Three weeks into the 2026-27 season, the Canucks have settled into the same neighborhood as the NHL’s other basement teams - but not in quite the same way.
Vancouver sits fifth-worst in the league standings as of October 13th, and the numbers tell a strange story. The Canucks have been one of the more entertaining teams to watch early on, even while piling up regulation losses, and they’ve done it with offense that still looks far better than the typical bottom-feeder.
Up front, Vancouver has actually outpaced the rest of the league’s cellar dwellers. The Canucks have scored 26 goals, which leads the basement group by a wide margin and leaves them ninth in the NHL overall in goals for after sitting as high as fifth earlier this week. Calgary has managed just 12 goals, Los Angeles 11, Philadelphia 10, Chicago 17, Detroit 14, and Columbus 13.
But the other side of the ice has dragged them straight down. Vancouver has allowed a league-high 38 goals against, and no other bottom-seven team is close to that kind of damage.
Philadelphia has given up 31, Calgary and Chicago 29 apiece, Los Angeles 21, Columbus 21, and Detroit 20. The Canucks rank last in the league in that category.
The special teams split is just as jarring. Vancouver has posted a 20.0 power play percentage, good enough to tie for first among these basement teams and sit tied for 16th league-wide. Detroit is also at 20.0, while Columbus checks in at 16.7, Calgary at 15.4, Los Angeles at 15.8, Chicago at 12.5, and Philadelphia at 8.3.
Penalty killing, though, has been a disaster. The Canucks sit dead last in the NHL at 57.1 percent, which also puts them at the bottom of this group. Los Angeles is right behind them at 57.9, Columbus at 61.1, Detroit at 66.7, Chicago at 75, Philadelphia at 80.6, and Calgary leads the group at 85.
PDO offers another layer to the picture, and on that front Vancouver looks a lot more like a team in trouble than a team due for a big bounce. PDO blends five-on-five save percentage and five-on-five shooting percentage, with 1.000 viewed as average. The Canucks sit at .999, which is 15th in the league and far from the extreme luck swings that are pushing some of these other clubs around.
Calgary’s .910 is the worst mark in the group, followed by Los Angeles at .935, Philadelphia at .953, Chicago at .962, Detroit at .988, Vancouver at .999, and Columbus at 1.010.
That helps explain why some of these teams may not stay in the basement for long. Calgary’s rough start looks ugly, but the Flames did beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-2 on Tuesday night.
Philadelphia and Los Angeles both reached the playoffs last season, and both have enough underlying expectation to suggest they won’t sit near the bottom forever. Chicago got Connor Bedard back from injury ahead of schedule last night and responded by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins, another sign that there’s room for a climb.
Columbus is also in a different position than the others, with Rick Bowness publicly calling out the team on Tuesday night and higher expectations hanging over the club this season.
Detroit is harder to pin down. Dylan Larkin remains on the roster and could be traded any day now, and Simon Edvinsson still isn’t signed. That leaves the Red Wings in a messy spot where a jump upward is possible, but so is a finish in the 28-32 range.
Then there’s Vancouver, and that’s where the basement math starts to matter most. The Canucks’ six regulation losses lead the NHL, and with the 15th-best PDO in the league, the idea that this gets much uglier is very much alive.
The early results have been fun at times, and there have been positives for a rebuilding team even in defeat, but the standings are starting to point in one direction. Vancouver doesn’t look like a club that’s about to leave the basement any time soon - and for its rebuild, that may be exactly the point.
One more wrinkle: Columbus and Los Angeles have only played five games. Even with that smaller sample, each has three regulation losses, which is still half of Vancouver’s total already.
In Other News...
Canucks Loss Still Put A Few Young Players In Focus
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Leevi Merilinen kept Vancouver afloat with a series of important stops, while Max Sasson supplied the early offense and Liam hgren helped swing momentum by drawing a penalty that eventually led to the tying goal. For a team looking for signs of progress in the depth chart, nights like this can matter almost as much as the result, even if the finish still leaves something to be desired. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Suddenly Have A Real Battle For Bigger Roles
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Jonathan Lekkerimkis role is one of the more intriguing parts of that evaluation, especially as the Canucks keep testing how their young forwards and defensemen fit into the longer-term plan. Vancouver is not just chasing short-term stability, it is also trying to find out which prospects can move from promising pieces to real building blocks. In that sense, the battle for minutes has started to matter almost as much as the results, and the next decisions should say plenty about where the team sees its future coming from. [Read more 🡒]
Canucks Loss Showed The Same Problem Fans Are Already Tired Of
Vancouver went into UBS Arena looking to steady itself, but instead saw the same kind of game slip away in a 3-2 loss to the New York Islanders. The Canucks had the edge early, then watched the Islanders keep pressing behind Kyle Palmieri and Matias Maccelli, with Palmieri finding the net twice and Maccelli scoring his first goal since joining the club. It was the kind of result that leaves Vancouver trying to sort out what went wrong before the frustration starts to feel familiar.
The Islanders, now 3-3-0, got a needed lift from a night in which Palmieri ended his scoring drought and provided the kind of finishing touch they have been chasing. Vancouver, meanwhile, leaves with another reminder that a lead alone does not always tell the full story. The Canucks will want a faster answer the next time they are in position to control a game, because these are the moments that can linger in October and shape how a fan base sees the team early. [Read more 🡒]