The Abbotsford Canucks season will kick off this Saturday against the Bakersfield Condors, who are, fittingly, the AHL affiliate of the Edmonton Oilers.

The Abby Canucks have been practicing at the Abbotsford Centre for the past week or so and have officially announced their AHL roster, which features some familiar faces and a lot of new ones, too.

The 25-man roster consists of eight Vancouver Canucks draft picks, seven players acquired via AHL free agency, seven players acquired via NHL free agency, and three players acquired by trade.

Abbotsford’s active roster includes eight rookies in Brubacher, Kannok Leipert, Keppen, Klimovich, Nielsen, Plasek, Silovs and Wouters.

Here is the full roster:

Forwards: Vincent Arseneau, Justin Bailey, Phil Di Giuseppe, Sheldon Dries, Carson Focht, Ethan Keppen, Danila Klimovich, Will Lockwood, Jarid Lukosevicius, Tristen Nielsen, Karel Plasek, Sheldon Rempal, John Stevens, Chase Wouters

Defencemen: Madison Bowey, Adam Brubacher, Noah Juulsen, Alex Kannok Leipert, Ashton Sautner, Cameron Schilling, Devante Stephens, Jett Woo

Goaltenders: Michael DiPietro, Spencer Martin, Arturs Silovs

One of the big stories here is that Danila Klimovich remains with the AHL club for now. There was plenty of speculation that he’d be sent to the QMJHL for the season, but at least to start, it appears he’ll get a shot at some AHL games.

Without much debate, Michael DiPietro is the face of this franchise, but it will be interesting to see how many games the Abby Canucks manage to get for prospect goaltender Arturs Silovs, who, like DiPietro, was unable to get many games in last season. In fact, he got just one game in while on loan to the Manitoba Moose.

We (Chris Faber, mostly) will have you covered all season long with wall-to-wall coverage of the Abbotsford Canucks’ inaugural season.

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