Worse than just being bad, last year’s Vancouver Canucks were boring. They were one of the worst offensive teams in the NHL and, outside of a few bright spots like Brock Boeser, there just wasn’t much of a reason to watch them until the Sedins announced that they were playing their last few games. Bad teams can be entertaining if there are goals but there weren’t many of those in Vancouver. The Canucks scored 218 goals, “good” for 26th in the NHL and 26 fewer than league average.



A new season brings new hope. In Vancouver’s case, the hope might be more real than it is for a lot of teams that struggled to score goals because the Canucks will likely add Elias Pettersson, who was ninth on Corey Pronman’s prospect list. He’s played a couple of exhibition games and had a number of moments that get people excited. We’ll see if he can deal with the physical element of NHL games, not in the sense of being intimidated or...