Without question, the 2024-25 National Hockey League season was a challenging one for Vancouver Canuck forward Dakota Joshua.
It started with a testicular cancer diagnosis on the eve of training camp in September and, understandably, that put hockey in perspective for the big winger who battled valiantly to rejoin his team in mid-November. On many levels, the fact that Joshua was able to resume his NHL career so quickly after the life-changing medical scare was a victory in itself. However, anyone who had watched the 29-year-old score 18 goals the previous season and four more in two rounds of playoff hockey knew Joshua wasn’t close to the best version of himself when he returned to game action.
With no training camp, preseason or first month of games that counted, Joshua was playing catch-up from the outset. And, looking back now, it’s clear he never really caught up.
If anyone deserves some grace for a subpar season, it’s the personable Joshua, who just never seemed to fully harness his natural tools of speed and size and use them to his advantage. He made his season debut on November 10th against the New York Islanders, but didn’t score his first goal until December 10th against St. Louis. And he managed to put just one puck in the net through the end of January.
Part of the issue was a mid-season leg injury suffered when he collided awkwardly with Nashville Predators captain Roman Josi in a January 3rd game at Rogers Arena. While the offence still wasn’t flowing for Joshua, he was rediscovering the physical side of his game when his season was interrupted and he was forced to miss 11 games. He returned for six, and then the season was halted for the 4 Nations Face-Off. That kind of summed up the 2024-25 campaign for Joshua. It was a series of stops and starts, and never allowed him to get into any kind of groove.
The bottom line through all the adversity was just seven goals and seven assists in 57 games. In 600 minutes at 5-on-5, the Canucks controlled 45.5% of all shot attempts and were outscored 27-18 with Joshua on the ice. This was the first year of a four-year contract that paid the Dearborn, Michigan native $3.25M per season. Based solely on money paid versus production, the Canucks did not extract value from Joshua’s new deal. Again, the reasons for that were obvious from the start.
If there were bright spots to Joshua’s season, they came later in the year. He stayed healthy and played in the team’s final 33 games of the season, with five of his goals and 10 of his points coming during that stretch. Joshua finished the year on a line with Aatu Räty and Kiefer Sherwood that showed both promise and production and perhaps provided a glimpse at a legitimate third line for next season.
And while he wasn’t a sharp as he wanted to be and despite missing 25 games, Joshua still managed to finish second on the hockey club in hits with 193. It was nowhere close to Sherwood’s league-leading total of 493, but it was still 89 more than Teddy Blueger, who was third on the list.
For pushing through a trying set of circumstances all season, Joshua was recognized by the Vancouver chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and was named the Canucks nominee for the Bill Masterton Trophy. The award is presented annually to the NHL player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the game. Dakota Joshua demonstrated all of those traits by remaining positive while life dealt him a difficult hand.
He is a much better player than he showed in 2024-25. For obvious reasons, no one should hold his counting statistics against him. The hope is that with a clean bill of health and a full summer to train, the real Dakota Joshua will arrive at training camp looking to assert himself once again. Whether he wants one or not, he gets a pass for this past season. But with a new head coach in place – albeit one familiar with what he can offer – Joshua will have to re-establish himself and get his career moving in the right direction again.
Oh, and on a much lighter note, Dakota Joshua and Conor Garland did a nice job of working the drive-thru at a local Tim Horton’s.
