July 4, 2022 by Kristian Hahn

Brock Boeser. He’s back ladies and gents.

After some had him leaving this off-season via trade to get “younger and faster”, The Brock Star re-upped with the Canucks before the relationship had the chance to become awkward at arbitration.

Management and Boeser found common ground and the young winger signed a 3 year bridge contract that will walk him right to unrestricted free agency in 2025/26. There is a mutual feeling between the club and player that they can make this work for both of them. For Brock, it’s the security of another 3 years in Vancouver, and trying to build on what he started as a rookie when he was runner up to Matt Barzal in the race for the Calder. For the Canucks, it’s taking a gamble on your young sniper in the short term to see if he can regain his form of who he showed to be when he entered the league.

Brock’s health has been an issue every season so far, and he’s not the fleetest of foot, but there is one thing that he has done pretty consistently since he broke into the NHL:

Score goals

Brock has had four 20 goal seasons in his first 5 years in the league. He was one shy of 30 in his rookie year, and has had at least 25 goals twice. Simply put, the kid can snipe.

 He has the highest career goals per game on the team by anyone not named Elias Pettersson, and is ahead of players like Evander Kane, Johnny Gaudreau, and Chris Kreider for those career numbers.

The aforementioned Kreider is an apt comparison to young Prince Charming.

Kreider was a goal scorer coming out of Boston College and often injured in his young NHL career. For someone who has hit the 20 goal mark 6 times in his career, he scored 52 in the 2021/22 season and absolutely smashed his career high of 28 goals (twice). He was drafted by the Rangers, and is still a Ranger today in his 9th season. Kreider has been the healthiest he’s ever been for a season in his career, only missing one game this past season due to injury.

This is what makes goal scorers so hard to get rid of. You just never know when they’re about to pop off for a career year.

Brock hit his games in a season record last year with 71, but was undoubtedly dealing with much more in life off the ice. This is Brock’s chance to really show he belongs in this league as a top end goal scoring talent. Getting the chance to line up with Elias Pettersson and Vasily Podkolzin this coming season should only continue to build on the chemistry of what was a very tantalizing trio at the end of last season.

With Andrei Kuzmenko presumably getting a chance to play the net front on the top powerplay unit, this leaves Brock with the opportunity to go back to his bread and butter on the half wall. This is where he should be, this is where he scores from.

If Boeser can stay healthy, and stick on Petey’s side, there’s no way you should expect anything less than him finally breaking that 30 goal plateau. There’s no reason to think, with his offensive abilities, that he won’t be able to hit 75, maybe even 80 points. This can be the Brock Boeser that Vancouver hoped they drafted.

Bold Prediction for the 2022/23 season:
33 goals, 44 assists , 77 points