Canucks Live: Just not good enough, Vancouver in major slide as Saturday night in Toronto poses challenge

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Remember when the Canucks traded away their best player, Quinn Hughes? Remember when they went on the pre-Christmas road trip and won four straight with their shiny new toys offering youth and hope for the future?

Now the toys are broken, the lights have been extinguished and the dingy, grey reality of a cold new year lays the facts bare: this team isn’t good enough.

Even against mid-tier NHL teams like the Sabres, and on Thursday the Red Wings, the Canucks just aren’t on a level to compete with teams with real ambition to win a Cup. Teams that have served their time at the bottom and have drafted and crafted a roster that works together and is building for a future of success.

The Canucks have been trying since 2012 to avoid a rebuild. They added new pieces to whatever core was on hand. And all it’s done is make for a mishmash of players who don’t play coherently, have defensive breakdowns, and take turns going into long scoring droughts. What hope is there? Well, we get to see them head into Toronto and get washed over by the Leaf-gasm that is the early slot on Hockey Night in Canada.

Patrick Johnston speaks some hard truths in his report card from the game in Detroit.

Canucks fans can at least hope that there’s a tanking outcome from all this. Ironically, they can’t be sure that’s on until Kiefer Sherwood is relieved of his misery in a trade.

Moving on from this group of players is a must, just for everyone’s sanity.

They may deserve better for their efforts, but that’s small consolation for them.

There’s still a small belief in the room that they can make the playoffs — look how bad the Western Conference race is, after all — and they also just never stop believing until it’s all over. 

I know this well having covered this team for eight years. The players keep believing until the bitter end.

They’ve now lost five straight. The Jets somehow have managed to lose 11 straight, so the Canucks still aren’t in the league’s basement yet.

But they’re just about there.

It’s time for Canucks management to get on with it, to free the players who can be freed from this misery.

Send them off to a better place. Get them out of this. 

Yeah, you can make an argument the team isn’t talented enough, it isn’t. But it’s also constructed poorly. They’ve been chasing help at centre for two seasons now. Maybe Braeden Cootes can be rushed into that role next season, but unless the team gets a top-3 pick in this summer’s draft, it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Power failures

Searching the web for Canucks news is tough these days. The team just don’t register any sort of interest with national media. It will be interesting to see the content out of Toronto with the Canucks there on Saturday night. Will there be any sort of reportage or news on the local heroes outside of more Sherwood trade rumours? This is never more evident than in the weekly perusal of Power Rankings. You know that by the time the writers get to around the 20th, they just get distracted and rank the teams according to the standings with a throwaway comment tossed in. Thankfully, the Jets are more astonishing than the Canucks as the pre-season Stanley Cup favourite’s losing streak slips to double figures.

So, are the Canucks locked in here at 31 in the national scope?

Here’s ESPN.

31. Vancouver Canucks
Previous ranking: 32
Points percentage: 43 per cent

2026 Olympians: Teddy Blueger, F (LAT), Filip Hronek, D (CZE), David Kampf, F (CZE), Kevin Lankinen, G (FIN), Elias Pettersson, F (SWE), Lukas Reichel, F (GER)

This is perhaps the most surprisingly long list because the Canucks are currently second worst in the NHL standings.

Next seven days: @ TOR (Jan. 10), @ MTL (Jan. 12), @ OTT (Jan. 13), @ CBJ (Jan. 15) 

Yikes, looking at the Canucks Olympians, it kind of sums up why they’re in the pickle they’re in.

How about the Athletic?

31. Vancouver Canucks, 16-22-5
Dec. 19 rank: 29
Sean: 31
Dom: 31

The rebuild writing is on the wall, with Thomas Drance literally putting it there himself daily. The Canucks were in the midst of a nice little run after the Hughes trade, but it’s been business as usual over the last three weeks. They’ve recently lost seven of eight while being outscored 36-20. Their centre depth remains abhorrent. 

TSN is a little more cynical, yes, more cynical than ranking the Canucks 31st.

32. Vancouver Canucks.

The Vancouver Canucks occupy last place in our Power Rankings. The Canucks have a better record than the Jets, but their underlying numbers paint a bleaker picture as Vancouver sits 31st in goal and expected goal differential per game. The Canucks are tied for 26th in goals per game, and while the team has been better from an offensive process standpoint recently, putting the puck in the net remains a struggle. 

OK, is it a Canadian thing to think the Canucks are worse than the Jets? Let’s check Sportsnet.

31. Vancouver Canucks (16-21-5) With Hughes gone, Filip Hronek is the workhorse in Vancouver now, with 24:44 a contest.

CBS Sports has the Canucks at consensus.

The Canucks have yet to win in 2026, and I wonder when that first victory of the year will come. They’re in the midst of a long and arduous road trip, so it could be a while. 

That kind of reinforces the theory that these exercises are lazy ones that don’t look at the facts. The Canucks had the fifth-best road record headed into this trip. They’re far more likely to win on the road than at home.

OK, the Score follows the crowd.

31. Vancouver Canucks (16-21-5)
Previous: 31

Kiefer Sherwood. This season has been a disastrous one for the Canucks. At least fan favourite Sherwood has bagged a bunch of goals and continues to throw an absurd amount of hits.

And we’ll finish off with Bleacher Report.

31. Vancouver Canucks

Previous Ranking: 31

Overall Record: 16-21-5

It’s gone from bad to worse, to even worse for the Canucks, whose 5-3 loss in Buffalo on Tuesday was their fourth in a row (0-2-2) and sixth in their last seven games since the week before Christmas.

Vancouver has allowed five goals twice, and six goals twice in those six losses, and its 3.46 goals-against average entering Tuesday’s games was already 30th-best in the league ahead of only San Jose (3.54) and Anaheim (3.64).
Check back for more Canucks news throughout the day …