Max Sasson’s first full NHL season with the Vancouver Canucks came with a little bit of everything: an early trip to Abbotsford, a quick return to Vancouver, a contract extension, and enough production to make a real case for himself along the way.
After a 29-game NHL run and a Calder Cup championship last season, Sasson entered 2025-26 trying to lock down a permanent spot. A tough training camp and the arrival of 2025 first-round pick Braeden Cootes pushed him to Abbotsford to start the year, but that didn’t last long. He was recalled quickly and stayed with the Canucks for the rest of the season.
Once he got back in the lineup, Sasson made noise right away. In his first five games with Vancouver, he scored three goals while skating mostly alongside fellow Calder Cup champs Linus Karlsson and Arshdeep Bains. By mid-December, he had six goals, which ranked sixth on the team at that point.
Vancouver rewarded him on December 15 with a two-year contract extension worth around $1M per year.
The biggest calling card in Sasson’s game remained the same: speed. He hit a top skating speed of 38.13 km/hr on April 1 against the Colorado Avalanche, his fastest burst of the season. The league’s top speed in 2025-26 belonged to Beck Malenstyn of the Buffalo Sabres at 40.14 km.
Sasson finished the year with 15 speed bursts of 35 km or more, which put him in the 95th percentile in the NHL in that category. He also logged 175 bursts between 32 and 35 km, which was 103.6 more than the league average for forwards.
That’s what makes his offseason comments a little ironic. In his mid-April end-of-season availability, Sasson said speed was still one of the areas he wanted to sharpen.
“I want to continue to work on my speed. I don’t think you can ever be fast enough.”
There was also some positional juggling throughout the season. Sasson has played center before, but he spent most of the stretch run on the wing. At the 2026 IIHF World Championship, though, he lined up mainly as Team USA’s third-line center.
He closed out 2025-26 with 13 goals, sixth-most among current Canucks, and 19 points in 66 games. For a first full-time NHL season in a lineup that never quite settled into one identity, it was enough for a B+.
In Other News...
Former Canucks Captain Quinn Hughes Just Turned Up In Another Spotlight
Quinn Hughes has been hard to miss this summer, even away from the rink. The former Canucks captain has surfaced in some very public places, first alongside his brother Jack at the FIFA World Cup Final and then on stage with country music star Morgan Wallen during a concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a reminder that Hughes remains one of hockeys more recognizable names even as his career has moved into a new chapter.
For Vancouver fans, the more relevant part is where that chapter has taken him. Hughes is now a key piece for the Minnesota Wild and helped the United States to Olympic gold, keeping his profile high well beyond his Canucks years. The only real question left hanging is where all of that momentum eventually leads next, since his future contract situation is still a storyline worth watching. [Read more 🡒]
Four Canucks Head Into A Season That Could Decide Everything
Aatu Rty, Victor Mancini and Nikita Tolopilo are all staring at the same kind of season in Vancouver, one where the margin for error is thin and every shift carries extra weight. For Rty, the chance is there to turn a promising stretch into something permanent at the NHL level, while Mancini is trying to show he can hold up well enough defensively to stick in the picture on the blue line. Tolopilo, meanwhile, is in the mix as the organization sorts through its goaltending depth and tries to figure out who fits where as the rebuild keeps moving.
Rtys situation feels especially important because this is the kind of year that can shape his future with the club, and the Canucks need to know whether he can become more than a useful depth option. Mancini is in a similar spot, with his path to a roster spot depending on whether he can clean up the parts of his game that have made the evaluation tougher, while Tolopilo remains a name worth watching simply because the crease picture is not settled. For a team still trying to sort out its next core, these are the kinds of decisions that can quietly matter just as much as the headline moves. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Still Have One Roster Problem This Retool Didnt Solve
The Rangers spent the offseason trying to patch holes and reshape a roster that still feels like it is missing a true centerpiece down the middle. Their second defense pair has been remade, but the bigger question is up front, where the top-six has not looked as dangerous since the trade deadline and the club still seems to be searching for a long-term answer at No. 1 center.
Mika Zibanejad and J.T. Miller can help bridge the gap for now, but the expectation is that the search for a true franchise pivot will continue over the next few years. Even some of the younger pieces have left evaluators wanting more consistency, which is why the Rangers retool can feel more like a reset of the margins than a solution to the core problem. [Read more 🡒]