Canucks announce Alaska Aces as ECHL Affiliate and Development Camp location

Nothing is happening on the ice, but there is still plenty of news from the Vancouver Canucks.

Earlier today, the Vancouver Canucks announced that the Alaska Aces would be their ECHL affiliate for the upcoming season

This news isn’t surprising as the ECHL only allows one NHL affiliate per franchise, and the Kalamazoo Wings had previously announced that they would be the ECHL affiliate for the Tampa Bay Lightning for the upcoming season. Actually, Kalamazoo was officially the affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets last year, but the Canucks assigned their players there.

Having Alaska as their ECHL affiliate isn’t the greatest situation as the Ace’s travel schedule is brutal with cross continent trips on a weekly basis. They also usually host the same opposition for two or three games in a row. Lastly, it is very far from Utica, so if Utica is in need of reinforcements, they may need to sign PTO’s instead of recalling players from Alaska.

The rule mentioned above about one affiliate per ECHL team isn’t strictly enforced, so some Canucks prospects may get assigned to other ECHL teams throughout the season. We’ll see if this affects some player movement.

Second piece of news this week, was that this year’s development camp will be held again on Vancouver Island at Shawnigan Lake School:

The camp will run from July 4-7, 2016 and the roster will be announced at a later date.