The Vancouver Canucks are heading into the 2024-25 season with an overwhelming sense of optimism. The top of the Canucks’ roster is about as ideal as any; there’s a de facto number one defenceman in Captain Quinn Hughes; and two centres that tallied 102 points just two seasons ago in Elias Pettersson, and 103 points this past campaign in J.T. Miller. Excluding any Thatcher Demko or Arturs Silovs news — and looking only at Vancouver’s forward group — there’s a pair of forwards that will need to elevate their games for the Canucks to reach new heights: Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua.
The Canucks could have let Joshua walk away this past July in Free Agency (FA). The winger was coming off a career year 18 goal and 32 point season, and was ultimately retained by the club on a four-year contract. Joshua earned the trust of Rick Tocchet and played a career high 14:23 per game last season, including a role on the penalty kill. Tocchet’s decision to deploy Joshua alongside Conor Garland on the team’s third line has paid major dividends, and was likely part of the Canucks’ incentive to retain him.
As per Natural Stat Trick, in 552 minutes of Time On Ice (TOI) in over 63 Games Played (GP) the duo of Garland and Joshua registered 125 more Chances For (CF) than Chances Against (CA). The Canucks don’t need a roster full of hundred point players, they just need the lines without Pettersson or Miller to either tread water in their TOI by not giving up easy goals against, or, as Joshua and Garland have done so effectively, out-chance their opposition. Garland netted 20 goals for the second time in his career last season, and had the highest Expected-Goals (EG) rate of his career.
In the playoffs, the pair were statistically slightly less productive, which could be what partially prevented the Canucks from advancing past Edmonton in the semi-finals. In 132:55 TOI over 13 GP in the playoffs, Garland and Joshua had 33 less CF than they had CA as per Natural Stat Trick. As the Canucks iced Miller’s line with Brock Boeser in a hard match against Conor McDavid’s top line for the Oilers, one of Vancouver’s next three trios needed to break through on the score-sheet. Pettersson was not at his finest in the playoffs, scoring only six points in 13 GP as a second line anchor. Combined with the diminished results of Garland and Joshua, there just wasn’t enough offense being created to get past the Oilers.
The Canucks have seen themselves in similar positions to the one they’re in as 2024-25 approaches. The 2020 playoff bubble ended with Vancouver heading towards league-wide relevance for the first time in several years. After being eliminated in the Stanley Cup semi-finals (third round of the bubble including the play-in tournament) the Canucks let several culture carriers depart the roster in FA. Long-time players, and shepherds of the team’s next era; Christopher Tanev, Jacob Markström, Troy Stecher, and newcomer Tyler Toffoli, were all unretained after their roles in the reestablishment of the Canucks brand in the bubble. The next season’s COVID-19 safety regulations placed Vancouver in the North Division, and despite all their success in the bubble playoffs earlier that year, the team crumbled to a pitiful 23 win season.
50 win campaigns for the Canucks are few and far between. Before 2023-24 the last time the team won 50 games was back-to-back in 2010-11 and 2011-12. Retaining as many pieces, and as much chemistry of the roster that put together such a successful season was essential for this version of the Canucks to continue climbing the mountain towards the Stanley Cup. Should the top of the roster perform to the peak of their abilities, Garland and Joshua will be expected to neutralize top talent, or as they showed they could do in the regular season, break games.
