Canucks: Why Ian Cole signed in Vancouver

VANCOUVER, BC – When you’ve been a defender in the NHL for 14 years, you get a sense of who is a challenging attacker.

Your job, after all, is to stop the guys who are trying to score.

Ian Cole has a good sense of what made the Vancouver Canucks tick offensively, both from playing against the likes of Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller and Quinn Hughes, and from his teammates with top-end offensive talent.

Cole’s career resume is astounding when adding up the future hall of famers he’s counted as teammates, starting with this past season in Tampa Bay with Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman. Or Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar before that in Colorado.