Welcome Matt: New Canucks additions have made a positive impact this season

Friday marks the one-year anniversary of Jim Rutherford joining the Vancouver Canucks.

While he still has much work to do, including fixing the defence, stocking the prospect pipeline, and sorting the salary cap mess he inherited, the additions he’s made in tandem with GM Patrik Allvin have all played well and done their part in fuelling this recent Canucks’ run.

Winger Andrei Kuzmenko is the runaway winner of our poll question, and with 13 goals and nearly a point-per-game start to his NHL career, you can understand why.

But he’s not the only new addition making gains. Ilya Mikheyev deserves some credit for Elias Pettersson’s breakout. As we talked about last summer and into training camp, Mikheyev’s speed and forechecking ability could work beautifully with Pettersson’s game, and it has. He’s given the Canucks speed and penalty-killing, two elements that were in short supply last season.

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Ethan Bear has been a Godsend on defence. They needed a right-hander, a puck transporter who could skate and defend, and Bear has given them that while meshing with Oliver Ekman-Larsson and allowing Tyler Myers to play further down the lineup.

Heck, Dakota Joshua and Nils Åman have formed two-thirds of the fourth line, and the former has really found his game of late.

As you’ll hear from Ray Ferraro on our show today, Joshua now knows that the Canucks need him for toughness, physicality, and the occasional chip-in goal. He had two last night.

Look, as everybody knows, the big moves have yet to happen and they’ll have to eventually. But the mid-lineup moves and the tinkering around the edges have all been positive.

These are good players on good contracts, and Rutherford and Allvin deserve credit because it’s due.