Welcome Matt: Who are Canucks' improvement-from-within candidates?

One of the staples of Vancouver Canucks’ messaging over this decade of despair has been improvement from within.

And for many years, there was plenty of potential before Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, and Thatcher Demko turned into the NHL stars that they are today.

But how much improvement-from-within is actually left with this roster?

Undoubtedly, youngsters such as Vasily Podkolzin and Nils Höglander can and need to be better. Nils Aman, Arturs Silovs, and free-agent collegians Akito Hirose and Cole McWard could also help this cause.

It’s worth wondering how much more the club can squeeze out of their three stars, winger Andrei Kuzmenko after his sensational first NHL campaign, and guys like Dakota Joshua, Phil Di Giuseppe, and Christian Wolanin, who all punched above their weight class last season.

But improvement from within comes in many shapes and forms. It’s not just young players taking the next step, or stars turning into superstars.

There are also the bounce-back candidates and Lord knows we’ve spent a lot of time talking about that class of player over the last 10 years.

Once again, the Canucks will head into a season with several players on hot seats, looking to improve on campaigns that fell short of expectations.

Demko is on this list although mostly due to injury, with fewer concerned that his poor play early last season will continue. Brock Boeser and Conor Garland are on that list for a second year running. Tyler Myers is back on the list after an uneven 2022-23 season. And perhaps Anthony Beauvillier qualifies after just three points in the final 11 games.

But here’s the thing about bounce-back candidates: good teams have very few of them, and they don’t tend to be in up-the-lineup positions.

So when we talk about the Canucks taking the step into Stanley Cup contention, we’ll know they’ve arrived when we aren’t going through this annual summer song and dance.