Welcome Matt: Most of Canucks' Pacific Division rivals are floundering so far

It’s still early — very early — but you’ve got to like what’s going on around the Vancouver Canucks right now.

I don’t mean the team itself — although there are some nice developments there, too — rather the Pacific Division.

As we long-talked about this summer, the Canucks need to jump teams that finished ahead of them last season in order to realize that elusive organizational goal of making the playoffs.

That means the Calgary Flames and Seattle Kraken in their own division. Don’t think many had the Edmonton Oilers as gettable (and again, it’s stupidly early), but those three teams have four combined wins in 17 games this season.

Edmonton is 1-3-1 with two regulation losses to the Canucks and will now miss Connor McDavid for 1-2 weeks with an upper-body injury.

Calgary is 2-3-1 fresh off a destruction at the hands of Detroit Sunday.

And Seattle stands at 1-4-1 and is without injured forwards Brandon Tanev and Andre Burakovsky for extended periods.

Just like last year, Anaheim and San Jose remain dreadful.

Only two Pacific Division teams have a winning record and the Canucks are one of them.

As we know in BC, you can’t make the Stanley Cup Playoffs in October, but you sure can play your way out of them.

The 3-2 Canucks, even if they lose Tuesday in Nashville, can feel good about their start and breath easy about this five-game road trip.

Worst-case scenario they go 2-3 on the trip. Best-scenario, they go 3-2 and are 4-2 coming home.

Again, ridiculously early, but you can’t get buried in the season’s first month. Several divisional foes are in danger of that.

The Canucks, for the first time in several years, aren’t.