Canucks blackout four black aces as team finalizes its postseason roster

The Canucks made cuts to their training camp roster on Sunday and some of the cuts were surprises.

It was reported by former CanucksArmy managing editor Thomas Drance that the Canucks had made their final decisions on who to bring to Edmonton’s bubble.

The team travelled to Edmonton on Sunday morning. They were wearing team coloured golf shirts and dark pants, because everyone cares about what they are wearing for some reason.

There were a few surprises once we saw who the Canucks elected to cut.

Jim Benning’s favourite third round pick Guillaume Brisebois was left off the roster and it came as a bit of surprise as he appeared in eight games with the Canucks in the 2018-19 season.

The bigger shock for me was Ashton Sautner not making the team.

Sautner was one of the Utica Comets most used defenceman this season. Trent Cull played the wheels off of him and Sautner can also play the right side as a left-shot defenceman. Sautner has more NHL experience than all of the other black ace defenceman as he has played in 23 games over the past three seasons.

Jalen Chatfield and Olli Juolevi made the cut to be one of the top 10 defencemen. Neither of those two players have played in an NHL game.

Brogan Rafferty also made the cut and he has only participated in two games late in the 2018-19 season after he signed out of the NCAA. Rafferty was an AHL all-star and was second in defencemen scoring for the 2019-20 AHL season. It’s no surprise that he made the final cut but after a quiet camp, it did have me wondering if coach Green would have decided to go with the more veteran Sautner.

Mikey DiPietro and Kole Lind were the goaltender and forward that didn’t make the cut.

This came as no surprise as Louis Domingue will be an adequate third goalie and DiPietro is still a ways away from being an NHL calibre goalie.

This camp was great for the development of the organization’s young prospects. Lind was a late addition to camp but shone bright in a few scrimmages and definitely caught the eye of the coaching staff. Travis Green mentioned on Saturday that he was impressed by young players like Juolevi and Lind.

The biggest shocker to make the cut has to be Juolevi.

Coming into the camp I would have had Juolevi at the bottom of the depth chart for left-shot defenceman. Right now he looks to be the top Utica Comet defenceman on the depth chart.

Juolevi had a tremendous camp, he looked healthy and was skating with some real power behind his strides. He looks healthy and strong. We might see Olli Juolevi make his NHL debut in a playoff situation.

That would be one hell of a story for the 22-year-old Finnish prospect, who has battled through a lot to get to this point.

The Canucks are now inside the NHL bubble and will take on the Winnipeg Jets in their one and only exhibition game before facing the Minnesota Wild in game one of their play-in series on Sunday night.