Hey all, welcome to the newest weekly column to CanucksArmy.

With this new column, I will be giving a weekly wrap-up of some of the stories that caught my eye this week. Some may be big news that we all saw and some may just be tidbits that I learned as the week went on. The idea is just to try and bring attention to some of the things that caught my eye during the week.

Some weeks it may be all about prospects, some weeks may just be about the organization, sometimes it will be a stat that caught my eye and who knows, maybe I’ll talk about food every once in a while.

I’ll be sending out a weekly tweet where I will pick one question/topic and give my opinion on the matter.

The idea somewhat will mirror the Monday Mailbag and hopefully can bring a different vibe to close out the workweek.

So let’s get right into it!

This week we saw another positive COVID-19 test in and around the KHL. It hit close to home as Canucks property, and some would say prospect Nikita Tryamkin saw his coach Bill Peters contract the virus.

This was yet another positive case in the KHL as they are prepping to begin their regular season on September 2nd. These positive tests could affect the development of Canucks top prospect Vasili Podkolzin. Podkolzin was scratched in his preseason game on Thursday, August 20th. There was no news about why he was scratched but to my knowledge, it is not COVID-19 related as he played in a game just one day prior.

There have been a few outbreaks around the KHL early on in preseason action as Spartak Moscow had to suspend their training camp following a run of positive tests during said camp. Amur Khabarovsk has had two positive tests come up while Sibir Novosibirsk had the worst of the three with 11 confirmed positive test.

Many of the European leagues are on track to begin their 2020-21 seasons in September. These positive tests don’t help that cause as teams are currently just training in house and travelling for preseason game yet they are still coming up with tests every week.

Podkolzin is in a very important year of his development and his team is likely going to be one of the best at preventing the spread of the virus. They have more money than any other team in the KHL and they will want to spend that money on keeping their players on the ice and preventing an outbreak for the team.

It’s been a hot start for Podkolzin as he turned heads in some of his early gameplay, making some highlight plays and driving the puck up ice with speed. He looks stronger than he did last season and more ice time should be coming his way once the season does begin.

After two goals from Tyler Motte, a 5-on-5 goal from Jake Virtanen and JT Miller scoring a meat and potatoes style goal — the Canucks took a 3-2 lead in the series against the St. Louis Blues.

This all came in a game where Jacob Markstrom stopped the final 17 shots that he saw. He was excellent in that game. The thing that caught my eye was how good the Canucks forward group was at attempting shots on Jake Allen.

All but one Canucks registered a shot attempt at 5-on-5 on Wednesday night. That one player was Antoine Roussel, who only played 7:46 in the entire game.

The Canucks need this type of effort in their one or potentially two final games of this series. Elias Pettersson had only six 5-on-5 shot attempts in the first four games. He almost matched that in game five when he attempted five shots at even strength.

Shotgun Jake made his mark on game five. He scored a goal from a tough angle but the more impressive thing from Virtanen was what he did on the boards. He set up Miller’s goal that got the Canucks on the board by drawing two defenders to him before making a good pass to Miller.

Virtanen was trusted by Travis Green in the third period as Green went with just nine forwards for the final 15 minutes of the game. Sitting Brandon Sutter in favour of Virtanen who has found himself glues to the pine late in games throughout his whole career.

The coach must have liked something in Virtanen’s game to give him that big of an assignment in a one-goal game. The analytics community was feeling the same way when they saw that Virtanen led the Canucks in Corsi for percentage on Wednesday night.

So yes, those who were dumping on Virtanen had to eat crow for a night. The thing is that many of us know Virtanen has this in him, the problem is how often he shows it. He can be a streaky player when it comes to how effective he is and the Canucks should hope that he’s just getting started on a streak instead of having on flash in the pan game.

The fan vote resulted in Markstrom being selected as the team’s MVP. Some disagree and believe that it was actually Pettersson, Miller or Quinn Hughes who deserved to be the team’s MVP. Throughout these playoffs, Markstrom has quietly been the team’s best player.

The top-end players line Pettersson, Miller and Hughes have been excellent on the powerplay while captain Bo Horvat has looked good in many different facets of the ice.

Above all of those players’ performances stand Jacob Markstrom’s consistency.

Markstrom has been the Canucks best player at 5-on-5 this series. He has a save percentage of 0.946% over five games at 5-on-5. He is the only goaltender in the NHL playoffs to face over 30 high danger shots and has allowed less than 10 goals.

Markstrom is also the only goalie in the top five for expected goals against who has not been eliminated from the playoffs. He has been facing near the top of the league for shots against at 5-on-5 and has held up much better than the other goalies who have been under fire as much as him. Those four have also been eliminated from the playoffs.

He is quietly coming out every night and dominating at 5-on-5. There’s a strong argument to be made that the Canucks currently have the best goaltender situation in the Western Conference.

Alright, we will close out the Friday round-up with a question from Twitter.

I think there is a chance of both Brogan Rafferty and Jack Rathbone making the team next season. It’s so hard to think about right now as we don’t know when that season will begin and which bodies will be re-signed to this team.

As for Rathbone, he is very strong at moving the puck. A lot of the hype around Olli Juolevi will quickly shift to Rathbone hype once we see these two compete in camp. Rathbone has a decent shot that finds it’s way on net often. The only question will be who does Green want to give a shot on the left side. With Alex Edler, Quinn Hughes and Jordie Benn under contract next season — the left shot man who can be a serviceable seventh defenceman could make this team out of camp.

To that degree, you could see them push Benn out of a spot if his play were to drop or he was to be a right side defenceman in 2020-21.

That’s where Rafferty comes into play.

I believe Rafferty is the most polished NHL-ready prospect out of the two. Rafferty is coming off of an All-Star AHL season and that is about as close as you can get to NHL hockey.

The jump from NCAA to the NHL is massive. Guys are bigger, faster, stronger but also older and that youthful exuberance may be the thing that Rathbone can use to his advantage.

Both are talented and with Benn being comfortable on either side — Green will be watching the battle between these two players throughout training camp. Juolevi’s name should be thrown in the mix too.

The Canucks will likely have to say goodbye to one of Troy Stecher or Chris Tanev and that open up the right side on the third pairing. Benn could slide there to open the door for Rathbone or Juolevi but I think we will see all three during the season.

My money would be on Rafferty but I’m all for being wrong if Rathbone is able to play his way onto the opening night roster through a strong training camp.

I hope you enjoyed volume one of my Friday Round-Up. We will try and knock one of these out every week!