Eleven games remain for the Vancouver Canucks between now and November 27th. Writing this up before the Red Wings play in Anaheim tonight, Vancouver sits two points out of a playoff spot. According to modern mythology, closing that two-point gap before American Thanksgiving will mean everything to their playoff chances.
Really?
Ever since the theory was popularized by Elliotte Friedman, stories about NHL teams and their playoff odds have been tied to the late November holiday. And it's not an unreasonable thing: in the past twenty years, of the 272 teams to be in a playoff spot, 209 kept it at the finish. That's well over 75%, which is a substantial relationship - but not as important as it sounds.
It would be a surprise if what we were talking about was a random number generator picking which 16 of 32 teams got in. But it isn't, obviously enough. By the time late November hits, the season is nearly two months old, and teams have played over 20 games each. They'll have played against a variety of teams from each conference. It's a good sample size to draw from. If you're good enough to be in the top half of the league after 20-ish games, you probably deserve it.
The assumption is that the teams that get in or drop out are very close to the cutoff line. One or two points out is well within the margin of error with another sixty games to go. Last season, though, two Canadian teams rocketed from eighth and tenth to snag the wild card spots in the East. In the West, the Blues had an incredible run to snag the final wild card slot, inching out the Flames.
Much has been made of the fact that the Canucks have used 28 skaters in just a dozen games this season. Long and short of it, that's not a great sign. Again, using last season's risers and fallers as our examples, there seems to be some correlation.
Ottawa: 26 skaters playing 10 or more games
Montreal: 24 skaters playing 10 or more games
St Louis: 25 skaters playing 10 or more games
Vancouver, one of the teams that dropped out of a playoff spot, had 31 skaters playing 10 or more games. When they made their surprise playoff run in 2023-24, the Canucks used just 24. Boston, another faller, had 31. The Rangers, 29.
At a quick glance, it looks like injuries play a substantial role in a team's success. Even if it isn't a star player injured, losing enough middle-six or second-pair players will hurt, too. Calling up replacements from the AHL to fill NHLers' skates is a drop in talent, after all. Otherwise, they would have started the season with the big club.
But if we look again at the 2024-25 Rangers - random example - two of their skaters who "missed" a lot of games are J.T. Miller and Filip Chytil. Those are, as we well remember, two players who were traded for each other. The dysfunction of the team led to each of them playing half(-ish) a season in Manhattan, not injuries.
At the end of the season, being a bad team can cause a larger-than-usual number of skaters, rather than the reverse. Failure was already happening, so new players were brought up or traded for, either in an effort to get the team moving or in acceptance of a miserable year. That's not the case when you're only a dozen games in, though.
The Abbotsford Canucks are having a rough time of it. They currently sit dead last in the 10-team Pacific Division with just two wins and a shootout loss after nine games. They've used ten rookies this year, and are missing their top line from last season. Actually, they're missing their top line, three of their top defenders, and a handful of other forwards from last year's team.
There is some turnover for a Calder-winning team, as free agents get better offers elsewhere and successful players get promoted. But players don't age out like they do in junior or college competition, so there is some stability there. Or, there usually is, anyway. Abbotsford has suffered injuries to Jett Woo and Guillaume Brisebois, devastating their blue line. But Victor Mancini, Tom Willander, and Kiril Kudryavtsev are all with Vancouver right now, too.
Sure, Jonathan Lekkeimäki is injured, which hurts them. But their parent club also promoted four of their top forwards and keeps stealing others out of necessity. How is the parent club doing with injuries? Ask Abbotsford.
Vancouver losing Chytil and Teddy Blueger for unknown lengths of time prompted the "sure, why not?" acquisition of Lukas Reichel, but that's not enough. I like him fine, as he gives the team some speed and a bit of skill, but Chytil is the better player - when he plays. As for the rest, well, let's just say there aren't normally four waiver-exempt defencemen on any NHL squad.
It's not looking good right now. The Canucks are currently two points and four teams back of a playoff spot. Their next eleven games are split more or less evenly, with five on the road and six at home. And those teams look plenty tough, so getting six wins from them with this beat-up club to stay at .500 will be a challenge. But it's not entirely bleak.
Players are going to start trickling back to the club over the next month. Expecting them to be at full speed right away is a lot to ask, but there isn't much choice. Chytil remains the Canucks' biggest challenge, given his unique circumstance. He may not play again, possibly for the season, possibly ever.
But Blueger will return, as will Conor Garland, Nils Höglander, Lekkerimäki, Quinn Hughes, Derek Forbort... Other players will get injured in this compressed schedule year, but by the end of November, we will be past the worst of it. Well, until January's roadie madness, but even a slight easing of the schedule will give the Canucks some time to recover.
Coach Adam Foote has so far resisted the temptation to overplay Thatcher Demko. If he can keep that discipline, and the rest of the team can keep afloat, there can be better times ahead. We can hope.
