Canucks Cut Day

The Vancouver Canucks announced their biggest set of cuts since the start of main training camp, as they assigned 10 players to the Manitoba Moose. 

What is surprising about their list of cuts is not who’s on the list, but rather who’s not on the list.

Today, the Vancouver Canucks announced the reaasignment of 9 players to Manitoba and the release of 1 player to Manitoba. Those players were:

Defensemen Nolan Baumgartner, Kevin Connauton, Evan Oberg, Chris Tanev and Sean Zimmerman, along with forwards Mario Bliznak, Prab Rai,Jordan Schroeder, and Aaron Volpatti were all reassigned to the Moose. Defenseman Travis Ramsey was released to the Moose.

I’m sure some Canucks fans will be somewhat disheartened to see Jordan Schroeder sent down to the AHL, but he didn’t appear to take a significant leap forward in progress with his game. While he looked good at times, Schroeder was not overly impressive for large stretches.

What’s more surprising is the fact that PTO signee Peter Schaefer was not among today’s cuts. From what I have seen of Schaefer in the pre-season, I have not been impressed. Not that Schaefer has been terrible, but he hasn’t wowed me with any of his play, either with physical play or skill play. The Canucks obviously saw enough out of him in these last few games that they wanted to keep him around for a little while longer. Although I think he’s going to be hard-pressed to make the opening day roster.

Another former Canuck and PTO signee that has impressed has been Brendan Morrison, who also survived today’s cut. Morrison has looked solid in a number of different roles that he’s played this pre-season. He’s had good hands, speed and tenacity and that’s seems to be a winning combination in this system.

Along with Schaefer and Morrison, others that made it through to fight another day are Sergei Shirokov, brothers Lee and Billy Sweatt and Joel Perreault. The fight now now seems to be for the 2nd line spot with Alex Burrows absense, as well as the bottom 4 spots. The defense spots appear to be locked in, with Lee Sweatt here to take up some pre-season playing time until the regular season starts. I am not convinced that the Hordichuk or Rypien have a spot at all. In fact I would be very surprised if both of them are still around on October 9th. 

The remaining players have 3 more pre-season games to impress Canucks brass and coaching staff enough to earn their spot on the roster. The final cuts and releases would likely happen this Saturday, as the Canucks would pare down the roster to their expected opening day line-up.

The players have 6 days to impress those that matter. Who’s going to have the jump in their game to step up and make the team?