Price is Right: Chaotic Canucks reminiscent of Doug Weight's run-and-gun Islanders

Team Chaos, that’s your Vancouver Canucks. As much as Monday’s win over Montreal was particularly crazy, really that’s just been the Canucks all season long. And that’s for better and for worse.

I mean, if it feels like the Canucks have been involved in a lot of goals this season, it’s because they have. Seven of their 26 games this season have featured nine goals scored.

Sixteen of their 26 games have featured at least one team or the other scoring five. In other words, the majority of the time, when the puck drops on a Canucks game, somebody is scoring five goals.

It’s not a recipe for success but it is kinda fun.

In fact, at the current rate, the Canucks might be the most prolific losing team of the past decade. Since the start of the 2012-13 season, the only other team to crest 3.15 goals per game with a losing record is the 2017-18 New York Islanders. A team just below .500 that scored a ton of goals, but also ended Doug Weight’s coaching career at a single season. Not many coaches get gassed after a 35-37-10 season in their first year. But the model wasn’t well received. And the Canucks are taking that model, and leaning in.

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Currently the Canucks are at 3.5 goals per game, well above the Islanders rate, but are also surrendering more than Weight’s Islanders. And that’s the rub. It’s really too many goals entirely!

An interesting distinction between those two teams is the way the scoring is distributed. The Isles had 10 players in double digit goals, but only two had more than 25: John Tavares and Anders Lee. The Canucks are top-end loading, with Bo Horvat already close to cresting 25, and four other guys scoring at rates to eventually get there in Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, Andrei Kuzmenko, and Ilya Mikheyev.

Hey, it’s impressive. And you might think hopeful. Since the turn of the century, the worst team to score 3.5 goals per game is the 2018-19 San Jose Sharks, who were a 101-point team. But that team surrendered almost a full goal less than the Canucks have per game.

And there’s the rub. With no chance for Thatcher Demko redemption anytime soon, as he makes his way back from injury, there seems little chance that Spencer Martin or Collin Delia can be a part of a Canucks turnaround.

So the best you can do is maybe enjoy the red light’s constant glow. Oh, and take the over.