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

We’re still working through the dog days of summer, but inching closer to the regular season with each passing week. We’re on the cusp of action, with preseason and training camps just around the corner. But for now, we’ll stick to summer topics.

Today, we focus on the Abbotsford Canucks and identify one question we have with each young skater heading into the 2026-27 season.

To start, we bring you the prospect with perhaps the biggest questions of all.

There’s not a single reader here who doesn’t share the same question about Jonathan Lekkerimäki: is he healthy, and can he finally take that next step?

After being shut down late last season, it was another year cut short by health concerns for the young Swede. The setbacks have continued to pile up, and it’s no revelation that the young sharpshooter needs to add strength if he’s going to establish himself at the NHL level. But after his summer was compromised a year ago, the biggest question is whether his 2026 offseason has finally given him the uninterrupted runway he desperately needed. Did he recover in time to follow a dedicated regimen early enough to make those needed developments?

It’s not a do-or-die season for Lekkerimäki, per se, but boy, does he need to start taking steps toward establishing himself within Vancouver’s day-to-day NHL picture.

Speaking of health, fellow Swede Vilmer Alriksson enters September with a similar question hanging over him. While the numbers may not necessarily suggest it, the towering rookie took some encouraging steps during the second half of the 2025-26 season. Injuries throughout the Abbotsford lineup certainly helped create the opportunity, but Alriksson eventually earned top-six minutes and some time on the power play.

Unfortunately, just as things were beginning to click, an upper-body injury left him in a sling and ended his season. So, first and foremost is whether he’s healthy. Beyond that, can he pick up where he left off and continue evolving his game toward becoming a legitimate producer at the professional level?

Then there’s Braeden Cootes. Has he developed enough to legitimately challenge for a spot in Vancouver?

According to a recent video circulating on social media, he’s been (well, duh) putting in the individual work this summer. But has he done enough for the organization to justify throwing him directly into the deep end? Summer regimens are great for building individual skills, but they can never truly replicate game action. Especially that of the NHL calibre.

As we’ve said before, we firmly believe Abbotsford is the best place for him right now. But that opinion depends entirely on what Cootes shows this September, and his three-game NHL stint last season should help. He’s had a taste of the pace, strength and detail required to play at that level. Now we get to find out how much he took from that experience — and how much work he put in afterward.

Ty Mueller presents a slightly different question: can he push his way into the conversation for Vancouver’s fourth-line centre job? Unlike Cootes, who we hope to see in a higher role if he is to make it, Mueller is just fine skating in a bottom role.

But based on how the roster is currently constructed, that’s probably not in the cards right out of camp. But health is a whole other side of the equation, and this feels like the season where we should start seeing Mueller’s name appear much more frequently on the transaction wire. We know what his game is at this point. He’s responsible, versatile and capable of playing the type of low-maintenance game that can translate into a bottom-six role. Now it becomes a matter of opportunity, timing and whether he can grab hold of one when it arrives.

The same can likely be said for Kirill Kudryavtsev, as the current depth chart has him very much on the outside looking in. But like Mueller, this feels like the year where we start seeing his name much more often in NHL recall situations. For two straight seasons, he has established himself as a reliable workhorse on Abbotsford’s backend. There isn’t much flash to his game, nor does there need to be. His no-nonsense approach and overall reliability have continued to push him up the organizational depth chart.

At this point, an NHL opportunity feels more like a matter of when than if.

Believe it or not, we don’t necessarily feel the same way about Sawyer Mynio — at least not yet. Don’t get us wrong, his rookie season was excellent and the amount of responsibility thrown onto him during his first professional season would have overwhelmed plenty of young defenders. Instead, he remained poised and impressive throughout the year and laid a tremendous foundation.

For him, our biggest September question is whether he’s added enough strength to take the next step in his game. You could see that foundation being built throughout last season. Now, we want to see whether he can begin adding another layer offensively. With players such as Kudryavtsev and Jack Thompson potentially spending time elsewhere, could Mynio be the next player asked to take on increased offensive responsibility and power play minutes?

Riley Patterson, meanwhile, may have already provided an early answer to one of our biggest questions. Judging by what we’ve seen from his offseason appearances on Vancouver’s social media channels, Patterson appears to have attacked the gym and added some much-needed bulk. Needless to say, we’ll be very interested to see where he weighs in when training camp rolls around.

But the bigger question is what he does with it. He gave us some intriguing flashes during his short stint at the end of last season. Now comes the difficult part: adjusting to a faster professional pace, finding consistency and handling the grind of a full pro schedule.

Finally, we’re going to cheat a little and throw Gabe Chiarot into the mix, because our biggest question surrounding him is a simple one: where does he actually play this fall?

We’ve interviewed Chiarot a few times and asked some version of the million-dollar question, but were unable to receive any concrete confirmation. Fair enough. But September should finally provide that answer and training camp will naturally clear up plenty. From where we sit today, we envision Chiarot making the jump and joining the Abbotsford Canucks as a rookie this season. And if that is indeed where he lands, he immediately becomes another fascinating name to follow in what should be an incredibly young and competitive Abbotsford lineup.

Stay tuned next week, where we cover the remaining crop of youngsters outside of the American League circuit. We will also have a few games to talk about, with Dmitri Ivchenko and Basile Sansonnens’ squads taking reps in some preseason action.

Until next week, folks.