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It’s game day at Rogers Arena as the NHL’s third-best team, the Dallas Stars, well in points amassed at least, visits Vancouver to take on the Canucks.

While the interminable rebuild/reboot/retool/revolt discussion continues to swirl around the Canucks, it’s clear the Canucks go as far as their most talented players can take them. And with Thatcher Demko being a factor you just can’t count on anymore, that’s a short list, namely Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes. Patrick Johnston wrote about the disparity when the Canucks top tier twosome aren’t on the ice.

So far this season at five-on-five, the Canucks’ best centre and best defenceman have played 116 minutes together. In those minutes, the Canucks have taken 51.3 per cent of the shot attempts. That’s pretty solid.

But in the 507 minutes the Canucks have played without either of them on the ice, the Canucks have been dominated, taking just 44.6 per cent of the total shot attempts.

The Canucks are simply in a race against themselves, and outside of their best two players, they’re falling behind.

“You guys know the numbers,” a brutally honest Adam Foote said about where his team is at. The offence is going well. They’re sixth-most in goals scored.

But they’re dead last in goals against. The system needs work, the rookie head coach admitted. 

Steve Ewen offers some hope for the future with his weekly Prospect Power rankings which offers up an interesting question.

Jonathan Lekkerimäki was Vancouver’s first-round pick (No. 15) in the 2022 NHL Draft. Victor Mancini was part of the return from the New York Rangers in the J.T. Miller swap in January 2025.

We had some debate about sliding Lekkerimäki into the No. 1 spot and bumping Seattle Thunderbirds centre Braeden Cootes down to No. 2 We’re keeping Cootes, 18, in that top post, largely based on positional preference. Of course, we reserve the right to change our minds.

Cootes talked in the pre-season about landing a spot on Team Canada for the world juniors as one of this goals for this seasons. Hockey Canada should be announcing the training camp roster for that team in the next couple of weeks. 

Speaking of prospects, TSN’s Craig Button has the Canucks prospect pipeline 26th out of 32 NHL teams, but does think they have a core four who offer hope as sure fire NHLers and they offer detail on two of Vancouver’s prized young players.

“Tom Willander is an excellent two-way defenceman. He’s a competitor defensively, wants to be in your space, wants to make life hard for you. Eventually he can be a player like Charlie McEvoy.”

“Braeden Cootes will be an excellent second-line centre. Talk about hockey IQ Braeden has that in abundance. He needs a little bit of time to mature. No question in my mind for the Canucks to have this kind of centre who can play 15, 18, 20 years in the NHL that’s a big win for the Vancouver Canucks. There’s always uncertainty but I don’t think there’s any with Cootes, he’s a sure-fire NHLer.”

With the Stars in town here’s the NHL’s Game Notes for tonight.

MATCH-UP INFO

Today marks the second of three meetings between the Canucks and Stars this season: Oct. 16 (road, 5-3 W), Nov. 20 (home), and Mar. 2 (home).
Vancouver is 84-90-22-10 all-time against Dallas, including a 47-41-10-4 record at home.
The Canucks are 6-3-1 in their last 10 games against the Stars (2-3-0 in their last five).
Conor Garland leads all active Canucks skaters in scoring against Dallas with 18 points (5-13-18) in 17 career games.
In 17 career games against the Stars, Elias Pettersson has 16 points (6-10-16).
Evander Kane has 16 points (11-5-16) in 26 career games against the Stars.
In 19 career games against the Stars, Brock Boeser has 15 points (5-10-15).
Kevin Lankinen is 6-3-1 with a 3.37 goals-against average and an .889 save percentage in 11 career games against Dallas.
Jiri Patera has yet to appear in a game against the Stars in his career.

QUICK NUMBERS

Quinn Hughes has 10 points (0-10-10) in his last three games.
Elias Pettersson has eight points (3-5-8) in his last four games.
Jake DeBrusk has four goals in his last five games.
Filip Hronek has three points (1-2-3) in his last two games.

QUINN-TASTIC

With three assists on Nov. 17/25 at FLA, Quinn Hughes has 10 assists in his last three games played (Nov. 11/25-Nov. 17/25), the most assists by a Canucks skater in any three-game stretch in franchise history.
His 10 assists tie him with Bobby Orr, Ron Stackhouse, Borje Salming, and Paul Coffey for the second-most assists in a three-game span by a defenceman in NHL history.
With three consecutive games of at least three assists, Hughes tied Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, Roman Josi, and Cale Makar for the most consecutive games of 3+ assists in NHL history.
Recording four assists on Nov. 16/25 at TBL, Quinn Hughes posted four assists in a game for the third time in his career, tying Pavel Bure for the third-most such instances in Canucks history, trailing only Thomas Gradin and Henrik Sedin (both five times).
With two power play assists, Hughes now has 66 power play assists since the start of 2023.24, the fourth-most in the NHL (now 67 PPA after Nov. 17/25 at FLA).
With three points (0-3-3) on Nov. 11/25 vs WPG, Quinn Hughes passed Bo Horvat for 13th on the Canucks all-time scoring list.
Recording an assist on Jake DeBrusk’s power play goal on Nov. 11/25 vs WPG, Quinn Hughes now has 64 power play assists since the start of the 2023-24 season, the most amongst defencemen and fourth-most across the NHL.
With an assist on Nov. 8/25 vs CBJ, Quinn Hughes extended his point streak against Columbus to nine games, tying Kris Letang and Lubomir Visnovsky for the longest point streak by a defenceman against the Blue Jackets in NHL history.

MOVIN’ ON UP

Scoring two goals on Nov. 17/25 at FLA, Elias Pettersson passed Stan Smyl for the seventh-most multi-goal games (31) in franchise history.
With an assist on Jake DeBrusk’s power play goal on Nov. 16/25 at TBL, Quinn Hughes passed Tony Tanti for the fifth-most power play points in franchise history (186). 

ESPN revisit pre-season predictions they made, and are backtracking a bit on their prognostication of a bounce-back season for Pettersson.

Vancouver Canucks
Elias Pettersson cracks 30 goals again

Free of J.T. Miller’s dressing room tormenting, many expected this to be a bounce-back campaign for Pettersson on the Canucks. His offensive numbers are up year-over-year, with 19 points in 21 games. Unfortunately, his goal-scoring rates are more aligned with last season (0.8 goals per 60 minutes) than when he was good for 30 goals in a season. Pettersson had six goals in those 21 games, which projects to around 24 for the season.

I never thought I’d say this, but I’d much rather Elias Pettersson have Kiefer Sherwood’s goal total right now.

Bold prediction confidence rating: 4 

Check back for more Canucks news throughout the day …