Buy or sell: The Vancouver Canucks

The most surprising team in the NHL .... but are they for real?

Hello and Happy Sunday. Here is what is ahead today.

• The Vancouver Canucks are one of the NHL’s most surprising teams, but is their early success for real or simply a mirage?

There might not be a bigger surprise in the NHL this season than the Vancouver Canucks. Even with Saturday’s loss to Seattle — their second in a row — they still have one of the league’s best records (12-5-1) and have at least put themselves in a position where they have banked some points and a nice cushion in the Western Conference playoff race.

Historically speaking teams that get off to this good of a start tend to at least make the playoffs.

Over the previous 20 years there were 83 teams that won at least 12 of their first 18 games, and 76 of them (91.5 percent) went on to make the playoffs, while 10 of them ended up reaching the Stanley Cup Final in that season. Six of them ended up winning the Stanley Cup.

I do not expect Vancouver to be a Stanley Cup team, but given the start and the cushion they have given themselves the playoffs should at least be a realistic goal at this point.

The question is whether or not this early season success is a sign of things to come, or if it is just an early season mirage.

Let’s dig into it.