Welcome back to Blackfish: Our weekly Vancouver Canucks prospect report.

This week saw a rare Abbotsford Canucks victory, thanks to rookie goalie Aku Koskenvuo, who stole the show in his American League debut. Koskenvuo wasn’t the only goalie to prove himself over the week, with Aleksei Medvedev continuing his incredible run of play with the London Knights. A few others in the Ontario Hockey League continue to plug along with production, and a WHL defender returned to action.

Let’s dive right into the good stuff.

The Abbotsford Canucks played four games over the week. After a gruelling 11-game losing skid, Abbotsford finally recorded their third win of the season; their first victory since October 11th, 2025!

Sure, they lost the other three, mostly in lopsided, blowout fashion. But we are looking for silver linings today.

The big story was Koskenvuo’s play in the club’s lone victory. Nikita Tolopilo is close to a return, but not quite ready, leaving the crease to Aku and Ty Young for the time being.

Fresh off his first career professional win at the ECHL level, the young Finn took the ice for his first American League game. In the team’s 4-3 shootout victory, Koskenvuo stopped 33 of 36 shots faced and was named the second star of the game.

Though Koskenvuo’s play was much better than the numbers suggest, he nevertheless allowed four goals on 23 shots in his second AHL start. In the first period alone, he made several key stops to keep his team in a close game. Unfortunately, each goal against was directly caused by glaring defensive lapses by the five-man unit in front of him. A goalie can only bail out his team so many times, especially a team as lacking in talent/skill/aptitude as Abbotsford.

With Jiri Patera up with the main club, Koskenvuo’s debut has made the goalie carousel an interesting one to watch play out as the club returns to full health.

We have said it often, and we will repeat it: it’s very challenging to judge a player’s game when the team is going through so much on-ice turmoil, especially a goaltender’s. When confidence levels appear to be rock-bottom, and team chemistry is nonexistent, it’s difficult to assess what percentage of a goalie’s performance is strictly on the individual.

That said. Ty Young has struggled.

He allowed 12 goals on just 51 shots over the week, and yes, many of those goals stemmed from defensive lapses, but he’s struggled to make routine saves. His rebound control has been a noted flaw in his game throughout the year, and that has directly contributed to goals.

Overall, he’s sporting a dreadful 5.07 goals against average and .835 save percentage to go with his winless 0-6-0-0 record. Nothing with this team is going right, but Young has to be better if he wants to help his team out of their funk.

Up front, Ty Mueller has been finding his offensive legs, contributing a goal and two assists. It’s not much, but it’s better than the lone point that he had on his stat sheet coming into the week.

And when you’re in a funk, these are the kind of goals you want to be scoring.

Four more games off the schedule, and zero points for Danila Klimovich. He’s been demoted to the fourth line, though he’s held his spot on the 2nd power play unit. Nothing is happening at 5-on-5, so the power play is his only real chance to hop off the schneid. After posting a career-high 24 goals in 2024-25, he’s still sitting at zero for the year.

Injuries have helped, but Vilmer Alriksson’s hard work has cemented his place in the team’s top six. He may not have contributed on the scoresheet this week, but he’s been finding his groove and role on this team as a menace at the net front. He’s learning to use his giant frame and is looking increasingly comfortable with his game at the pro level.

Heck, he’s even showing off some silky smooth hands in the shootout that led to the week’s win.

Just don’t look at his plus/minus.

The highlight of the week was truly the return of Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who rode in on a white horse to record a team-high six shots on goal in the club’s dismal 7-0 loss to the San Diego Gulls. Lekkerimäki would notch another three shots on goal, while collecting two points in the team’s 5-2 loss to the Firebirds. Though he didn’t produce in his AHL return, his presence was noted. Lekkerimäki brought a certifiable POP, sticking out like a sore thumb whenever he was on the ice.

He picked up his first goal of the season with his patented quick-release, courtesy of a nice threaded pass from Ben Berard.

While he stood out as a clear tier above the field, we do have to wonder if the team will keep him down a little longer than expected for this conditioning stint. He appeared gassed on many shifts and was noticeably late on several backchecks. Given the state of the organization, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Vancouver recall Lekkerimaki before Abbotsford’s next game.

It was a tough, tough weekend for all in the plus/minus department, especially for those who play heavy minutes. Alriksson and Kudryavtsev were both minus-7 on the week, which was, shockingly, not the worst among those on Abbotsford’s roster sheet.

At this point, you can fairly guess that those who are sporting terrible plus/minus numbers are those who are playing the most for Manny Malhotra. It’s bad. Real bad.

Injuries: Chase Stillman remains out in a walking boot.

What can we say about Aleksei Medvedev that we haven’t already? This kid is proving to be the real deal, and we are putting a stake in the ground early that he will play in the NHL.

With prospects taken in the second round or later, it’s always a gamble to put a “certified NHL player” tab on a prospect just months into his draft-plus-one season. However, Medvedev is just too good. Does playing for the London Knights help his stats? Of course. But the Knights aren’t scoring this year, currently sitting seventh in the Eastern Conference by total goals scored.

He allowed just five goals on 66 shots in a win/loss split last week. Furthermore, he was named a star in each of those games. Whether a win or loss, he’s now earned a star nomination in each of his last three games and four of his previous five starts.

Medvedev now sports a strong 8-3-1 record with a 2.08 goals against and a .926 save percentage.

Gabriel Chiarot added another three points over the week and is now on pace for 64 points, doubling his totals from 2024-25.

Both goals were the result of being in the right place at the right time. With 16 points (nine goals, seven assists), he now co-leads the Brampton Steelheads while leading the forward group in plus-minus with a plus-5.

We say it often, but we enjoy how Chiarot plays the game. Does he carry an overly high NHL ceiling? Probably not. But if you like workhorse spark plugs who create plays by fighting for plays, then he’s your guy. He doesn’t wait for plays to come to him; instead, he gets into the grind and takes matters into his own hands. He’s still a very long-term project, but the way he plays the game screams third-line energy role. Whether that’s in the NHL or AHL remains to be seen.

Playing somewhat of an opposite game to Chiarot is Kieren Dervin, who’s quietly having a solid season in the OHL, showing off his slick hands early and often.

Seven of his 11 assists have come on the power play, but the majority of his goals (two shorthanded, one power play) have come in beautiful fashion. He’s a speedy and creative winger who has a knack for scoring goals in tight. We aren’t convinced about his overall game just yet, but he’s killing penalties and playing heavy minutes.

He continues to lead the charge in Kingston, firing at a point-per-game pace, with 19 points on the year.

It was a tough weekend for the Niagara Ice Dogs, who dropped both of their games over the weekend to extend their losing streak to five games.

Riley Patterson shared the crown with a team-worst minus-4 rating. Though he did add a single goal at the tail end of a 6-2 blowout. His minus-4 rating dropped his impressive season-plus-minus to a plus–5. His tough weekend included a rough outing in the face-off dot, winning just seven of 35 attempts, dropping his face-off win percentage to 46.3%.

On the positive side, he sits second on the IceDogs with 19 points—ten goals, nine assists—16 of which came at even-strength.

Just one assist for the Seattle Thunderbirds’ captain, Braeden Cootes, through his two games this week. With seven shots on goal, it was another week of “probably should have had more,” as the chances continued to pile up, but not go his way.

He’s firing at a 1.50 point-per-game clip right now, and is still on pace for 90 points, which isn’t too shabby for a player who missed the team’s first few weeks of play.

In last week’s report, we noted how Parker Alcos had missed some games after an unconfirmed hand injury. Though he has since returned to the Oil Kings in a sheltered capacity after missing three games.

Wilson Björck added his first goal since returning from injury, taking the beautiful cross-ice pass for the one-timer. He added five shots through two games and saw his second-highest ice-time total with 18:24 on Friday. Boy, did he have his chances.

Over in Michigan State, Anthony Romani took the weekend off from scoring and instead posted a pretty assist. With eyes on the back of his head, he threaded a perfect pass to Ryker Lee for his third assist of the season.

https://twitter.com/davehall1289/status/1989906369231884430

We haven’t touched on the remaining NCAA cast in a few weeks. For the most part, it’s been due to a lack of production and utilization. As you can see from the above, both Daimon Gardner and Matthew Perkins have failed to generate much of anything, and have both dropped down the depth chart of their respective teams’ lineups.

We do like what Matthew Lansing brings to the table; he’s just not getting a ton of ice time over in Quinnipiac. It’s never surprising when a freshman sees bottom-six minutes. All expected from a recent seventh-rounder.

Then we have Aiden Celebrini, who’s actually on pace to eclipse his career-high in points (8). It’s worth noting that the majority of his assists have come either as secondary or easy dishes. But we aren’t too focused or concerned about his point totals. He’s been bouncing up and down the BU lineup this season. He’s oscillated between second-pair deployment, hitting 19 minutes per night, and third-pair minutes, where his ice time has been severely limited.

He leads the Terriers in blocked shots (23) and has been a much more impactful player than we have seen in the past. After three years in the NCAA, however, we’re not convinced he will be an NHL player. We won’t be shocked to see the Canucks keep him within their system, even if it’s on an AHL contract—a la Jackson Kunz—there just might be little-to-no NHL upside.

He’s one of those kids who we are rooting for to put us in our place, though.

That will do it for this week’s Blackfish Report. Please keep the comments going for any player you are curious about seeing more of. We are gearing up for a monthly “player highlight” in the next few instalments, so if there is a player you’d like a bit more breakdown of, please voice your opinion!

Until next week, folks.