Pre-Scout: Canucks reeling in one of their franchise’s worst losing skids

Let me steal a lede for this Vancouver Canucks story. To quote our sister site at CanucksArmy, writer Michael Liu’s words: “Adam Foote is a hockey terrorist and the product on the ice is absolutely horrid.”

Of course, every team has won a game in the calendar year of 2026. Right? (Natalie Portman Star Wars meme). Nope.

If there’s any time for the Edmonton Oilers to see the Canucks – it’s right now.

The Canucks are in a sorry state, having just travelled east and lost all six games on the roadtrip in regulation by a combined score of 31-9, extending their winless skid to nine games.

There have been zero wins in 2026 for the Canucks, and the pressure is on with the Oilers in town. Their last win was on Dec. 29 over the Seattle Kraken. Their last regulation victory 10 days before that. One victory in their last fourteen games.

You get the idea. With every subsequent fact about the 32nd-place team – by a six-point cushion, to boot – you just roll your eyes as an Oiler fan.

The Oilers couldn’t possibly, wouldn’t be silly enough to play down to their competition, right?

Well…

The rebuild is on

It wasn’t always like this. In fact, in the aftermath of the seismic Quinn Hughes trade, Vancouver won four in a row. General manager Patrik Allvin was touting slogans like “hybrid retool” and the usual non-acknowledgments out of this market.

That has quickly changed.

President Jim Rutherford came out this week and said this team is open for business, publicly........

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