Canucks: Can't compete with other bottom dwellers

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The Canucks were smoked by the Flames on Saturday night. The numbers are stunning.

Published Mar 30, 2026 • 4 minute read

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Vancouver Canucks' Zeev Buium battles with Calgary Flames' Blake Coleman on Saturday, March 28, 2026. Vancouver Canucks’ Zeev Buium battles with Calgary Flames’ Blake Coleman on Saturday, March 28, 2026. Photo by Larry MacDougal THE CANADIAN P /The Canadian PressArticle content

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The Canucks play tonight against Vegas and oddly enough, they’ll be facing the Golden Knights who shockingly just fired their coach and brought in John Tortorella to try to stop the rot and hang onto the playoff spot they currently cling to by four point despite just three wins in their last 10.

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The history with Tortorella in Vancouver is a funny one. Maybe it’s the circus sideshow that come along with it. Remember the hall brawl outside of the Calgary locker room as Torts tried to fight Calgary’s coach Bob Hartley? Most fans looked at Tortorella’s lone season in Vancouver as a horrible one. That team was 36-35-11 and missed the playoffs and fired Tortorella after one season.

Is current coach Adam Foote also going to be a one-and-done? The Canucks were smoked by the Flames on Saturday night. The numbers are stunning. Losing to the Flames in a lost season? Meh. Getting spanked 7-3 and being completely uncompetitive against the 30th worst team in the NHL is wholly unacceptable.

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The Canucks are 17 points behind the next worst team, the Blackhawks. One step up is Calgary who have 20 more points than the Canucks and the Flames have scored four more goals than Vancouver but have surrendered 48 fewer goals than the Canucks. This team is not NHL quality.

Yes, they’re in a rebuild, yes they’ve traded away a bushel of NHL quality players from Quinn Hughes to Conor Garland, but how on earth are the Canucks so far below the rest of the NHL they might as well be playing games in a pineapple under the sea?

Last year the Sharks had the NHL’s worst record. They finished nine points behind the next-worst team, the Blackhawks again and had 20 wins. The season before that the Sharks were five points behind the Blackhawks in the NHL basement and had 19 wins.

In the 2022-23 season the Ducks were one point worse than the Blue Jackets in the NHL basement and had 23 wins while the 2021-22 season had the currently surging Habs in last place two points behind the Coyotes and with 22 wins.

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While the Canucks win total is in the ballpark, the distance between them and the next-worst team is boarding historic levels. There’s something seriously wrong with this team and a couple of good draft picks doesn’t look like it will fix it. This is a demolition not a renovation.

Ben Kuzma tells you watch to watch tonight and it’s not just waiting for a Torts eruption, there’s also a major milestone for one of the most unpopular Canucks of all time.

There’s irony in Evander Kane reaching the 1,000-game NHL plateau in Las Vegas on Monday.

The left winger found fun, fortune, success and failure with five teams in a checkered career. Kind of like visits to the roulette table in Sin City. Win some, lose some.

The Vancouver Canucks rolled the trade dice on the east Vancouver native, challenging his better days to make a difference this season.

Kane, who had 24 goals with the Edmonton Oilers in 2023-24, and a dozen gritty playoff points last season, was supposed to score, plus create time and space for Elias Pettersson to return to top form. After all, Kane has hit the 20-goal mark nine times and twice reached 30 goals.

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However, on both accounts, it was a gamble that didn’t pay off. Kane lost pace and effectiveness in those pursuits on an expiring US$5.125 million contract. And Pettersson lost his way in another sour season with a last-place club that was hammered 7-3 in Calgary on Saturday to open a four-game trip.

Kane, 34, takes just 12 goals and uncertain future as an unrestricted free agent into a tough test against the Golden Knights, who made a coaching change Sunday afternoon. They have replaced bench boss Bruce Cassidy with former Canucks head coach John Tortorella, whose firing from the Philadelphia Flyers led to Rick Tocchet’s hiring on May 14.

Meanwhile, Pettersson has but 15 goals and leads the Canucks with just 45 points. That’s how bad this season has been for the NHL’s worst offence, which has averaged just 2.50 goals per game.

The Canucks had 34 shots against the Flames but are allowing a league-high 3.76 goals per outing.

The Athletic looked at the weekend’s hockey action and of course what’s notable about the Canucks is they’re still the worst team in the NHL.

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1. Vancouver Canucks (21-43-8, -91) They’ve lost five in a row and given up 25 goals along the way, while also becoming the first team mathematically eliminated from the post-season. Honestly, for an active tank, that’s a pretty good week.

The Athletic also revisit their pre-season predictions and highlight what went wrong.

Vancouver Canucks
Filip Chytil will be the team’s second most valuable forward this season

This was looking good a week into the season, but fell apart when Chytil sustained a concussion on a Tom Wilson hit. Then, after returning to the lineup and not looking like himself for a brief stint before the Olympic break, Chytil sustained a fractured orbital bone on a freak practice accident. This was an L for us. — Thomas Drance

Check back for more Canucks news throughout the day.

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Canucks: Can’t compete with other bottom dwellers | Tortorella reunion

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