The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. The Canucks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Rogers Arena. Manny Malhotra is the head coach, Ryan Johnson is the general manager, and Daniel and Henrik Sedin serve as the co-presidents of hockey operations.
The Canucks joined the league in 1970 as an expansion team along with the Buffalo Sabres. The team has advanced to the Stanley Cup Final three times, losing to the New York Islanders in 1982, the New York Rangers in 1994 and the Boston Bruins in 2011. They have won the Presidents' Trophy in back-to-back seasons as the team with the league's best regular season record in both the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons. The Canucks have won three division titles as a member of the Smythe Division from 1974 to 1993, seven titles as a member of the Northwest Division from 1998 to 2013, and one title as a member of the Pacific Division in 2024. The Canucks, along with the Sabres, are the two oldest teams in the NHL to have never won the Stanley Cup.
The Canucks have retired six players' jerseys in their history—Pavel Bure (10), Stan Smyl (12), Trevor Linden (16), Markus Näslund (19), Daniel Sedin (22) and Henrik Sedin (33); all but Bure and Daniel Sedin have served as team captain, and all but Näslund were on one of the three Stanley Cup Final rosters. Smyl has the distinction of being the only Canuck to have his jersey number retired at their original arena, the Pacific Coliseum.
History
Background and establishment The first professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver was the Vancouver Millionaires, formed by Frank and Lester Patrick. Established in 1911, the Millionaires were one of three teams in the new Pacific Coast Hockey Association. To accommodate the Millionaires, the Patrick brothers directed the building of the Denman Arena, which was known at the time as the world's largest artificial ice rink. The arena was later destroyed in a fire in 1936. The Millionaires played for the Stanley Cup five times, winning over the Ottawa Senators in 1915 on home ice. It marked the first time the Stanley Cup was won by a West Coast team in the trophy's history. Absorbed by the Western Canada Hockey League in 1924, the team continued operations until folding at the end of the 1925–26 WHL season.
From 1926 to 1970, Vancouver was home to only minor league teams. Most notably the present-day Canucks' minor league predecessor (also known as the Vancouver Canucks) played from 1945 to 1970 in the Pacific Coast Hockey League and the Western Hockey League.
NHL application With the intention of attracting an NHL franchise, Vancouver began the construction of a new modern arena, the Pacific Coliseum, in 1966 (with the arena opening in January 1968). The WHL's Canucks were playing in a small arena at the time, the Vancouver Forum, situated on the same Pacific National Exhibition grounds as the Coliseum. Meanwhile, a Vancouver group led by WHL Canucks owner and former Vancouver mayor Fred Hume made a bid to be one of the six teams due to join the league in 1967, but the NHL rejected their application. Bid leader Cyrus McLean called the denial a "cooked-up deal", referring to several biases that factored against them. Speculation long abounded afterwards that the bid was hindered by Toronto Maple Leafs president Stafford Smythe; after a failed Vancouver-based business deal, he was quoted as saying that the city would not get an NHL franchise in his lifetime. Additionally, the Leafs, along with the Montreal Canadiens, purportedly did not wish to split Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) hockey revenues three ways rather than two.Total Hockey, ed. Dan Diamond (1998), Andrews McMeel, p. 251.
Less than a year later, one of the 1967 expansion teams, the Oakland Seals were in financial difficulty and having trouble drawing fans. An apparent deal was in place to move the team to Vancouver, but the NHL did not want to see one of their franchises from the expansion of 1967 move so quickly and vetoed the deal. In exchange for avoiding a lawsuit, the NHL promised Vancouver would get a team in the next expansion round. Another group, headed by Minnesota entrepreneur Tom Scallen, made a new presentation and was awarded an expansion franchise for the price of $6 million (three times the cost in 1967).Rossiter 1994, p. 27. The new ownership group purchased the WHL Canucks, and brought the team into the league with the Buffalo Sabres as expansion teams for the 1970–71 season.
In preparation for joining the NHL, the WHL Canucks had brought in players with prior NHL experience. Six of these players (John Arbour, George Gardner, Len Lunde, Marc Reaume, Ted Taylor and Murray Hall) would remain with the club for its inaugural NHL season. The rest of the roster was built through an expansion draft.
Early years (1970–1982)
To fill the Canucks' roster for their inaugural season, the league held an expansion draft in the preceding summer. A draft lottery was held on June 9, 1970, determining who between the Canucks and Sabres would get the first selection in the expansion draft, as well as the 1970 NHL amateur draft; the Sabres won both spins. With his first selection in the expansion draft, Canucks general manager Bud Poile chose defenceman Gary Doak.Rossiter 1994, pp. 27–28. Among the other players chosen by Vancouver were centre Orland Kurtenbach, who was named the Canucks' first captain, as well as defenceman Pat Quinn, who later became the team's general manager and coach in the 1990s. Two days later, on June 11, 1970, the Canucks made defenceman Dale Tallon their first-ever Amateur Draft selection. Tallon played three seasons with the club before being traded away to the Chicago Black Hawks. By comparison, the Sabres chose centre Gilbert Perreault with the first overall selection they won from the lottery; Perreault went on to become a nine-time All-Star and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.Rossiter 1994, p. 28.
With the Canucks' roster set, the team played its inaugural game against the Los Angeles Kings on October 9, 1970. They lost the contest 3–1; defenceman Barry Wilkins scored the Canucks' lone goal in the game and first in franchise history, a backhander against goaltender Denis DeJordy. Two days later, the squad recorded the first win in franchise history, a 5–3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.Media Guide 2008, p. 146.
The Canucks struggled in their early years, failing to make the playoffs in their first four seasons. Placed in the competitive East Division, Poile assembled a core of players during this period led by Kurtenbach that included defencemen Tallon and Jocelyn Guevremont, as well as wingers André Boudrias and Dennis Ververgaert. Boudrias emerged as the team's leading point-scorer in four of their first five seasons.
Prior to the 1974–75 season, Scallen and his ownership group from Minnesota sold the team to local media mogul Frank Griffiths for $9 million.Rossiter 1994, p. 33. Also in the summer of 1974, the Canucks were re-aligned within the league and placed in the new Smythe Division. They responded with their first winning record (38 wins, 32 losses and 10 ties), backstopped by goaltender Gary "Suitcase" Smith finishing first in the Division with 86 points.Media Guide 2008, pp. 146–82. Making their debut in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Canucks lost the opening series of the 1975 playoffs in five games to the Montreal Canadiens. Head coach and general manager Phil Maloney (the third general manager in team history after Poile and Hal Laycoe) recalled the importance of a successful season for the Canucks in that year specifically, as the rival league World Hockey Association (WHA) had established another major professional team in the city, the Vancouver Blazers. Competing for the same hockey market, the Canucks emerged over the Blazers as the latter relocated to Calgary, Alberta, the following season.Rossiter 1994, p. 39. The Canucks posted a second consecutive winning record and made the playoffs in 1975–76, but lost to the New York Islanders in a two-game preliminary series. It would be another 16 years until the team would have another winning record though they made the playoffs nine times in that span.
Kurtenbach retired and assumed a coaching position with Vancouver. His departure as a player marked the beginning of a seven-year period in which the Canucks had four different captains—Boudrias, Chris Oddleifson, Don Lever and Kevin McCarthy. Following the 1976–77 season, Maloney was replaced as general manager by Jake Milford, who acquired such players as Stan Smyl, Thomas Gradin, Darcy Rota, Ivan Boldirev and Richard Brodeur, a core that would lead the team throughout the 1980s.Rossiter 1994, p. 47.
1982 Stanley Cup run The Canucks made their first significant playoff impact in the 1982 playoffs. In their previous five playoff appearances, the team had failed to win a single series. Though the Canucks finished three games under a .500 win percentage in the 1981–82 regular season, they began gaining momentum by finishing the campaign on a nine-game unbeaten streak.Rossiter 1994, p. 57. Meanwhile, Smyl emerged as the club's leader, replacing McCarthy as the captain after the latter was sidelined with an injury late in the season (he would retain that position for a team-record eight years). Continuing their success in the playoffs, the Canucks made the Stanley Cup Final with a combined 11–2 record in series against the Calgary Flames, Los Angeles Kings, and Chicago Black Hawks.Media Guide 2008, p. 235. Despite having a losing regular season record, Vancouver had a home-ice advantage in the first series, having finished second in the Smythe Division to the Edmonton Oilers. The Canucks also had a home-ice advantage during the second-round series against the Kings, who upset the Oilers in the first round.
Late in game 2 of the conference finals in Chicago, Vancouver's interim head coach Roger Neilson, frustrated with what he felt was the poor officiating in the game, placed a white towel on the end of a hockey stick and held it up in a gesture mocking surrender (waving the white flag). The players on the Canucks' bench followed suit. When the series shifted to Vancouver for the next two games, the team's fans cheered them on by waving white towels above their heads. The habit stuck, becoming an original Canuck fan tradition now seen across the league and in other sports, known as "Towel Power." The Canucks proceeded to win the series in five games, making it to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in their history.Rossiter 1994, p. 58.
Entering the Stanley Cup Final against the New York Islanders, the Canucks were the first team from Western Canada to play for the Stanley Cup in 56 years, when the Victoria Cougars reached the 1926 Stanley Cup Final. It also marked the first-ever coast-to-coast Stanley Cup Final. Competing against the Islanders—the Stanley Cup champions of the previous two years, who had finished with 41 points more than Vancouver in the regular season standings—Vancouver took the first game to overtime. In the final minute of the extra period, Canucks defenceman and fan favourite Harold Snepsts gave the puck away with an errant pass from behind his net, leading to a Mike Bossy goal. Like the first game, the Canucks held a 3–2 lead after the first two periods in the second game, but were not able to keep their lead, and lost 6–4.Rossiter 1994, p. 61. The Canucks were unable to complete their Cinderella run and were swept, losing their next two games by 3–0 and 3–1 scores. The 1982 playoffs proved to be the last year in which Vancouver won a playoff series until 1992.
Decline (1982–1987)