For some, that\u2019d be a banner year. But for someone who has at various times in his career been a very highly-touted prospect, it feels a little unsatisfying. It feels a little incomplete.<\/p>\n
Part of the equation here is opportunity. Despite his relative success in 2025-26, R\u00e4ty averaged out to just 12:01 of ice time a night, and often much less than that. Many interpreted the situation as head coach Adam Foote not being overly fond of R\u00e4ty\u2019s game, and there may have been something to that. At times, Foote seemed to express a real lack of trust in R\u00e4ty, as evidenced most strongly by that moment in early December when R\u00e4ty put up five points in five games, including the first three-point night of his career, and then proceeded to be made a healthy scratch for several games in a row.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the opportunity will be limited. R\u00e4ty turns 24 in November. And while that\u2019s not old by any stretch of the imagination, it is older than a lot of the forwards that are and will be making up the bulk of the rebuild in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
If R\u00e4ty doesn\u2019t well and truly establish his name and his role in the NHL this year, he may start running out of time to do so. That, more than anything, has to be his primary and overarching goal for 2026-27.<\/p>\n
Meeting Expectations: Full-Time Employment as the Canucks\u2019 3C<\/p>\n
Part of R\u00e4ty\u2019s issue last year was a lack of a clear spot in the lineup. He may have started the year pencilled in somewhere on the centre depth chart, but a combination of Foote\u2019s mistrust and the Canucks\u2019 in-season acquisition of centres like Marco Rossi and David Kampf threw that for a loop.<\/p>\n
In the end, R\u00e4ty played all over the lineup and never in any one place for all that long.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a chance, though, that he enters the 2026-27 as the Canucks\u2019 definitive third line centre. In order for that to happen, Elias Pettersson and Marco Rossi need to occupy their planned top-six positions. That part seems easy. But R\u00e4ty also probably needs Braeden Cootes to not make the team, and for Filip Chytil to end up on the wing.<\/p>\n
That seems like a likely enough outcome with Cootes having the ability to be assigned to the AHL and with Chytil\u2019s health concerns. Another option on the table for R\u00e4ty, of course, is to simply come into camp and show he\u2019s the best candidate for the job.<\/p>\n
A full-time 3C should be getting more than 12 minutes a night. It might also mean more opportunities for R\u00e4ty to develop his defensive game with tougher matchups, and it should also mean higher-class linemates on a more consistent basis. Last year, R\u00e4ty spent no more than 10% of his time with any one line. If he could get some lengthy stretches with wingers like Drew O\u2019Connor or Linus Karlsson or Brendan Gallagher or whomever, it could go a long way toward R\u00e4ty developing some offensive consistency of his own.<\/p>\n
Exceeding Expectations: 20+ goals, achieved through top-six and power play opportunities<\/p>\n
R\u00e4ty only scored four goals last year, and that might have made folks forget that brief stretch in the 2024-25 season during which R\u00e4ty was looking like a genuine sniper. After a later March recall, R\u00e4ty posted five goals in his first eight games back in the NHL. That led to him finishing the year with a 20.6% shooting rate.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not a percentage R\u00e4ty can be expected to maintain. But if he can get his shot working for him again in the way, something like 20 goals doesn\u2019t seem terribly out of reach. The seven goals he got in 33 games for 2024-25 doesn\u2019t pace too terribly far behind that, and with a little more scoring-based opportunity, R\u00e4ty could get there.<\/p>\n
That would probably mean occasionally shuffling up from that 3C role we described in the previous section, and either filling in for one of Pettersson or Rossi in the top-six or, alternatively, taking some shifts on one of their wings. It could also mean R\u00e4ty taking a leading role on the PP2 unit, which is currently looking a little sparse.<\/p>\n
More goals are obviously welcome on the third-lowest scoring team in the league last year. And 20ish goals would go a long way toward establishing R\u00e4ty as a genuine long-term fixture in the NHL.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Below Expectations: Back to the Healthy Scratch Zone<\/p>\n
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