{"id":612744,"date":"2026-04-18T16:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T16:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/612744\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T16:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T16:47:14","slug":"how-the-vancouver-canucks-2025-26-season-fell-apart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/612744\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Vancouver Canucks’ 2025-26 season fell apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you look back and try to answer the question: what the heck just happened? \u2014 Vancouver Canuck Teddy Blueger<\/a> figures you actually have to start with the end, because it underscores what had been missing.<\/p>\n

The Canucks\u2019 2025-26 season is one of the worst in club history. Their point win percentage of .354 is tied for third-worst in team history.<\/p>\n

And let us remember that when the NHL season started, the target was the playoffs. Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford said so. Team general manager Patrik Allvin said so. Head coach Adam Foote said so.<\/p>\n

Most prognosticators, including this author, said so.<\/p>\n

So far only Allvin has paid with his job. Foote, perhaps even Rutherford, may yet still. Yours truly can offer only a mea culpa.<\/p>\n

How did it all go wrong? Well, Blueger replied, consider what has been put back into place since the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooks at the ins-and-outs of our team dynamics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Those dynamics are no longer dominated by a group of experienced, forceful veterans. The team is one of the youngest in the league now. It\u2019s a little more upbeat.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also in need of guidance. And that, at the end, is a reminder of how lost they were for so much of the season.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go over what happened and find our way to the present:<\/p>\n

The good start<\/p>\n

It\u2019s forgotten, but the Canucks opened the season 4-2. They were halfway through a road trip and feeling good.<\/p>\n

Now, the underlying statistics suggested the record was a bit of a mirage, but the mark was something for the players and the coaches to point to and say, \u201cHey, we can tighten things up here and you know our record will keep improving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start, we were what, .500? We were in our games and it felt so positive,\u201d Canuck Drew O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Nikita Tolopilo and Marcus Pettersson defend against Jonathan Toews of the Winnipeg Jets Feb. 25.<\/p>\n

Early injuries<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then we had some injuries,\u201d teammate Marcus Pettersson said.<\/p>\n

In one game in Washington, D.C., the Canucks lost Blueger and centre Filip Chytil.<\/p>\n

It set everything back. Sure, they were already playing too loose to have long-term success, but at least they were having fun. Chytil was a head injury waiting to happen, most observers believed, but his dynamic skating and his ability to carry the puck into the zone did set him apart from his teammates, and he was playing well and scoring.<\/p>\n

Blueger, the vet checking centre, would also be missed. The Canucks had started the year thin at centre and the double-blow in D.C. knocked everything off-kilter.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s playing style proved unable to absorb the loss of the pair.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Vancouver Canucks GM Patrik Allvin and Quinn Hughes at the September 11, 2023 press conference when Hughes was named team captain.<\/p>\n

Quinn Hughes<\/a> gets frustrated<\/p>\n

The Canucks won just four times in November. They were outshot most nights. They fell behind too often and their second periods were disastrous. Bad decisions were rife.<\/p>\n

Quinn Hughes<\/a> was trying to do everything, sometimes maybe too much, and although he was playing lots, he wasn\u2019t his vintage self.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could tell for a while,\u201d O\u2019Connor admitted about the former captain\u2019s frustration.<\/p>\n

Everyone saw it in his play, and in his public interactions. The team was struggling and he could see that the exit was approaching. It was tough on Hughes, it was tough on everyone. His teammates still didn\u2019t expect a trade, but in hindsight they can understand what was going on.<\/p>\n

Their captain had opened the door to management to start looking for a new landing spot.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rutherford told the world that, at the very least, the team\u2019s unrestricted free agents were available for trade. That was the first of several pronouncements to shake up the room.<\/p>\n

Hughes gets dealt<\/p>\n

After the trade, for a short while it seemed like maybe they would get back in the playoff race, Canuck Max Sasson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys came in and we won four games in a row and you start looking at the standings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And then the losing started. After Christmas they lost 12 of 13 games. That was grim.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the trade, everything went sideways,\u201d O\u2019Connor added.<\/p>\n

Somewhere in there, Blueger came to realize, the team just wasn\u2019t at all on the same page. The reasons, he realized later, were complicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are different ways to get guys to match and different things you have to do,\u201d he remarked as the season wound down.<\/p>\n

As weird as it sounds for a guy who\u2019s just age 31 but realized that his younger teammates had just come up in a different world from his millennial experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung guys now are a little bit different than from when we came in. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s good or bad \u2026 just how it is,\u201d he explained. \u201cI found one of the things when I came in \u2014 and maybe it\u2019s because we were an older team (in Pittsburgh) \u2014 it\u2019s like, you just came in, you shut up and you just did your job. It\u2019s not really like that anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think it took us a second to figure that out and find the right approach, to get everyone to be more involved and feel part of it, because, you want it done in the right way so everyone has an understanding of their role, but also everyone feeling a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That took time though.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

The Canucks\u2019 rebuild grew when winger Kiefer Sherwood, who led the club in goals and hits, was traded Jan. 26 to San Jose<\/p>\n

Get us out of here!<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so disconnected,\u201d Canuck Brock Boeser<\/a> said of how badly things were going much of the season.<\/p>\n

No time was worse, probably than the stretch after Christmas.<\/p>\n

We can see it now, but it\u2019s clear that Rutherford\u2019s talk of a rebuild shook up the room. Vets who had signed on for a playoff chase \u2014 Conor Garland<\/a> and Tyler Myers<\/a>, for example \u2014 started to ponder if maybe their future lay elsewhere. They had signed on for post-season games. Those weren\u2019t coming in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start hearing maybe this guy is getting traded. You hear the word rebuild,\u201d Sasson said. \u201cThat was a low point in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so the team\u2019s play sagged. Mistakes were everywhere.<\/p>\n

Kiefer Sherwood was traded, not because he wanted out but because management recognized his style of play would help a team fighting for the playoffs and they could recoup some draft picks for the hustling winger, who had been added, ironically now, after the hard-fought Nashville first-round playoff series in 2024, with playoffs runs in 2025 and 2026 in mind.<\/p>\n

Garland and Myers were traded too, which would open doors for others.<\/p>\n

The trade deadline<\/p>\n

As the first week of March approached, deadline day started bulging from the calendar. Who else would be on their way out? The trade-talk hot stove saw many, many names bandied about. If you played for the Canucks, it seemed a guarantee you would be in the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the trade deadline if my name\u2019s not out there,\u201d Boeser quipped.<\/p>\n

And then the deadline was over. Tensions eased. Teammates almost needed to reintroduce themselves to each other, now that they knew who would be around for the finish to the season.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

San Jose Sharks center Alexander Wennberg and Vancouver Canucks defenceman Filip Hronek during NHL game Nov. 28, 2025, in San Jose, Calif.<\/p>\n

New vibes<\/p>\n

After the deadline, the team\u2019s remaining vets looked at each other and said, essentially, enough. The likes of Boeser, Blueger, Marcus Pettersson, Filip Hronek<\/a> and goalie Kevin Lankinen saw that this was a group that needed to forget its own identity. The younger players needed to feel that this was now their space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it was the right time to intervene a little bit and make sure we start building now, instead of letting the season slip away and then coming back, we already kind of set the standard, and hopefully this goes on,\u201d Lankinen said. \u201cThere\u2019s still a long ways to go,\u201d<\/p>\n

They picked out some topics, then turned to the whole room.<\/p>\n

Lately, he said, he had been thinking about how things were in Pittsburgh, where he broke into the league. That team was two years removed from back-to-back Stanley Cups. There were a few things he realized that maybe he had taken for granted, things that he had realized were perhaps a little lacking as the current season wore on.<\/p>\n

\u201cOff-ice details,\u201d he began. \u201cThe professionalism of timeliness, dress code, respect for training staff, respect for tidiness. All those little things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I was really lucky when I came into Pittsburgh \u2026 all those things were in place, and those were just the expectations. And I think all that discipline carries over and becomes discipline on the ice. It\u2019s not just like getting along in the room, but making sure there\u2019s a healthy respect for each other. And then you don\u2019t have to be best friends, but you got to be willing to give up some of your own ego and wants in order for the team to benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a meeting as a group, and there was something we talked about, some standards, just habits, what\u2019s OK, what\u2019s not OK,\u201d one of those younger Canuck players, Linus Karlsson, noted. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019ve done a good job with that. And I think everyone has really, really listened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last 15 games, that was the closest I\u2019ve felt at least in my time here, that everyone\u2019s pulling the rope,\u201d Sasson concluded.<\/p>\n

pjohnston@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you look back and try to answer the question: what the heck just happened? \u2014 Vancouver Canuck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[114081,450,49,48,9976,29208,21601,141572,141573,168051,11935,7948,230721,230722,7595,17062,4847,12430,2341,73304,66950,91877,55,230720],"class_list":{"0":"post-612744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver","8":"tag-adam-foote","9":"tag-brock-boeser","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-canucks","13":"tag-conor-garland","14":"tag-filip-chytil","15":"tag-filip-hronek","16":"tag-jim-rutherford","17":"tag-kevin-lankinen","18":"tag-kiefer-sherwood","19":"tag-linus-karlsson","20":"tag-marcus-pettersson","21":"tag-max-sasson","22":"tag-nashville","23":"tag-patrik-allvin","24":"tag-pittsburgh","25":"tag-quinn-hughes","26":"tag-team","27":"tag-team-dynamics","28":"tag-teddy-blueger","29":"tag-tyler-myers","30":"tag-vancouver","31":"tag-vancouver-canuck"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}