Welcome Matt: Canucks predictions for 2024-25 season

So, what do they do for an encore?

At this time last year, even club president Jim Rutherford acknowledged that everything would have to go right for the Canucks to make the playoffs, and everything did.

Vancouver won the Pacific Division with 109 points and spent the entirety of the season near the top of the NHL table.

This season, the weight of expectations has arrived. Fans haven’t been this optimistic about the start of a new campaign in more than a decade.

Unquestionably, the team is better on the wing and deeper in goal.

It’s also the second full season for Rick Tocchet and his staff, and needless to say, they got the best out of their players last year en route to coach-of-the-year honours.

But there are pitfalls for the team, and that makes regression more likely than improvement.

For starters, the health of starting goaltender Thatcher Demko remains a big unknown. He has to get used to playing with an injured popliteus muscle in his knee, and who knows how he’ll manage? He’ll likely miss the first 7-10 games.

And injury concerns extend beyond Demko. Their top-seven scorers were the picture of good health last season, missing almost no games, and that’s not likely to repeat.

The Canucks were an incredibly efficient team last year. Their team shooting percentage of 12% was second-best in the league, and more often than not, Demko was there to save the Grade-A chances they surrendered. The club finished seventh in team save percentage.

For the moment, they look weaker at centre and defence after the free-agent defections of Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov. Management is known to be aggressive and make in-season moves — Lindholm and Zadorov were mid-campaign additions last year — so expect reinforcements before the March trade deadline.

Tocchet has pledged to be more aggressive offensively this season. He wants more chances off the rush and will allow more freedom to his offensive stars, meaning more shots and less possession.

But that formula could come at the expense of team defence, the Canucks’ calling card last season that underpinned much of their success. There’s a chance they get caught in the middle trying to forge dual identities. At minimum, this transition could take some time.

Then there’s the division. The Edmonton Oilers are the Stanley Cup favourites after dispatching the Canucks in the second round last year and falling one game short of the big prize.

The Vegas Golden Knights were Cup champions the year before, hungry to avenge last season’s first-round exit, and their organization is likely to take the regular season more seriously this year.

I’ve gone back and forth with where to slot the Canucks in the division, and perhaps I’m scarred from the historic misfortune that has plagued this franchise.

I’m settling on 103 points, third-place in a difficult division, but improved at the deadline and hitting their stride heading into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

For that reason, I’m picking them to reach the Western Conference Final, go one step further than last season, and set up a Cup-or-bust campaign in 2025-26.