The Vancouver Canucks have reassigned forward Jonathan Lekkerimäki to the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks. General manager Patrik Allvin made the announcement Tuesday morning.

Lekkerimäki did not suit up in the Canucks’ last game against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday, as Nils Höglander made his return to the lineup.

“Höggy’s going to go in tonight for [Lekkerimäki],” head coach Rick Tocchet said ahead of that game. “You know, I’d rather not take [Lekkerimäki] out, but Höggy’s ready to go, so I’m anxious to see how he plays.”

Höglander scored in his return to the lineup, picking up right where he left off before leaving with his injury.

For Lekkerimäki, he heads back to the red-hot Abbotsford Canucks, who have won 13 straight games despite a good chunk of their regular contributors currently up playing with the NHL club.

Lekkerimäki is notably two games away from losing his eligibility for the Calder Trophy next season

The Canucks selected Lekkerimäki with the 15th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft. After an injury-plagued down year in his D+1 season, Lekkerimäki put together a solid 2023-24 season in the SHL, scoring 19 goals and adding 12 assists through 46 regular season games. He signed his ELC and appeared in 6 games with Abbotsford at the tail end of last year.

This season, Lekkerimäki has managed to score 19 goals in 32 AHL games, great production for a player playing their first year in North America. While he’s certainly shown flashes of brilliance, the scoring hasn’t exactly translated to the NHL level for the 20-year-old just yet. Through 24 games played at the NHL level this season, Lekkerimäki has tallied just three goals and three assists.

He did score this really cool shootout goal against Jacob Markstrom to help the Canucks beat the New Jersey Devils though, and we think that should count for something.

Nonetheless, with Lekkerimäki headed for Abbotsford and just five games remaining for the Canucks on the NHL schedule, it will be interesting to see if this is the last we’ve seen of him at the NHL level until next season.