One of the Vancouver Canucks’ top prospects will debut with the NHL team on Thursday night.

20-year-old forward Aatu Räty will wear number 27 and play left-wing on the Canucks’ third line.

The youngster has not had a good start with the Abbotsford Canucks in the AHL and has struggled to produce any offence — only having one assist through eight AHL games with the Abbotsford Canucks. Räty told CanucksArmy, “I’ve been playing horrible,” on Monday after a 7-2 loss at the hands of the San Jose Barracuda.

It’s clear that he has some very talented offensive skills but pace looked to be the thing that was slowing him down in the AHL — pun intended.

After playing centre through his stint with Abbotsford, it looks like he will be on the wing to begin his Vancouver Canucks career. Sheldon Dries will centre the line and Vasily Podkolzin will play opposite Räty.

The Blues have been reeling, over their past 11 games, they have a 3-8-0 record and are 0-3-0 since trading Ryan O’Reilly to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Blues have given up an average of 4.3 goals against a game over their 11-game slide and have only averaged 2.7 goals scored.

Projected forward lines, per sources in St. Louis:

Projected defence pairings:

It sounds like Arturs Silovs will make the third start of his young NHL career.

We also believe that Guillaume Brisebois will come into the lineup and Riley Stillman will be the odd man out.

Rick Tocchet got some work in with Vasily Podkolzin ahead of Canucks practice:

 

Rick Tocchet talked about Aatu Räty, who will play his 13th NHL game tonight when he makes his Canucks debut.

“He’s played some games for the Islanders,” said Tocchet. “Really conscientious guy, 200-foot kind of centre and also versatile to play the wing, excited to see his development. He’s still a young guy, he played in the World Juniors a while ago. He’s a young kid that we’re going to develop here.”

Tocchet also talked about getting eyes on more guys from the AHL down the stretch to get a read on players for next season.

“I hate to say it but this is kind of like an extended training camp, we’re starting early,” said Tocchet. “There’s still some system stuff guys are trying to understand. We’re chipping away at certain things. We still have to get better at certain things, we have to be a better practice team… We’re chipping away, I have liked a lot of positives that have happened the last 10-11 games, but I think in-house competition drives that.”

Tonight’s game is scheduled for a 5:00 pm puck drop. As we mentioned earlier, Arturs Silovs is your projected starter for the Canucks.

Keep it locked on CanucksArmy for the instant reaction article, The Stanchies, and the Statsies tomorrow morning.