Over the weekend I watched J.D. Burke, a reporter who writes about the Vancouver Canucks for The Athletic shotgun a tallboy of a milk stout.
Yeah, I’m wondering why too. But he did this after losing a bet with his Twitter followers because he didn’t think Jake Virtanen, one of the young guns on the Canucks, would not score a goal in their Nov. 10 loss against Buffalo.
Obviously, Burke isn’t a big fan of Virtanen but that’s beside the point. The 22-year-old British Columbian has nine points in his 18 games so far with the club and is on pace for a career year in his short NHL career but this is only a small success story in the large picture for the Vancouver Canucks.
Nobody other than the annoyingly optimistic would have predicted the Canucks to be on top of the Pacific Division in November.
And nobody but the optimistic can predict that it will last until April. It won’t. But the good news Vancouver fans is this is a window into the future.
Sure, the retirement of the Sedin twins was sad. They were the face of a franchise, albeit a dying one, for what seems like forever. But if they signed on for one or two more years, it’s possible some of the younger talents might not have made the team due to loyalty to the two franchise players.
But alas, the rise of Elias Pettersson has started. He might not be in the top ten in scoring in the league but he’s already excelled. The best part, he only turned 19 on Nov. 12.
The Swede already has 17 points in his NHL career, and it only took him 12 games to do so. He’s already being compared to Gretzky. While that’s a lot of pressure, Pettersson AKA ‘The Alien’ could win the Hart Trophy this year because he is the biggest reason for the team’s success so far. Of course, he is not the only reason Vancouver has done so well so far. Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser, Nikolay Goldobin and Markus Granlund are doing their part, Loui Eriksson is probably having his best start since he left Boston, and some other forwards are doing alright.
The future seems bright but it’s probably just a blind, as the team has been hit with the injury bug.
Alexander Edler, who has played every game of his 758-game NHL career with the Canucks has been out with knee injury since Oct. 27. He will be out for three to six weeks.
Other players injured are Brandon Sutter, Anders Nilsson, Thatcher Demko, Brock Boeser, Jay Beagle and Sven Baertschi.
Defence still needs to be addressed as well. With Edler out, the Canucks have lost their most experienced and probably best defenceman. Hutton is having a better year than last and Gudbranson is making good on his new three-year contract, however, Alex Biega, Derrick Pouliot and Michael Del Zotto are just not cutting it. The best defenceman on the team right now is Troy Stecher, but he’s not getting the minutes yet and the coaches seem to prefer Pouliet on the power play, which Stecher could excel at.
