Honourable mentions from our 2022 Vancouver Canucks top prospects list

Now that we have gone through the top ten prospects in the system, let’s quickly go over who just missed the list.

After not making our most recent top 10 ranking, Joni Jurmo continues to be on the outside looking in.

There’s a ton to like about the athleticism that Jurmo possesses but the problem has been his ability to translate his raw hockey skills into becoming an impact defenceman. Jurmo is an incredible skater who can handle the puck and shows a strong wrist shot as well as a slap shot that has pace and accuracy.

The reason he didn’t crack our top 10 is because of how he can get lost during game-action. He looked like an absolute star during drills at development camp but when you watch his tape in the Finnish Liiga, you see decision-making problems and he can cost his team with his inability to make the correct choices when it comes to passing the puck from his own end.

Hockey sense is not something that can be taught but it is something that can be developed. Jurmo still has our eye and he was just outside of our top 10 list this go around.

Jurmo will be back in Liiga this fall as he will play his second pro season in Finland with Jukurit. He played in 50 games last season and had two goals and eight assists.

We’ve been on a downward trend with Jett Woo for a year or so now.

The good news is that he is still only 21 years old and has a chance to find his footing in the AHL this season under new head coach Jeremy Colliton. Woo battled injuries last season and did show some signs of improvement when it came to his most glaring weaknesses — which were skating and puck-handling.

There were a handful of games early in the season where Woo was playing some of the best hockey we have ever seen from him but his progress was derailed by COVID and an injury that kept him out of the lineup for seven weeks.

Woo will need to continue to improve on his skating to be able to get to the NHL. His physicality was apparent in his rookie season but he seemed to take a bit of a step back or not necessarily make improvements in his sophomore season as a pro.

We need to see a big year in his third pro season to get him back into the top-10 rankings.

From one faller in the rankings to another, Mikey DiPietro misses our top-10 rankings for the first time that I can remember.

The former world junior goalie for Canada had a down season in the AHL that saw his save percentage finish at 0.901% through 34 games and thanks to how things have worked out for DiPietro with the Canucks to this point, his agent has been granted permission to speak with teams to help facilitate a trade.

At 23 years old, we were expecting to see DiPietro make a strong push to be an NHL backup. This hasn’t been able to happen due to the emergence of Spencer Martin as well as the lost year of development during the 2020-21 COVID season.

We’re almost expecting to see DiPietro traded before training camp, and at this point, I’d be happy with a fourth-round pick coming as the return. There is likely still value in a trade for DiPietro as he could have an NHL career ahead of him. A team that is looking for depth at their goaltending position could make a move for him. The Canucks just have a lot of depth in their system with Spencer Martin, Collin Delia, Arturs Silovs, and Aku Koskenvuo, and Ty Young coming in the near future.

It’s too bad that DiPietro didn’t work out here because he is an awesome person to deal with and has a big personality.

We didn’t know much about the Minnesota high schooler before the draft but he definitely drew attention at development camp.

Daimon Gardner sticks out on the ice with his size and skating ability. He is very raw with his talent but there’s an initial baseline of skill that gets you excited to see how he develops over the next few years. The Canucks selected him in the fourth round of the 2022 draft with their 112th overall pick.

Gardner is expected to go play in the USHL this fall and that should give him time to continue building confidence before he makes the jump to the NCAA for the 2023-24 season.

He’s a long way away from being talked about as a pro but we hope that he can develop his hands and shot over the coming years and break into our top-10 rankings.

Coming off a WHL season where he put up 112 points in 68 games, Arshdeep Bains impressed us with his consistency at development camp and should be an immediate impact player in the AHL this fall.

The Canucks could have some found money here with the Surrey-born Bains being a player that they didn’t even need to spend a draft pick on to acquire. Bains skates well, does an excellent job handling the puck, and consistently has a good release on his shot.

We were also impressed with his hockey smarts in the corners and how he is able to use his body to protect the puck and push on defenders to gain space for himself. His next test will be if he can keep up with the pace of the AHL.

We’ve got high expectations for Bains to be an integral piece of the Abbotsford Canucks’ middle-six this season and will be following to see if he begins to shine. If that is the case, he could quickly push into our top-10 rankings.

This wraps up our top-10 Canucks prospect series here at CanucksArmy.

What do you think the rankings should look like? Let us know in the comments!