Malhotra wants less defence from the Canucks this season
Last season, the Vancouver Canucks were the most permissive team in the NHL.
Their 314 goals against was the most allowed by a Canucks team in 35 years, and the most allowed by any NHL team in the past two seasons.
It was an all-situations disaster, too. The Canucks allowed the most goals against at even-strength and on the penalty kill, with their 71.5 per cent penalty kill percentage landing in the bottom ten in NHL history.
The defensive performance of the 2025-26 Canucks was startlingly bad. Now, new head coach Manny Malhotra wants the Canucks to play even less defence.
Malhotra and his staff have overhauled the Canucks’ defence with a more structured and aggressive system in the defensive zone, but Malhotra knows that improving the Canucks’ in-zone defence is only half the battle. The real trick is not having to play as much defence overall.
“To me, elite defensive teams don’t spend any time in their D-zone coverage,” said Malhotra. “The best defences don’t spend time in their own zone, so there is going to be an element of being aggressive and getting pucks out of people’s hands. It’s not about wanting to just sit on the inside and hope for dear life.”
In other words, as much as Malhotra wants his team to have a better, stronger defensive structure, he’d like to use that structure as little as possible.
“For me, defensive hockey doesn’t mean you sit five guys on top of the goalie, and you soak shots,” said Malhotra. “Defensively, our structure has to be sound. It’s going to be rooted in being in the right place and being ultra aggressive to take away time and space.”
The other half of playing better defensive hockey is at the other end of the ice. If the Canucks can be better in transition and spend more time in the offensive zone, regardless of whether that results in scoring goals, it will mean spending a lot less time defending.
So, one of the keys to improving the Canucks’ defensive results will be the team’s offensive structure and system.
“It comes down to structure and being in the right place to be able to recover pucks, number one,” said Malhotra. “Again, we’ll keep talking about being tenacious on pucks and having to win those rebound pucks or second opportunities and then just knowing how to release pressure.
“Every team is going to be going through their D-zone structure and how to kill plays, so the chess match of how to get out of those pressures and where our support is going to be is a big part of laying out our foundation in the offensive zone.”
While the Canucks may still wind up in the basement of the NHL — their rebuild is kind of counting on it — they’re hoping it won’t be because they’re the worst team in the league defensively.