6 minor Canucks news items: NHL targeting January 13th start, Lapierre retires, Höglander’s hands, and more

Photo credit:© Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

3 years ago

Somehow, someway, this is becoming a sporadic column on this site. In an incredibly drawn out offseason starved for news, there seems to be ample amounts of minor news items. These are the news items that aren’t big enough on their own to warrant entire articles, but instead, is something I make a note of until there’s more than four to report on.

Then you get this as a result! Here are six news items you may have missed this week.

Max Lapierre announces retirement

Did you know that Maxim Lapierre — who was a prominent member of the 2011 Stanley Cup run — was still playing professional hockey?

Lapierre spent the last six seasons overseas playing in the top Swiss league, the DEL, and the SEL. Coming off a season with the Berlin Polar Bears in which he scored 11 goals and added 23 assists, Lapierre announced his retirement from pro hockey on Sunday afternoon.

Lapierre was a true agitator on the ice and his antics during the 2011 season certainly will not be forgotten for quite some time.

He also won a bronze medal for Canada at the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang, so there’s that.

Canucks’ ECHL affiliate suspends 2020-21 season

Over the weekend, the Kalamazoo Wings, the ECHL affiliate of the Canucks, announced that they are not going to be participating in the 2020-21 ECHL season. The team said the following in a statement:

Joining 10 other teams, the Kalamazoo Wings elected to opt-out of the 2020-21 season for safety reasons due to the pandemic.
The Kalamazoo Wings, proud ECHL affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks, announced today the team is opting out of the 2020-21 season in conjunction with the league’s COVID-19 Voluntary Suspension Policy.
Following similar announcements from Atlanta, Norfolk and all six North Division teams within the last two months, the K-Wings voted to suspend operations for the season, joined today by the Cincinnati Cyclones and Idaho Steelheads. That brings the total number of ECHL teams opting out to ten so far.
“After several months of planning, monitoring public health guidelines, and agreeing on an initial return-to-play date, this was an extremely difficult decision to make,” said K-Wings Governor and Director of Business Operations Toni Will. “Our top priority has always been the health and safety of our fans, players, coaches and staff at Wings Event Center, and we determined it was in the best interest of our hockey community to sit out this season. We will immediately start planning for the 2021-22 season.”
Kalamazoo and several other teams initially agreed to the ECHL’s return-to-play plan that involved a split schedule. Half of the league’s teams still plan to drop the puck this Friday. Most of the teams who initially opted for a Jan. 15, 2021 start date, including the K-Wings, have since elected to sit out the season.
“Today is a difficult day for all of us in the K-Wings organization, including our players, coaches, and front office staff members” said Head Coach Nick Bootland. “With the roster we put together, we were excited about our team’s chances to compete for a Kelly Cup this season. Now we’ll focus on building for 2021-22 and can’t wait to see our great fans in the stands again when it is safe to return.”
Under the terms of the ECHL/PHPA Collective Bargaining Agreement, players from the Kalamazoo Wings are free agents for the 2020-21 season, effective immediately.

Honestly, this doesn’t really affect the Canucks a whole lot, but Kalamazoo is still their ECHL affiliate, which is exactly why this is considered a minor news item.

Door opens for Arvid Costmar and Viktor Persson

This one could be considered big enough on its own, but it appears as though Canucks prospect Arvid Costmar is going to have a real shot at becoming Team Sweden’s first line center at this year’s World Junior Championship.

Additionally, fans should be optimistic about Viktor Persson’s chances of making the team, as yesterday, Sweden announced that three of their players tested positive for COVID-19 and have left training camp, opening the door for Costmar and Persson to fill out Sweden’s lineup.

The players who tested positive were William Wallinder (D), Karl Henriksson (C), and William Eklund (C).

These players may return in time for the WJC, but nothing is guaranteed. Regardless, Costmar is going to be a big part of Sweden’s team this year, and Canucks fans will be looking forward to watching him play at the tournament this year.

CanucksArmy reached out to Persson and we can confirm that he has tested negative for the virus.

Höglander shows off his sweet hands and confidence

If this ended in a goal, it would absolutely be all over every highlight reel and Canucks site in the city.

It was said when he was drafted the Nils Höglander had the best hands of anybody in his draft class. Fans who have been following along with Faber’s coverage know this to be true, but in case you missed the memo, look at the stickhandling ability and quickness on full display in the clip above.

Can this kid push for a spot out of camp? He sure seems to have a great level of confidence in his abilities.

League targeting January 13th start date

On the same day where I wrote 300+ words in a mailbag about how February 1st seemed like a more realistic start date for the NHL season than January 15th, Darren Dreger dropped these bombs:

This is very good news. The owners wanted to renegotiate the escrow and salary deferral terms outlined in the MOU they signed just this past summer. This didn’t sit well with the players and that’s what was really holding things up.

Now that that’s reportedly behind them, the two sides can really start to talk logistics and we could realistically be looking at training camps starting in early January. I’m still skeptical about the start date being any sooner than January 15th, but hey, the sooner the better!

Troy Stecher practices with the team a la George Costanza

The news here is that former Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher practiced with some of his former Canucks teammates. This included Elias Pettersson, Alex Edler, Braeden Holtby, Thatcher Demko, Tyler Myers, and Zack MacEwen.

You’ll notice there are some players from other NHL clubs in the photo above, but they’re all wearing their team’s gear, while Stecher is still fully decked out in Canucks gear.

Detroit better send him some gear quick, because this is getting quite funny and reminding me of a certain Seinfeld episode:

Failed to load video.

Obviously, Stecher lives in Vancouver and likely isn’t going to be spending his summers in Detroit as opposed to his hometown, so this isn’t really out of the ordinary. Is it hilarious? Absolutely.

There you have it folks, you’re all caught up on everything Canucks! Let’s hope we get some hockey soon.

Uncategorized