It’s one of my favourite weekends of the year as the youngsters gather in Penticton for some end-of-summer fun at the Young Stars tournament.

The Vancouver Canucks announced their 27-man roster on Tuesday and ahead of Friday’s first game of the tournament, I’ve decided to write my ideal lineup from the Canucks’ Young Stars roster.

We will go through four forward lines, three defence pairing as well as a starter and backup. We will see a rotation of players throughout the weekend but this lineup is how we would position the players if we were looking to ice the best team possible.

There’s an argument to be made for Arshdeep Bains to be on the top line but I’m going with Aidan McDonough and Danila Klimovich as the wingers for the reason of giving Klimovich a chance to show that he can play with top-end skilled AHL players. Gone should be the days of Klimovich playing in the bottom-six of an AHL lineup as he has grown his two-way game enough to be trusted in a top-six position. Let’s see them start him on the top line at Young Stars and let the kid gain some confidence ahead of training camp.

Aatu Räty is a young star to show off at this tournament and he should be surrounded with two triggermen. He has that with McDonough and Klimovich, who also bring some size. Not only will this be a dangerous offensive line. At 6’2″, 6’3″, and 6’2″ — this is a large line for this tournament.

Arshdeep Bains in the top six is a no-brainer. Max Sasson is a lot of the same as he looked strong in his short stint with Abbotsford last season.

I’m putting Josh Bloom on the right wing and trying to get him to just soak up all the knowledge that he can from Bains at this tournament. At development camp, Bloom told CanucksArmy that he thought Bains’ speech to the prospects was great and that it gave him insight on making the jump from being a star in junior to a player who needs to grind for every minute in the AHL.

Skill, tenaciousness and size. That’s what you are getting here with this trio.

Karel Plasek is back in North America and looking to show that he belongs in the AHL. Marc Gatcomb played well in the AHL playoffs and the conclusion of the regular season. You can expect him to make a strong push to be an everyday AHLer next season.

As for Dmitry Zlodeyev, we don’t really know what’s up with him just yet. It’s going to take a conversation with him or Ryan Johnson to get full clarity on Zlodeyev’s situation but if he’s here to earn an AHL job, starting on the third line at centre and being a force on the penalty kill would be a good step in the right direction.

Dalyn Wakely is an invite while Cooper Walker signed an AHL contract for this coming year.

The man to watch on this line is 6’6″ left winger Vilmer Alriksson, who we should see at this tournament for the next three years.

We’d like to see Alriksson get some time on the penalty kill and feel more comfortable about Young Stars and training camp before he returns to the Guelph Storm of the OHL. Getting a chance to participate in Young Stars and Canucks main camp with the Canucks would not have been possible if he stayed in Sweden. It’s another reason why we like his move to the OHL for this coming season.

The pair of NCAA free agent signings of last spring will now be the top pairing for the Canucks at the tournament. Each of these two has NHL experience and they will be looked to eat up some of the more important minutes. We expect to see Cole McWard get some time on the power play while Akito Hirose sees some time on the penalty kill.

McWard should probably be killing penalties as well, as that was something he did with Ohio State last season.

Quinn Schmiemann is looking to make a jump in the AHL this season but there’s more competition in Abbotsford this year on the defence corps. Teaming him up with Filip Johansson on a second pairing will give these guys a chance to build some chemistry and potentially get some time together when the AHL season begins.

We could have put Kirill Kudryavtsev here in Schmiemann’s spot but we like the idea of Scmiemann being the player to go to here after he showed progression throughout the season and did impress at last year’s tournament.

Another standout from last year’s tournament, Chad Nychuk is our third pairing guy here. We hope to see him be a bit stronger after his first pro season and he feels like a nice mix with the two-way defender that Hunter Brzustewicz is.

After a hell of a season in the Allsvenskan league, Nikita Tolopilo is our starter and we hope to see Ty Young get a full game of his own throughout the tournament. That single game will probably come against Edmonton because their roster is weak as hell and you can tell all the boys at Oilersnation that I said that.

Tolopilo is a long and athletic goalie who could similarly burst onto the scene to Arturs Silovs last year. If you remember, in the first game of the Young Stars tournament, Silovs put up a shutout in the Canucks’ opening game of the tournament against AHL goalie of the year Dustin Wolf and the Calgary Flames.

The Canucks’ schedule for the tournament looks like this:
Friday, September 15th at 7:30 pm vs Calgary
Sunday, September 17th at 2:00 pm vs Winnipeg
Monday, September 18th at 1:30 pm vs Edmonton

We will have you covered all the way through the tournament and will bring exclusive interviews to the site as the weekend goes along.

Let me know in the comments which prospect you would like to hear from!