A full recap of day two at Canucks training camp

Day two of Canucks training camp was a busy one from start to finish.

There were some storylines that continued on, a few that took a different path and a big signing to conclude the festivities on day two.

Before we get too far into it, let’s have a look at how the lines shook down on day three.

For the second consecutive day of camp, we did not see Micheal Ferland on the ice with either group. His absence is noted but nor surprising as he hasn’t played hockey since February 14th when he couldn’t make it out of the first period of an AHL game.

This will be an ongoing story to keep an eye on as camp goes on.

Even with rumours swirling around Brock Boeser’s future, he has put his head down and gone to work so far through the first two days of training camp.

None of the players have really found their shot yet and Boeser is one of them who still needs to work on the timing and getting used to being back on the ice when it comes to shooting.

The thing that is nice to see is the effort that he is giving on every single drill.

Boeser is currently on a line with Bo Horvat and Tanner Pearson in camp, and has been looking good on the Horvat line. That line has been skating with real nice pace and effort.

I wrote about it being a bit of a shock that Jalen Chatfield was with the main group over Brogan Rafferty at day one of camp. Travis Green talked about the eighth defenceman spot being somewhat up for grabs between a few players. We may end up seeing Ashton Sautner on day three or Green may go back to Jalen Chatfield due to Green’s love for using defenders on their strong side.

Rafferty looked ok today, he made a few bad passes under pressure but so did almost everyone else on the ice. He was relatively quiet throughout the day but it was good to see him get a chance with the main group as he is the most NHL ready defenceman that was called up from Utica.

One of the worst parts of the first training camp of this season back in September was when Olli Juolevi looked several steps behind his teammates and couldn’t even participate in certain stretches with the team.

Training Camp 2.0 has brought what looks like to be a Juolevi 2.0 as the time off has given him the necessary amount to recover and manage whatever injuries he had.

I kept a close eye on Juolevi this past fall, and he was looking rough. He couldn’t push hard off of his knee which made fans concerned about what the upcoming season had in store for Juolevi.

Right now, his skating looks better than I’ve ever seen from him before.

Juolevi looked good defending in drills today with the second group. He was strong against the forward group that included Kole Lind, Tyler Graovac and Justin Bailey.

The final news of the day was definitely the biggest as the Canucks hit the JACKpot when they signed defenceman Jack Rathbone.

There were a lot of people (including me) that thought it was going to be difficult for the Canucks to sign their top defensive prospect. But just as day two of training camp was winding down, the Canucks dropped the big news on their social media.

This story is big enough that we will have a separate article coming soon, analyzing Rathbone’s game.

See you all for day three of training camp on Wednesday! Follow along with David Quadrelli and myself (Chris Faber) for instant updates.