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Canucks Live: Making your house a home at Rogers Arena; Vancouver has lightest players in the NHL

Heavyweight Hurricanes storm into Rogers Arena against featherweight Vancouver, who need to show that home is advantage again

Published Oct 20, 2026  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  8 minute read

Elias Pettersson reacts following a goal scored by the Hurricanes during the second period of the game at Lenovo Center on October 08, 2026 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Photo by Jared C. Tilton /Getty Images

By now, even the most casual fans know the Canucks were skunked on their six-game road trip.

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They return to Rogers arena for a rematch with the Carolina Hurricanes, the reigning Stanley Cup Champs who beat Vancouver handily 7-2 just under two weeks ago and who have the NHL’s best record.

The issue for the Canucks this year will be not only getting growth and progress from their many prospects, but making Rogers Arena an advantage again.

The Canucks last year had the NHL’s worst home mark, by a significant margin, not even managing double-digit wins on home ice. Vancouver’s home record was 9-27-5, the next-worst L.A. Kings had five more wins for their fans who buy tickets to get into the arena.

We all remember the days of the Sedins and Roberto Luongo and Alain Vigneault behind the bench. The team storming out onto the ice with U2’s Where the Streets Have No Name blaring and fans buzzing, waving towels. It was an intimidating place to play. These days, not so much.

So far the Canucks have one win, against Calgary and two losses to contenders Las Vegas and Edmonton and now Carolina is here. It’s big ask but the ‘Canes did lose to woeful Calgary on Sunday, can the Canucks give their fans the same result?

The expectation among Carolina fans and media is this is probably going to be an easy one for their lads.

The Canucks visited Raleigh 12 days ago, allowing the Canes to get back on track at home. The Canes sprinted out to an early 3-0 lead, thanks to two power-play goals from Andrei Svechnikov. Mark Jankowski scored early in the second period, and Logan Stankoven did the rest. He scored a natural hat trick at three different strengths, leading the Canes to a 7-2 victory.

Behind Enemy Lines: Vancouver Canucks

The Canucks are returning home after a six-game road trip. Raleigh was the first stop on their journey, and it didn’t get any better from there. The Canucks dropped all six games, putting them right back at the bottom of the division, the conference, and the league. They scored two goals or fewer in each game, managing just one of a possible 12 points with an overtime loss to the Panthers.

The long road trip meant that the Canucks haven’t played a ton of hockey in Vancouver. Tonight marks just their fourth game on home ice, going 1-2-0 before their trip. While their offence went cold after a scorching start, their defence still hasn’t gotten going. They’re allowing 4.50 goals per game, and their penalty kill is the only unit in the league killing under 60 per cent of their chances.

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The silver linings for Vancouver are still very present. Elias Pettersson is still playing at a point-per-game pace, leading the team with ten points. Also, Leevi Merilainen has been very solid in the net. He’s made six appearances this season, including four starts, and has only allowed 12 goals. He made his NHL debut with the Senators in Raleigh in 2023 in a 3-2 overtime win for Carolina. 

Vancouver, at least, is relatively healthy enjoying getting Filip Chytil back, while Carolina is suffering from some early season woes.

Captain Jordan Staal has been sidelined with a calf muscle tear and veteran forward Taylor Hall with an undisclosed upper body injury. Hall was placed on injured reserve Monday.

Centre Mark Jankowski now has been added to the injury list, missing Sunday’s game at Calgary with a lower-body issue. Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said after the 3-2 loss to the Flames that Jankowski was returning to Raleigh for further medical evaluation. Jankowski had scored a goal in six straight games and had moved up to take Staal’s centre spot between wingers Nikolaj Ehlers and Jordan Martinook. His injury had Martinook moving to centre as Brind’Amour had to readjust his lines. Forward Seth Jarvis has missed the first 10 games of the season as he finishes up his recovery from off-season shoulder surgery. Jarvis has practised with the team and is on the five-game road trip but has not been medically cleared to play.

“We’ve got guys playing out of position and have lost three or four penalty killers,” Brind’Amour said. “But you’ve got to figure it out. This is a no-one-feels-sorry-for-you league. You just regroup.”

The Canes’ lineup in the first two games of the trip have had forwards Bradly Nadeau and Felix Unger Sorum – two call-ups from the AHL Chicago Wolves – in the lineup.

Kevin Woodley of NHL.com was on the Halford & Brough show talking about the Canucks foes on the penalty kill:

At times it looks like guys are trying too hard to do too much and that takes them outside of the structure they’re trying to get to. That Carolina power-play picked them apart to a degree I don’t know that I’ve seen in the National Hockey League in a long time.

… you also have to hat tip to the defending Stanley Cup Champions for being able to move it around that much but when you chase you open up the lanes that give them the ability to make those passes. The pace with which they make them is impressive, but frankly, the lack of resistance made it fairly easy: like there was no sticks in lanes, there were no bodies in lanes, the seams were so wide-open that they just tic-tac-toed it.

I’ve made this joke a couple of times but nights like that you wonder if Kay Whitmore (goaltending supervisor for the NHL) is gonna approve cigarettes and blindfolds for goaltenders as the next piece of the equipment.

The Canucks are still woefully off the radar of national NHL media, but when they do pop up it’s still Elias Pettersson who gets the attention. The Athletic picked out some early-season storylines and EP40 provides the Canucks content.

Pettersson is on a revenge tour

Is Elias Pettersson back? It’s important not to get carried away by a 10-game sample, and it’s worth noting that he’s cooled off a bit with two points in his last five games, but his start to the season has been extremely encouraging.

Pettersson has scored 10 points in 10 games, is driving the best xG share among Canucks forwards, and has a plus-one goal differential at five-on-five. He’s been a physical force, ranking top-20 among all NHL forwards in hits.

Watching Pettersson play, his confidence, swagger and poise look renewed. He’s pulling off ambitious, nifty offensive dekes rather than playing it safe, he’s routinely making game-breaking seam passes and he’s much more decisive with the puck overall.

His skating speed still hasn’t fully returned to where it was during his peak, and his individual shot rate is still barely over half of what it was during his 102-point campaign in 2022-23, so it’s hard to say he’s fully back. But so far, Pettersson has looked like a completely different player than the one we’ve seen the last two years. 

The big question for this franchise, which like most of the NHL is thin at centre, is do they hope Pettersson is finding his feet in Vancouver or is this a case of building up a market to sell for more rebuilding assets?

Coach Manny Malhotra had a brief update on goaltender Thatcher Demko (hip) after practice Monday, reiterating once again that there’s no timeline on a return to action but also maintaining “the fact that he is improving daily is a positive.”

Demko has been skating on his own since before training camp. And Malhotra did admit Monday that “in this last week, I think we dialled it back. I think he took a couple of days off the ice this weekend.”

“We’ve said from Day One that we’re not in a situation where we’re going to rush him,” Malhotra said.

Malhotra was asked if there was any concern that Demko may not play this season and he answered: “To my knowledge, no.”

Demko, 30, had hip surgery in January. He hasn’t played since Jan. 10, 2026, in a 5-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’s played 43 games the past two seasons after seeing action in 51 games in 2023-24.

If you’re into sports betting, ESPN has a look at tonight’s game should you feel inclined to wager.

Carolina Hurricanes at Vancouver Canucks

CAR -278, O/U: 6.5

Some might look at that large number on the betting line and conclude that this game might be a blowout for the visiting Cup champs. Well, the Canes were -218 against the Flames on Sunday, and lost that one. So anything is possible.

If the Canucks are to present a real challenge Tuesday, they’ll need to get back to their early high-scoring ways. After netting 17 goals in their first three games, they’ve scored 13 in the next seven. 

The Athletic have done a cool demographic analysis of all NHL teams looking at various statistics across the league.

While there’s an image that the rebuilding Canucks are full of young prospects that are going to make mistakes as part of a rebuild it’s may be lost that they’ve blotted the roster with several grizzled vets too. The Canucks are just the ninth-youngest team in the NHL.

Historically, older teams often skewed toward being more successful on the ice then younger ones. Some of that was simply because rebuilding teams went young on talent, and there’s some of that here with San Jose, Calgary, Vancouver and Chicago. But sprinkled in are also some very competitive young teams, like Anaheim, Buffalo and Montreal, who were all in the second round in last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs. 

And while you hear NHL analysts talk all the time of good teams needing size and to be “heavy” the Canucks are quite clearly on the smaller side. Maybe 6-foot-7 defenceman Jamie Oleksiak skews the numbers but the Canucks are the 8th-shortest team in the NHL.

Weight? They’re the lightest by some margin. The average weight of the Canucks is dead last at 194.4 pounds. The heaviest team are the Washington Capitals at 213.1 pounds. Guess everything in D.C. is weighed down by some fat.

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