With a giant inflatable coffee cup as a backdrop, the Vancouver Canucks returned to Rogers Arena for a noon hour practice on Sunday. The inflatable was on display as part of a minor hockey tournament that occupied the building for much of the weekend.
While the coffee cup was hard to miss, it was the absences of captain Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko that loomed larger for the hockey club. Hughes is listed as day to day with a new injury not related to the oblique strain that kept him out of six games and the 4 Nations Face-Off recently.
“He tweaked something else so it was more precautionary,” head coach Rick Tocchet said after the 45-minute on ice session. “Kind of a maintenance day, but we’ll see how he is tomorrow and go from there. We have a day off tomorrow and we’ll see if he gets on the ice on Tuesday.”
The other notable absence from practice on Sunday was goalie Thatcher Demko, who left the team’s February 8th game against Toronto with an undisclosed injury. The club had said after the break that Demko would not travel with the team on its five-game road trip that wrapped up last night in Seattle. The hope was that he’d be available for practice up the club’s return from the road. That wasn’t the case on Sunday, but Tocchet believes it shouldn’t be long now before Demko is back with the group.
“He just started skating a few days ago, I don’t know if it’s two or three times he’s been on the ice just to skate so I think he’ll ramp it up,” the coach said. “I don’t know exactly when, but at least he’s skating.”
Without Hughes at practice, the Canucks had a steady rotation of the seven defencemen on the ice. Rookie Elias Pettersson saw shifts with Filip Hronek, however Victor Mancini also slid into Pettersson’s spot at times throughout the drills. 
Up front, the Canucks used the same line combinations that generated three goals in Saturday’s 6-3 loss to the Kraken. With just 10 goals on the five game road trip, offence remains the primary issue for the hockey club.
To that end, Rick Tocchet revealed that the Canucks have considered bringing Jonathan Lekkerimäki up from Abbotsford for a third NHL stint. 
“Yeah, we’ve talked about it, sure, one hundred percent,” Tocchet said. “I know everyone wants to score, but there are a lot of elements to scoring. Lekkerimäki is a guy we’re really trying to teach down there. Yeah, he’s got a great shot, but he also has to get to the inside. He has to be able to play that style of play. So when he comes up here – this will be his third time if he comes up and there’s a good chance he will – hopefully he applies that inside game which he can do. He’s got a hell of a pair of mitts on him.”
The Canucks are home now for four straight and seven of their next eight. They have just one game – Wednesday against Anaheim – before Friday’s NHL trade deadline. 
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