NHL Preview: Vancouver Canucks

The Canucks are still the team to beat. Charlie Boccanegra breaks them down.

The Canucks won the Presidents’ Trophy last year. They ranked 1st in goals for and goals against in the NHL, and fell just one game short of the Stanley Cup last year. But a majority of the team are back and, while it will be awfully difficult to duplicate last season, it’s far from impossible.

The Canucks are odds-on to win the Northwest, they’re NHL betting favorites for the West at 3/1 and the Stanley Cup at 7/1. They might have fallen to the Bruins in the Finals, but the Canucks are the team to beat in 2011/’12.

That said, betting against the Canucks could be a tactic in the early part of the season. Why? I expect them to come out a bit sluggish after falling short in the Stanley Cup. After having multiple successful regular seasons and finally getting over the hump in the playoffs only to come one game short of the Cup the motivation can not be the same early in the season.

Forwards: Look for the Canucks to remain being one of the highest scoring teams in the league, led by the Sedin brothers. Beware they may not score as much early in the season with two of its top six forwards Ryan Kesler and Mason Raymond out for at least a couple of months. However, when they come back healthy along with some of the other good role players like Burrows, Samuelsson, Malhotra and newly acquired Sturm they should be one of the highest scoring teams in the league once again.

Defense: Vancouver did lose its most prolific defensive player in Christian Ehrhoff but the Canucks have enough depth to fill the void with Chris Tanev and Keith Ballard. In addition, they’ve got one of the deepest back ends with the likes of Edler and Bieksa who can anchor the power play while relying on Hamhuis and Salo to play a more stay at home style. This provides them a great mixture of contrasting defenseman all of whom are quality top four defenseman.

Goaltending: They will remain solid in the net with Luongo and Schnieder being a great 1-2 combination regardless of whether or not people believe Luongo “choked” in the finals. Fact of the matter is Luongo’s had some of the best regular season numbers the past few years and Schnieder has emerged as one of the top young netminders.