Newest Canucks Mikheyev and Kuzmenko greet fans and hit the ice in Vancouver

Some new faces hit the ice in Canucks colours for the first time together yesterday afternoon.

And technically, it wasn’t in Vancouver.

Andrey Kuzmenko, Ilya Mikheyev, along with Collin Delia and Arturs Silovs in net under the watchful eye of Canucks goalie coach Ian Clark, took the ice at Scotia Barn — commonly known as 8 Rinks — in Burnaby on Monday afternoon.

That practice rink Jim Rutherford said the Canucks are planning on building can’t come soon enough.

It’s still the offseason, but players are starting to arrive in Vancouver and begin their preparations for the new season.

Among those are the Canucks’ two newly-signed Russian free agents, who both took to the Canucks’ social media channels to say a quick hello to fans of their new team.

The Canucks also posted a video of Kuzmenko scoring a between-the-legs goal on Silovs during the session.

Kuzmenko was the offseason’s most highly-coveted European free agent and chose to sign with the Canucks after a successful sales pitch from the Canucks hockey ops staff. This included both GM Patrik Allvin and Bruce Boudreau both making multi-hour car trips to meet with Kuzmenko in various places during the offseason.

Kuzmenko, 26, tallied 20 goals and 33 assists through 45 games with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL last season, finishing second overall in league scoring.

Mikheyev, who, like Kuzmenko, is represented by Dan Milstein of Gold Star Sports, inked a four-year deal with the Canucks this past offseason after spending his first three NHL seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Through 146 NHL games, Mikheyev has registered 36 goals and 36 assists.