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While some publications insist on doing weekly power rankings of NHL teams, we thought it would be even more abstract and pointless to do a weekly power ranking of the players on the Canucks. And yes, we understand that Sunday is technically the start of the week, but no one thinks that way.



The Canucks went 1-1-1 this week, beating the Los Angeles Kings and dropping contests to the Vegas Golden Knights and St. Louis Blues. What follows is a ranking of the players on the team as to how they performed this week, from bottom to top.

The arrows indicate how a player is trending:

↟ - Trending up

↡ - Trending down

↔ - Holding relatively steady



23. Alex Biega (Last Week: 21) ↡



Have we seen the last of “Bulldog” for a while? With Troy Stecher and Chris Tanev both slated to return from injury soon, Biega is almost certainly going to be one of the odd men out. His play this week didn’t do much to dispel that notion. The only game in which he had positive underlying numbers was against St. Louis where he gave the puck away several times, including on the play that led to Vladimir Sobotka’s goal.



22. Brendan Gaunce (19) ↔



Gaunce actually played pretty well in the two games he was used, posting the highest Relative Corsi of any Canuck during the disaster against Vegas. But his limited sample size this week and the fact he was scratched against St. Louis hurts him.



21. Alex Burmistrov (14) ↔



Found himself in the press box for all three games, which wasn’t exactly fair given how he’s played thus far this season.



20. Erik Gudbranson (23) ↟



The game against the Blues was probably Gudbranson’s best of the season. He stomped out attacking forwards, made clean (even nice) passes and even posted strong underlying numbers while playing the second-most of any Canuck behind Edler. The other two games were not nearly as strong, but maybe this is the beginning of some solid play from the former third-overall draft pick?



19. Anders Nilsson (22) ↔



Nilsson got one game in, but his stock saw a bump purely because Markstrom struggled and Nilsson’s stats looked better by comparison. It’s hard to lay blame on him for the Blues game, as most of the shots were pure snipes, but he’d probably like to have Brayden Schenn’s overtime winner back.



18. Derek Dorsett (15) ↔



We’ve already talked about The Fight. We will not be dragged into this again. He may have fired the team up, but Dorsett is one of the worst players on the team according to the underlying numbers. If he doesn’t go on a scoring run again, Dorsett fans will find themselves wondering what’s wrong with him. Nothing will be, he’s just not a goal scorer.



17. Markus Granlund (16) ↔



Granlund scored a big shorthanded goal against St. Louis, but other than that, he wasn’t very effective.

Alex Edler on Twitter

16. Alex Edler (13) ↡



This is tough because Edler was pretty awful throughout the week, culminating in an absolutely dreadful performance against the Blues. Still, he led the team in ice time by four minutes in that game, so at least the coach approves of his game, we suppose. Here’s betting ice time gets a little more evened out in the next couple games.



15. Sam Gagner (5) ↡↡



Last week we asked whether or not Gagner was coming into his own. He has since regressed. One assist and a minus-5 rating for the week, as he lost absolutely lost at times.

Like here.

14. Michael Del Zotto (11) ↔



Playing most of the week with Alex Biega, Del Zotto had a tough go of it. He was a minus-1 in every contest this week and didn’t register any points. Only five shots in the three games.



13. Henrik Sedin (8) ↡

12. Daniel Sedin (7) ↡



For the first time in their careers, the Sedins have a coach who doesn’t really trust them. Nowhere was that more evident in the Blues game, in which Green put out the Sutter line for a faceoff in the offensive zone after an icing against the Blues with the game tied 3-3. In years past, there’s no question the Sedins are getting that faceoff, but Green stated that he wanted to have his checking line out there because he knew the Tarasenko line was coming on next. It screamed of playing for overtime, but it really underlined how little faith Green has in the twins.

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11. Brandon Sutter (17) ↔

Last week we asked if the shine was coming off of Travis Green’s golden boy. It depends on what you want to see from your team. Sutter plays hard minutes for the Canucks. His underlying numbers are a mess, but he does play against quality competition. It’s hard to validate his massive amounts of ice time, but clearly his stock within the team and with certain sections of the fan base is high.



10. Derrick Pouliot (6) ↔



The honeymoon Canucks fans have had with Pouliot of late has taken a few detours. The two secondary assists against L.A. were nice, but the defenceman wasn’t at his best against Vegas and St. Louis. He ends the week with a minus-4 rating. Ouch.



9. Jake Virtanen (18) ↟



His stock has surely risen, as Green’s decision to bench him for three games had the fan base livid. It didn’t hurt that he looked pretty great against the Blues (his only game this week) for most of the night, despite getting under 10 minutes of ice time. In the future, we’ll laugh about the fact Green underutilized him so brutally, like we did when Boeser was scratched for the first two games of the season.



8. Ben Hutton (10) ↔



Hutton held his own, which should be his catchphrase.

Sportsnet on Twitter

7. Loui Eriksson (20) ↟↟



Eriksson’s stock shot up this week with incredibly solid games against L.A. and St. Louis. Three points on the week for the Swede, and fans have noticed.



6. Thomas Vanek (9) ↟



The cagey vet was once again himself, as Vanek put up an assist in each of the three games this week. Fourth on the team in points despite ranking 22nd in average ice time, the Canucks should be extremely happy with what they’re getting out of Vanek for $2 million, and so should fans.



5. Jacob Markstrom (4) ↔



Markstrom had the wagons circle him for a second there, as supporters of Nilsson started popping out of the woodwork and piled on him for what they deemed as mediocre play. He wasn’t great against Vegas, but after Nilsson wasn’t exactly lights out against St. Louis his stock is still high.



4. Sven Baertschi (12) ↟



Baertschi plays a prominent role on the Canucks’ best line by a mile, and he had the stats to show for it this week, registering three points. One gets the feeling that every member of the top line will be a lock for the top 10 in these rankings every week from here on out.



3. Brock Boeser (3) ↔



Three points in three games for the Canucks’ most dangerous player.



2. Bo Horvat (2) ↔



Horvat also put up three points and is the catalyst for the top line, which is the lifeblood of the team.



1. Chris Tanev (1) ↔



He didn’t play this week, but he keeps the top spot because of the team’s inability to play clean hockey in its own zone. The difference between having Tanev or Edler as the number one defenceman is massive, and starts off a chain reaction through the lineup that the team can’t handle.