3 Canucks Stars of the Week: Kevin Lankinen remains a road warrior

Welcome back to Stars of the Week at CanucksArmy! Every week, we’ll be bringing you our Top Three best and brightest performers on the Vancouver Canucks that week. Disagree with our picks or have your own stars to nominate? Let us know in the comments below!

Hopefully, everyone made it through this morning’s unlawfully early game in Detroit with their cup of coffee in hand. I, for one, was white-knuckle-gripping my mug by the end. 

It’s been a gutsy week for this team, even after falling short on a comeback win versus the Pittsburgh Penguins by one goal. They followed up this disappointment with a gritty overtime winner over the Buffalo Sabres and another against Detroit. Five games into this six-game road trip, and our heart rates are certainly staying sky-high.

Despite the cracks in their foundation still very much showing through, the Canucks truly have some excellent performers this week. Let’s get into it.

Quinn Hughes

Quinn Hughes may just be the best invention by humanity since the wheel. 

As per usual, it cannot be understated how lucky we are to watch him play during the peak years of his career, let alone captain this Vancouver team. He is consistently an ace up the sleeve of Rick Tocchet, night in and night out. 

At 25 years old, he has moved into first place for the most assists by a defenceman in Canucks history, beating out Alex Edler by 537 games. Edler has held that record for nearly four years, since January 2020, and it took him until nearly the end of his 15-year Canucks career to achieve it. Quinn Hughes is in his seventh season of professional play, technically only his sixth full campaign.

If breaking a record wasn’t enough, Hughes decided to go ahead and pick up another two assists further in the same game, for fun. Just another day at the office. Another day where he clocked 31:04 in ice time, which is nearly ten minutes more than any other defenceman. With his helper on Jake DeBrusk’s game-winning goal in overtime, it marks the second assist Hughes has provided on an overtime goal in as many games, following Conor Garland against the Sabres on Friday.

This is all also in the absence of his defensive partner Filip Hronek. Hughes has once again been paired with Tyler Myers, which he might actually be owed an apology, but I digress.

The more Hughes ends up a star in this column from week to week, the more I run out of different ways to say he is the best defenceman in the NHL right now, and likely in the world. So here I will say it, point blank.

Blank-inen has been a nickname not simply bestowed upon Kevin Lankinen by this fanbase, but truly earned. As of this afternoon, Lankinen’s road record to start the year is 10-0-0 – making him the first goaltender in the NHL to achieve this feat. It has not been an easy one, either. His starts this week have proven difficult wins – well, maybe not against a struggling Boston, where it appears Jeremy Swayman secured an eight-year extension and immediately experienced retrograde amnesia and forgot how to play the game. 

On the road, he has posted a .931 save percentage (SV%) and 1.98 goals against average (GAA). Overall, this only drops to .907 S% and a 2.65 GAA. Quite simply, Kevin Lankinen is an excellent goaltender on an extremely team-friendly $875k deal. However, with Tyler Myers, Noah Juulsen, and Carson Soucy playing in front of him at times, he might as well be Martin Brodeur. Not you, though, Erik, Brännström, never you.

Most of the goals allowed by Lankinen can be put almost squarely on defensive lapses in front of him, and some of his most highlight-worthy saves shouldn’t even be necessary. Lankinen has been bailing out the blue line depth on the road, and doing it all the way to a record-setting streak.

Jake DeBrusk

Jake DeBrusk is deserving of a third-star spot this week, especially after the 2-0 shutout stunner against his former team in Boston and today’s 5-4 performance in the Motor City. He currently leads the Canucks in scoring at 10 goals, and while this comes with an asterisk with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser missing significant chunks of time, it’s still a reflection of his value thus far.

DeBrusk seems to be on a particularly spicy turn of the hot and cold scoring streaks he’s known for, and Vancouver is simply lucky to reap the benefits. His chemistry with Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes has created a reaction like Coke and Mentos as of late, as well as his power play prowess. His seven goals and two assists since the Canucks began their East Coast swing has been reason enough to be thankful, but his game on Sunday against Detroit takes the Jake DeCake. With an assist and a hat trick, including two power-play goals and a hero’s overtime-winning goal, his production has hit precisely when this team has needed it the most. Even if he occasionally forgets who, what, where, and when the scoring is happening, all that matters is that it is happening.

Honourable Mentions

Conor Garland

In all honesty, Garland could also receive a third star this week. Three and a half stars, maybe. If I could create the process of star fission and split a star in two to hand one to Garland, I would. 

Garland has been on the ice certainly getting the most out of his game – take this creative move with his stick against Buffalo.

Garland certainly has learned to play the game to his own strengths despite his size, but this is a different level. He’s out there finding loopholes like a defence lawyer. 

His nifty game-winning goal against the Sabres sealed the game after a blown lead late in the third. Perhaps they didn’t deserve to win this game in regulation or even at all, but he refused to go down without a fight. Number eight has eight goals on the season so far, third place on the entire roster.

Conor Garland has been in constant motion for this team. However, Newton’s third law states there must be an equal and opposite reaction to every action. Unfortunately, it was Conor Garland’s turn to experience the opposite today. After taking an unfortunate airborne puck to the head against the Red Wings, he did not return to the game, and his status going forward at this time is undetermined. With Brock Boeser just barely returning from a concussion, seeing another core member leave a game just feels like a cruel fate. This team can simply not afford to be down a Conor Garland right now, which is a testament to his success this year so far.

Pius Suter

Pius Shooter has been firing on all cylinders as of late. With his goal against Detroit today, Suter has nine goals on the season, second on the team only to Jake DeBrusk. Yeah, I don’t know how this happened either, but I won’t say no to it. He began the year as a bottom-six winger and has been playing down the middle during his most successful stretches so far, most recently on the second line third-wheeling Dakota Joshua and Conor Garland. Suter has emerged so very quietly as a depth hero on this roster during a time of musical chairs in the lineup, and his consistency has given a major boost to this group.