After a Kings game that was the visual equivalent of a slightly squeaky desk fan, the rest of California paid off. Back-to-back wins against San Jose and Anaheim were a shining moment in a gloomy season. Do they mean anything, though?

[Insert Parade Joke Here]

At the tail end of arguably the worst season in Canucks history, fans can be excused for tuning out the team. After finishing last in the league was assured, what other reason was there to watch? Improvement from the special teams? Yeah, that's happened, but it's not exactly what sells tickets.

One shootout win and one overtime win later, and actually, there's a lot that's fun here! It's just that we need an opposition that is also slightly disastrous in their own end. The Ducks are going to be an interesting watch in the offseason, with three of their veteran, right-side defencemen all becoming unrestricted free agents. The Sharks, on the other hand, seem to regard having right-side defencemen as optional rather than mandatory.

Sure, I mock the defence of teams well ahead of Vancouver in the standings - and in their rebuilds - but it's with love. Those two games were a blast to watch, relative to the dreck we've been fed recently. And it's not really the fault of individual players when the systems are either not applied well (Vancouver's case) or geared toward scoring (also Vancouver's case, but include the other two as well).

But let's focus on the Canucks. Because what happened on the defence is actually pretty interesting.

California Scheming

The top four went unchanged for this road swing. Zeev Buium was with Filip Hronek, and Tom Willander stuck to Marcus Pettersson. As a third pair, Elias Pettersson the Defenceman was matched with Victor Mancini one night, Pierre-Olivier Joseph another, and Kirill Kudreyavtsev on the third.

In theory, Kudreyavstev is the one who shouldn't be here. My "2025-26 season longshot" was him reaching 40 NHL games, so it's not like he's a bad player. He doesn't really stand out, though. He's not particularly fast, certainly not big, and isn't much of a threat to score. Mancini beats him on all three counts, if we want to compare. But he is sharp.

Kudreyavtsev can read plays extremely well. He gets to the right spot at the right time, often stopping plays before they become dangerous. He could easily be Vancouver's 6/7 defender next season, taking Joseph's place. Pretty amazing, given his seventh-round draft lineage.

Getting 14 minutes in a tight game - even lis late in the season - is a show of confidence. For pretty good reason.

Party Pillar!

Possibly the best moment of the weekend came when the 26-year-old rookie Curtis Douglas scored his first NHL goal. That was genuine excitement, not just from him but from his teammates. His emotion after the game was marvellous to hear, too. That is, not to put too fine a point on it, the sort of thing we need to see around the team. We can forgive a bad team. We can't forgive one that doesn't care.

Seeing Kudreyavtsev celebrating with Douglas gives a nostalgic Tyler Myers - Conor Garland feel, too. And that's nice.

Speaking of our local behemoth, guess who challenged notorious brawler Radko Gudas? That's right, Teddy Blueger! If he had just gotten an assist in Los Angeles before his goal in San Jose, he could have picked up the single-state Gordie Howe hat trick. In a league that is low on free agent centres - and centres in general - whatever decision the team makes on Blueger will have good arguments on both sides. We'll get into that in another week or so.

The quartet out on the ice for an overtime power play was an interesting look, too. The "Minnesota Trio" of Marco Rossi, Liam Öhgren, and Zeev Buium were joined by actual Minnesotan Brock Boeser to finish the 4-on-3, and it worked. Granted, a 4-on-3 usually does, but if you wanted a quick look into Vancouver's future, there are worse moments.

The worst part about watching late games in a failed season is that "but what does this mean for next season" is a constant, intrusive thought. But sometimes, that can be optimistic, too.