Five games into the 2026-27 season, the Vancouver Canucks have already built an unwanted habit: they keep putting themselves in the box at the worst possible moments.
The raw penalty count is one thing. Vancouver has been charged with 20 minor penalties, or 22 total when fights and misconducts are included, which puts them among the league’s busiest teams in the discipline department.
Only the Montréal Canadiens, Utah Mammoth, New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers have also been whistled for 21 minors, while the Ottawa Senators have 22 and the Carolina Hurricanes lead the way at 25. Through it all, the Canucks are averaging 4.37 penalties taken per 60 minutes.
But the bigger problem isn’t just how often they’re penalized. It’s when it happens.
Vancouver has not gone a single game this season without taking at least three minor penalties. In the 9-7 loss to the Edmonton Oilers and the 3-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, they were whistled five times apiece and spent 6:48 and 7:53, respectively, killing penalties. Four of the 10 combined penalties in those two games were interference calls.
The numbers, on their own, don’t scream a dramatic shift from last season. Vancouver actually logged more penalty-killing time in 2025-26, at 30:03, than it has so far this year, at 27:21. What has changed is the timing, and the timing has hurt.
That showed up immediately in the Canucks’ season opener, a 6-5 overtime win over Edmonton. With about two minutes left in regulation and the Oilers down by just one, Linus Karlsson was called for high-sticking.
Edmonton cashed in to force overtime. The call was soft, and Vancouver still escaped with the win, but the sequence fit the pattern.
It came back in a bigger way in the rematch with Edmonton. Vancouver had already started chipping away at an 8-3 deficit in the third period, trimming it to 8-6 and riding the momentum of a power-play goal that sparked a three-goal burst.
Then, less than a minute after that sixth Canucks goal, Marco Rossi was assessed an interference penalty. The Oilers regained the advantage, and Leon Draisaitl later scored Edmonton’s ninth goal to close the door.
The Canucks’ 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames is the exception, not the rule, in this early stretch. Against Vegas, they surrendered possession after their own power play in the first period by taking back-to-back penalties, wiping out a chance to build on offensive-zone time against a team that was already proving difficult to pin down.
The same kind of sequence showed up again in Thursday’s 7-2 loss to Carolina. Vancouver earned an early power play three minutes into the game, but once that chance ended, Drew O’Connor took a tripping penalty and handed the Hurricanes the next man-advantage. Andrei Svechnikov scored on that power play, and after another penalty less than five minutes later, Vancouver was staring at a 3-0 deficit it never managed to erase.
Penalties are part of the sport. The Canucks’ issue is the damage caused by when they’re being taken. That’s the sort of problem Vancouver will want to clean up now, while it’s still in “rebuild mode,” rather than let it linger.
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For Vancouver, the real watch item is no longer just Petterssons production at the top of the lineup, but what the coaching staff decides to do behind him. The Canucks have options to consider in goal after Kevin Lankinen was tagged for six goals on 18 shots, and how they handle that spot could matter just as much as whether Pettersson keeps rolling against New Jersey. [Read more 🡒]