential Playoff Opponent: Vancouver Canucks

Forwards

The Canucks boast some impressive firepower up front. At center they’re being led by JT Miller, who was heavily involved in trade rumours prior to the trade deadline, but the Canucks never did pull the trigger on a deal for him. He currently sits in a tie for 10th place in league scoring, with Mikko Rantanen of Colorado with 91 points (74 GP for him). He’s no Edmonton Oilers Captain Connor McDavid, but that’s pretty good.

Normally the second line center would be Bo Horvat, but in a huge blow to their lineup he’s injured right now. He’s apparently going to be out for at least two weeks, so I wouldn’t count on him being back prior to the end of the regular season.

In his place is a great replacement in Elias Pettersson, who’s second on the team in scoring with 29 goals and 63 points in 74 games.

Starboard side we have the other centerpiece of the Ekman-Larsson trade, Conor Garland. He’s got a shot at the 20 goal mark for the second time in his career, putting up 17 goals and 44 points in 71 games this season. On the second line is star player Brock Boeser, who is having an off year by his standards but has still cracked the 20 goal mark for the fourth time in five seasons, going 20-21-41 in 65 games.

However, the port side of the top six is currently the weak side of the Canuck’s lineup. With Horvat out and Pettersson moved to center, that means that the first line is manned by rookie Vasily Podkolzin, drafted 10th overall in 2019. He might be an impressive player one day, but that won’t be this season as he’s put up rather pedestrian numbers of 14-11-25 in 73 games. Not all that unusual for a 20 year old rookie, but I’ve got to call it as I see it.

On the second line – and whom I can only assume is the sub-in for Pettersson – is normal bottom six forward Jason Dickinson, who’s doing about as well as you’d think he is, 5-6-11 in 56 games.

Tough break as Horvat would move the needle for them, but the lack of depth to replace injured players and the loss of Horvat swings this much moreso to the Oilers.

The bottom six has seen addition by subtraction as the Canucks got rid of a bunch of deadweight in the trade for Oliver Ekman-Larsson (more on this later on in the blog…).

Normally I’d be looking at key draft pick Nils Hoglander to lead the charge at third line center, but he’s injured right now, out indefinitely. A big blow to their secondary scoring, and they don’t have great depth to replace him as Juho Lammikko, a pickup from Florida over the offseason, is currently in that spot right now. He’ll probably pad his numbers a bit more before the season is done, but right now 15 points in 69 (giggity) games is…..OK, but not great. Certainly doesn’t hold a candle to Nuge’s 47 points this season. Three other regulars from their bottom six are out right now – Brandon Sutter, Tanner Pearson, and one time Edmonton Oilers forward Alex Chiasson. Pearson and Chiasson have both put up good numbers – Pearson has 14 goals and 34 points in 68 games this season, while Chiasson has 12 goals and 21 points in 62 games. As you would expect with the rebuilding franchise, they don’t have the depth to overcome this loss of secondary scoring.

On the fourth line we have Brad Richardson at center, a big scoop of vanilla who’s currently putting up 2-1-3 in 11 games. Can he get another five before the end of the season to at least equal the minimum you’d want in a fourth liner? Maybe, at this point it’s impossible to say. At Lahmikko’s left is more vanilla extract in Matthew Highmore, with 10 points in 40 games. At least they’re on the good side of +/-…..that’s something, I guess. To Richardson’s port side is AHL bubble player Sheldon Dries, who actually has 1-1-2 in five games. Probably not a future there for the 27 year old as he’s riding a 20% shooting % on five shots on goal so that tells you all you need to know for him.

Starboard side in the bottom six you have on the third line a 23 year old who hasn’t been able to find a way to translate his AHL offence to the NHL, Will Lockwood. Goose eggs all around in 10 games played. Not surprisingly, on the fourth line you have an AHL bubble player veteran in Nic Petan. He has a single assist in 14 games this season. I once saw a W5 spot on him about how he suffered through a family tragedy in past seasons. That’s what he’s most famous for to me now, on the ice he’s nothing special.

It’s pretty obvious to me at this point what’s going on – even when healthy the Canucks present more challenges at forward but still the Oilers edge them out here – and that’s when healthy. The loss of Horvat is bad enough, but losing two key bottom six snipers hurts almost as much. It makes their winning streak more mysterious and impressive, but they’re too injured and lacking depth at this point to be where the Oilers are at this point in time.