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I Watched This Game: Paul Cotter just keeps scoring for the Canucks

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Oct 5 2026, 6:39 am
I Watched This Game: Paul Cotter just keeps scoring for the Canucks
Bob Frid/Imagn Images

It’s not all that surprising to see Elias Pettersson tied for the team lead in scoring early in the Vancouver Canucks’ season.

While Pettersson wasn’t great last season, he still led the Canucks in scoring. As much as some fans might have been loath to admit it, Pettersson is still the most talented forward on the Canucks roster. Given an opportunity to bounce back with a new management team, coaching staff, and environment, it makes sense he’d get off to a strong start.

But if the tiebreaker for the scoring lead is goals, Pettersson isn’t actually leading the Canucks in scoring.

Instead, after opening the scoring against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday, Paul Cotter is atop the Canucks’ leaderboard with four goals and six points in four games.

And that’s a little more surprising.

Two years ago, Cotter had career highs in goals and points, scoring 16 goals and 22 points in 79 games for the New Jersey Devils. The odds are pretty good that he smashes those career highs; after four games this season, Cotter is on pace for 84 goals and 126 points.

He’s not going to keep up that scoring pace, of course, but he’s still been the Canucks’ most pleasant surprise early in the season.

What’s particularly neat is that he has scored a goal in almost every possible situation. His first goal of the season was scored shorthanded, then he had an overtime game-winning goal at 3-on-3. Then he scored at even strength and added a power-play goal against Vegas on Sunday.

All he needs now is a penalty shot or shootout goal to round out the set.

But that’s just what Cotter brings on the ice. Off the ice, Cotter brings positive energy and a cheerful personality. He also brings the tunes: Cotter is the Canucks’ locker room DJ, responsible for putting together the playlist for his new teammates.

That positivity is palpable even in the more managed situation of a media scrum.

“For a team that everybody in the world has said is going to be last in the league, I’m pretty happy with how we’ve been doing,” said Cotter. “We have a great group. We have — I’ve said it ten times — a very egoless group…When you have a room that’s that close and willing to get better together, that can take you so far.”

While it didn’t quite take the Canucks to a win on Sunday night, they came close when I watched this game.

  • With Jake DeBrusk still ill, Cotter got the call to play on the top power play unit, because of course he did. Where else are you going to put your leading goalscorer?
  • If you’d like a small dose of reality with your entrée, Cotter has four goals on just seven shots, and probably isn’t going to carry a shooting percentage of 57.1 per cent for the rest of the season. He also has the team’s worst expected goals for percentage at 28.3 per cent so far this season, meaning he’s been pretty thoroughly outshot and outchanced when he’s been on the ice at 5-on-5.
  • Counterpoint: who cares? Cotter has been a ton of fun.
  • Late in the first period, the Golden Knights nearly opened the scoring on a bizarre play. Victor Olofsson’s shot caromed off both Kevin Lankinen and Tomas Hertl and landed on top of the net. Hertl reached inside the net to pop the puck into the air, likely hoping to bat it into the net when it got below the crossbar. Instead, Zeev Buium swatted at it, nearly knocking it in front of the net himself, before awkwardly pushing it back over the crossbar and behind the net. To quote Michael Davis, “That is unusual.”

  • If Buium had accidentally put the puck in his own net, it would have thoroughly tested Rule 67.6, which states, “A goal cannot be scored by an attacking player who bats or directs the puck [with his hand] and it is deflected into the net off any player, goalkeeper, or official.”
  • Hertl definitely batted the puck with his hand to pop it off the back of the net, but would Buium’s actions have constituted a “deflection” or not? It’s a moot point, but still an interesting conundrum.
  • Late in the first period, Cotter opened the scoring on a power play drawn by Arshdeep Bains. Brock Boeser made like he was Jamie Tartt winning an Oscar at the ESPYs in the bumper, drawing in Brayden McNabb and leaving Cotter wide open like Sam Obisanya to tip in Filip Hronek’s pass.

  • The Golden Knights took over the game in the second period, however, outshooting the Canucks 14-to-5 and scoring all three of their goals.
  • “I thought in the second period, we gave them a little too much respect,” said Pettersson. “They gained momentum, scored some goals on us.”
  • The big issue for the Canucks all game was the number of second, third, fourth, and fifth chances they gave the Golden Knights. I’m told the unofficial motto of the Canucks in the eighties was “To the line but not out,” so this was a throwback night to those days, with the Golden Knights repeatedly winning puck battles along the boards and preventing clearances to extend possession in the Canucks’ zone.
  • The Golden Knights opened the scoring on a bad bounce, as Buium blocked a McNabb point shot and accidentally sent it right to Mitch Marner, who patiently pulled the puck into the slot to beat the overcommitting Lankinen. But the real issue was the lost battles and failed clearances prior to the bounce.

  • Tom Willander left the game late in the second period after an elbow to the head from Jeremy Lauzon, but he returned in the third period. Lauzon did not receive a penalty on the play.
  • Vegas took the lead on the power play. Lankinen made the initial save, but Mark Stone smartly swatted the rebound cross-seam to Victor Olofsson for a wide-open net. I have no quip or analysis here: sometimes power plays score goals.
  • Jonathan Lekkerimäki has a wicked shot, but what might get missed is how crafty he is. He knows when a situation calls for a bardown laser, but he also knows how to disguise his release and catch a goaltender off-guard. He burst up the right wing and snuck a sneaky shot under Adin Hill’s blocker from a terrible angle. Like water at its highest point on the beach, the game was tied up.

  • The tie lasted about as long as mine at the reception for a wedding. 34 seconds later, Marc Gatcomb found some open space behind Elias “Junior” Pettersson, and Braeden Bowman found him cross-seam for yet another open net. It was the most open net since the nineties.
  • As has been the trend this season, the Canucks pushed hard in the third period, only this time they couldn’t score. Öhgren came the closest while shorthanded. Adin Hill came out to get to a loose puck and clear it to the boards, but Öhgren raced onto it and nearly put it in the open net before Hill came sliding back like a Boston police officer.
  • The Canucks only allowed two shots on goal in the final frame, but the Golden Knights played lockdown defence and didn’t give the Canucks much from dangerous areas of the ice. Still, fans have to be satisfied with the strong push, especially against a team as good as the Golden Knights and on the second half of back-to-backs. This is a resilient Canucks squad.
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