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4 Canucks players who have been better than expected so far

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Oct 14 2026, 8:42 pm
4 Canucks players who have been better than expected so far
Bob Frid/Imagn Images

After a decently strong start to the season, the Vancouver Canucks have lost five straight games and have sunk to the basement of the Western Conference standings with the Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles Kings, and Calgary Flames.

None of that is particularly surprising. But some of the individual performances this season have been.

Here are four players who have exceeded expectations early in the 2026-27 season.

1. Jonathan Lekkerimäki

Jonathan Lekkerimäki did not have a particularly good training camp. There was a hesitance and a seeming lack of confidence, particularly in battle drills — perhaps understandable given he was coming off shoulder surgery.

Even in the preseason, when he led the Canucks in scoring with four assists in three games, he still didn’t look quite right. His assists were mostly secondary assists where his linemates did the bulk of the work, and he still struggled to play through contact.

So, Lekkerimäki has been quite the revelation to start the season.

The 22-year-old winger has five points through eight games and has found a home on the top line alongside Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson. But it’s not just the points, but how he’s growing more confident playing in traffic and finding space to use his playmaking and shot.

Lekkerimäki was one of the Canucks’ best players in their loss to the New York Islanders, setting up a point-blank chance for Pettersson and ringing a wrist shot off the underside of the crossbar on the power play. He’s carved out a spot in the Canucks’ top six and looks like a legitimate NHLer.

2. Elias Pettersson (D-Petey)

It kind of got swept under the rug amidst all of the other issues during the 2025-26 season, but Elias “D-Petey” Pettersson seriously struggled in his sophomore season.

The physical defensive defenceman seemed to have a lot of issues playing in Adam Foote’s system, such as it was, and ended up with some ugly underlying numbers. The question heading into this season was whether he could bounce back under a new head coach.

Yes. The answer to that question is yes.

Pettersson has arguably been the Canucks’ best defenceman early in the season, particularly at 5-on-5, and earned a promotion up the lineup to the top pairing for their last game against the New York Islanders.

He leads the Canucks in Corsi by a wide margin at 57.3 per cent, meaning the Canucks have significantly more shot attempts than their opponents when he’s on the ice at 5-on-5. In fact, he’s the only Canuck above 50 per cent.

That’s in spite of starting the majority of his shifts in the defensive zone. He’s been on the ice for 42 defensive zone faceoffs at 5-on-5 and just 18 offensive zone faceoffs.

On top of that, Pettersson has added a little offence to his game, scoring two goals, one at 4-on-4 and one shorthanded.

Pettersson is looking like a defenceman who has figured out who he is and how he needs to play, and that’s given him a ton of confidence. It’s been a great start to the season for him.

3. Elias Pettersson (Petey)

Yes, the other Elias Pettersson — the original one — has also exceeded expectations.

To be fair, the expectations were very low: the bar for Pettersson was below the floorboards after a couple of severely underwhelming seasons. Still, Pettersson has leapt far, far over that very low bar.

Pettersson has nine points in eight games, on pace for 95 points this season. He’s playing major minutes in every situation, throwing game-changing hits, drawing penalties, and taking a ton of faceoffs — the most in the NHL.

It would still be nice to see Pettersson shoot the puck a bit more, and he still hasn’t scored a goal at 5-on-5 this season, but he looks far better than he did last season.

4. Paul Cotter

The expectations for Paul Cotter were extremely low when the Canucks signed him in free agency: maybe he could bring some speed to the fourth line and chip in a few goals in a depth role.

Instead, Cotter got off to an incredibly hot start with four goals and six points in his first four games.

Cotter has hit a minor slump since then, but is still on pace for 42 goals and 63 points this season. Considering his career highs were 16 goals and 25 points, it’s fair to say that he’s exceeding expectations.

Aside from that, Cotter has brought a lot of positive energy to the Canucks’ locker room with his upbeat nature and let’s-prove-them-wrong attitude. He’s become the Canucks’ locker room DJ, picking the pre-game and post-game playlist.

Even if he isn’t going to be an offensive dynamo the rest of the season, he’s already brought a lot more than expected to the table.

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