Olli Juolevi and the 23 man roster

The Canucks placed Andrey Pedan on waivers earlier today while assigning Jayson Megna, Michael Chaput, and Richard Bachman to Utica. By doing so, the Canucks got closer to their 23 man requirement for the opening day roster on Tuesday. They should only have to make one more cut to get down to the required number, as long as the Olli Juolevi situation is figured out by then.

At this moment, it appears the Canucks are trying to get the young defenceman to leave the London Knights of the OHL and play the upcoming season somewhere overseas. Rumours suggest that is TPS Turku in the Finland where fellow Canucks prospect Petrus Palmu plays and one of the assistant coaches is Sami Salo.

The move makes sense as it allows Juolevi to play against men in a professional setting for the season while still being able to represent Finland at the upcoming World Juniors.

The problem is the CHL/NHL transfer agreement.

Unfortunately, that agreement is not publicly available, so the details of it can be hard to nail down. But the most important part is that Juolevi should be headed back to London as he was drafted by the Canucks when he was a member there. If the Canucks want to have their young Finnish prospect play somewhere else, the Knights have to agree to the move. This is probably part of the reason why it hasn’t been completed quite yet.

Furthermore, if the Canucks assign Juolevi to London now, he goes there for the season. From what I understand, and once again we can’t confirm due to not have access to the CHL/NHL agreement, if Juolevi is assigned to London Knights, he is there for the year. This is why the organization hasn’t assigned him back to the OHL as they work out a way to get him overseas.

How that affects the Canucks twenty-three man roster is where it gets a little complicated. Since the team can’t send Juolevi to the AHL because of the aforementioned agreement, he has to remain with the Canucks or go back to the OHL. All reports suggest that they are trying to work out a deal to get him overseas, they can’t send him back to the OHL. So, he’s on the NHL roster and counts towards the 23 player limit that has to be set at 5PM ET tomorrow.

It is worth adding that Juolevi’s contract does not count towards the 50 contract limit for this season unless he appears in 10 NHL games. Juolevi’s entry-level contract will also slide to 2018-19, if he doesn’t dress for those 10 NHL games this year.

This is all to say that it may mean that Darren Archibald isn’t signed to a contract until later in the week, if at all. Or someone like Jake Virtanen, who doesn’t require waivers, will be sent to Utica for a short period of time to buy more time to get the Juolevi situation resolved. At this moment, the Canucks have 25 healthy players, so regardless, something has to give somewhere.

It’s likely that the Canucks, London, and Juolevi are able to work out an arrangement for him to play overseas prior to tomorrow’s deadline. But if they are unable to do so, there could be a trickle-down effect. Luckily the Canucks don’t actually start their season until Saturday night, so there likely won’t be any issues other than some paperwork.

**Update**

It appears that Juolevi is heading to TPS and should be loaned there prior to the 5PM deadline tomorrow. So the above isn’t impactful but it’s always good to explore how these things can affect other players and transactions.