Earlier in the week, we asked the question, “Do the Vancouver Canucks have the best top 4 in the Pacific Division for 2025/26?” In a remarkable turnaround from the usual status quo, we found the answer to likely be “yes.”
Today, we ask the same question about the Canucks’ top nine forwards heading into next season – and we can tell from the outset that the results won’t be nearly as positive.
So, let’s instead phrase this one as, “How do the Canucks’ top nine forwards stack up against the rest of the Pacific Division in 2025/26?”
Laying out the Canucks’ own top nine is pretty straightforward at this point. Here’s who we’ve got:
Jake DeBrusk – Elias Pettersson – Brock Boeser
Nils Höglander – Filip Chytil – Evander Kane
Kiefer Sherwood – Aatu Räty – Conor Garland
There is a little quibbling that could be done with this set. Some might have Drew O’Connor or Linus Karlsson in the top nine instead of, say, Sherwood. But since our main method of comparison today is raw points, and since Sherwood had 40 of them last year, we decided to go with him for now.
This top nine collection put together a cumulative 303 regular season points in 2024/25, or an average of 33.7 per player, which doesn’t sound like much at all. However, this total comes with some serious caveats.
It includes zero points from Kane, who missed the entire regular season with multiple injuries. In 2023/24, however, he put up 44 regular season points.
It also contains shortened seasons for Chytil, whose season ended early from a concussion, and Räty, who spent most of the year in the AHL but still paced for nearly 40 points.
Then there’s the whole Pettersson thing.
Suffice it to say that this is a top nine group that can and should do better, at least points-wise, in 2025/26. But how much better? And how much better in comparison to the competition around the Pacific? Let’s find out.
Anaheim Ducks
Cutter Gauthier – Leo Carlsson – Mikael Granlund
Frank Vatrano – Mason McTavish – Troy Terry
Chris Kreider – Ryan Strome – Alex Killorn
Cumulative 2024/25 Points: 415
The Anaheim Ducks are no longer the soft point of intradivisional comparison they once were.
Through a largely successful rebuild process, the Ducks have built themselves a young and dynamic top nine set of forwards, and also done well to supplement that core with productive veteran adds.
The result is a top nine that was the third-most productive in the Pacific Division last season, and that only projects to get better from here as players like Carlsson, Gauthier, and McTavish all continue to upswing.
If everything went perfectly for the Canucks, this is still a top nine they could compete head-to-head with and still come out on top. But if Carlsson and/or McTavish take a step forward, it’s hard not to see this as a group that has superior depth to Vancouver at both centre and on the wing.
Calgary Flames
Jonathan Huberdeau – Nazem Kadri – Connor Zary
Blake Coleman – Mikael Backlund – Matt Coronato
Joel Farabee – Morgan Frost – Yegor Sharangovich
Cumulative 2024/25 Points: 368
Surely the Canucks can at least stack up against the middling Flames, right?
Right. Even though the above top nine enjoyed a relatively healthy 2024/25, the Flames still only barely outscored a Canucks’ top nine that featured swaths of missing time. And while there’s some youth at play here, the Flames are still too reliant on aging talents like Huberdeau and Kadri. Is Kadri really going to hit 35 goals again at age 35? Probably not!
So long as the Canucks can get some bouncebacks from the players who need it, and at least a little health luck, this is a top nine they should be better than throughout the entirety of the 2025/26 campaign.
Edmonton Oilers
Ike Howard – Connor McDavid – Zach Hyman
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Leon Draisaitl – Andrew Mangiapane
Vasily Podkolzin – Trent Frederic – Matthew Savoie
Cumulative 2024/25 Points: 367
How good are the likes of McDavid and Draisaitl? So good that this top nine includes a player with zero 2024/25 points (Howard, who was in the NCAA), a player with one point (Savoie), and a player with just 15 points (Frederic)…and they still outscored the Canucks by 64 collective points last year.
Put differently, McDavid and Draisaitl alone scored more than any four Vancouver forwards combined, and that’s with McDavid only playing in 67 games.
Call the Oilers top-heavy, and it’s true. Say they lack depth. Call them imbalanced, sure. But there’s just no way to say that this isn’t a better top nine group than the Canucks have, especially once the upward potential of prospects like Howard and Savoie is more fully considered.
Los Angeles Kings
Kevin Fiala – Anze Kopitar – Adrian Kempe
Andrei Kuzmenko – Quinton Byfield – Alex Laferriere
Warren Foegele – Phillip Danault – Trevor Moore
Cumulative 2024/25 Points: 462
The Kings have some real consistency in their top nine. They’re bringing back all nine players from last year, and it’s a group that truly shares the load – all nine of them got at least 40 points last season, except for Kuzmenko, who arrived partway through the year and got 17 in 22 as a King.
That’s a spread that is difficult to compete with. The Kings have question marks on the back-end, to be sure, and that’s where the Canucks can make up some ground in 2025/26. But at forward, LA still has a clear advantage in depth and, barring some truly stellar Canuck seasons, probably at the top-end, too.
There are rumours that this might be Kopitar’s last season, which definitely changes the dynamic after this year. For now, however, he remains one of the best two-way centres in the game.
San Jose Sharks
William Eklund – Macklin Celebrini – Tyler Toffoli
Jeff Skinner – Will Smith – Adam Gaudette
Philipp Kurashev – Alex Wennberg – Collin Graf
Cumulative 2024/25 Points: 335
Even the rebuilt Sharks outscored the Canucks in 2024/25, but only just barely. Really, this is a tough comparison to make. On the one hand, Celebrini is on pace to take over from McDavid as the best player in the division…eventually. He’s not there yet, but he’s getting better by the day, and he’s got a burgeoning supporting cast to support him.
Besides the young stars, however, the rest of the San Jose contingent is a little less than inspiring, and features some outright question marks in the form of Skinner, Gaudette, and Kurashev. In other words, barring a total disaster in Vancouver, this is a group that the Canucks should be able to stay ahead of for at least another season.
The Sharks’ day is coming, but it isn’t here quite yet.
Seattle Kraken
Jaden Schwartz – Matty Beniers – Kaapo Kakko
Jared McCann – Chandler Stephenson – Jordan Eberle
Mason Marchment – Shane Wright – Eeli Tolvanen
Cumulative 2024/25 Points: 400
The Kraken doesn’t look like a great set of forwards on paper. And yet, they cumulatively cracked the 400-point mark last season, and did so on the strength of some come-ups from younger players like Wright and Kakko.
They’ve lightly supplemented their top nine with Marchment from Dallas, but are largely rolling with the same group that didn’t quite get it done in 2024/25. The clear issue here is that the Kraken are lacking in star power. Hey, so too were the Canucks in 2024/25, but at least they’ve got the potential for a major Elias Pettersson comeback. The Kraken just don’t have that level of star potential on their roster, and that should likely result in another languishing year for them – and another season in which the Canucks can at least say they’re better off than their Pacific Northwest rivals.
Vegas Golden Knights
Pavel Dorofeyev – Jack Eichel – Mitch Marner
Ivan Barbashev – Tomas Hertl – Mark Stone
Brandon Saad – William Karlsson – Reilly Smith
Cumulative 2024/25 Points: 526
Do we have to do this one? The Golden Knights are plainly the class of the division, and weren’t all that far off doubling the points of the Canucks’ top nine in 2024/25. Remember that stat about McDavid and Draisaitl outscoring any four Canucks forwards? Well, it applies to Eichel and Marner, too. And we’d daresay that Eichel and Marner have a lot more support than do McDavid and Draisaitl.
You won’t find a stronger centre core than Eichel/Hertl/Karlsson. And you won’t find many separate forward lines with two wingers as good as Marner and Stone on them.
In our piece comparing the top four defences of the division, we thought that the Canucks could reasonably compete with Vegas there if all went well for them. But when it comes to stacking up top nine forwards, we must admit that the Golden Knights are very much in another stratosphere. A Vegas-sphere, if you will.
