Vancouver Canucks Gameday Preview #76: A Home Matinee Against The
The Vancouver Canucks (22-45-8) only have three more home games before the end of their 2025–26 season, with today’s taking place against the Utah Mammoth (39-30-6). With their 6–2 win against the Seattle Kraken on Thursday, the Mammoth put themselves five points above the second wildcard spot in the Western Conference with 84. Vancouver is coming off the second-half of a back-to-back that saw them lose 5–2 to former captain Quinn Hughes and the Minnesota Wild.
With Thursday’s loss, Vancouver officially secured 32nd overall for the 2025–26 season, giving them the best odds to select first-overall in the 2026 NHL Draft. Having also been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention earlier on last week, the Canucks can play out the remainder of their season without the results massively impacting their place in the standings. For a young team like Vancouver, a couple of feel-good wins may help give the locker room a little boost to end the year after the season the team has had.
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On the ice, Vancouver’s power play will look to continue their success after scoring in their past four games. They’ve scored nine power play goals in their past 10 games, with two of these matchups featuring multi-power play goal-efforts. With power play success comes success for Jake DeBrusk, who has four of the team’s power play goals through this span.
Today is also expected to be the game that Vancouver celebrates Evander Kane’s 1000th game during. The forward reached the milestone on March 30 against the Vegas Golden Knights, with today being the team’s first home game since then.
Players To Watch:
Tom Willander
Having scored in his team’s loss to Minnesota on Thursday night, Willander has officially taken sole-possession of fifth in scoring by a rookie defenceman throughout the NHL with 20 points in 63 games played. Regardless of his stats, however, the defenceman has been impressive throughout the season despite his experience level. While it is…
