Welcome back to our summer Blackfish Prospect report.

If you haven’t been keeping up, we’re in the process of our top 20 Canucks prospect rankings here at CanucksArmy. We suggest you take a look if you are interested in a deeper dive into each prospect, as we have covered these youngsters one by one for most of July.

Today, we thought we’d offer a little insight into where these prospects will play this upcoming season. Our focus will be on the prospects who are not Abbotsford mainstays. So, if a name is off our list, you can expect them to return to Abbotsford. These are names such as Arshdeep Bains, Aatu Räty and Jett Woo.

Let’s dive in.

There’s an off chance that Jonathan Lekkerimäki walks onto the Vancouver Canucks’ roster out of training camp. However, the more likely scenario has him starting the season in Abbotsford, where we hope to see him shooting a ton while enjoying top-six minutes and top powerplay duties. Should he put things together quickly and fill the net consistently, a cup of coffee in the NHL could be warranted. We have high expectations for the recently turned 20-year-old.

Elias Pettersson (D) made the trip across the pond last spring and will now officially take on his AHL rookie year. Don’t bet on him being NHL-ready next year, but he could potentially contest for the 2025-26 season. Considering this regime’s willingness to be patient, that timeline could be extended even further.

It was quite the year for Josh Bloom, who saw games in three levels of competition: AHL, ECHL, and OHL. After graduating from junior eligibility, it’s up to him to prove that he belongs at the AHL level. He looked like a rookie on a mission at development camp, so we hope he can take that gained momentum from scoring the Memorial Cup-clinching goal and carve out a steady role in Abbotsford. We do believe that there is a spot in Abby for him, but there is a world where he sees top-nine deployment down in Kalamazoo to kick off the year.

Ty Mueller has signed his professional papers and will compete with Josh Bloom and the rest of the Abby youngsters for a spot at the AHL level. Given the talent already on the roster, it’s no guarantee that he sees time out the gate and may have to start in Kalamazoo. We’ve liked his game at the NCAA level, but now the jump to pro hockey is a whole new ball game. Some of this will boil down to whether he plays up the middle or on the wing. On the left side, Abby will have Bloom, Ty Glover and Carsen Twarynski (AHL contract) all competing for minutes. Meanwhile, the centre position appears full and well-spoken with Max Sasson, Aatu Räty/Tristen Nielsen (both can play the wing), Nathan Smith, John Stevens, and Chase Wouters (AHL contract).

For those who don’t know, Dmitri Zlodeev has left the Abbotsford Canucks and signed with Avangard Omsk of the KHL. He will not be back in Abbotsford.

Outside of the Abbotsford players, all eyes will be on Tom Willander this year. After a fairly successful freshman year at Boston University, he’ll return and be greeted with a much more significant role. With Montreal Canadiens’ standout Lane Hutson out of the picture, the keys will be handed to Willander as the primary contributor. This likely means top minutes, top penalty kill, and what fans are most excited about, top powerplay. With all these added minutes, the hope is that he can begin to bring a little more offensive punch to his game and ultimately be ready to take the professional plunge by the season’s end.

Aku Koskenvuo finally got games in 2023-24, and boy, was he ever good. He was considered one of Harvard’s best players. In his third year, that role will increase even further as his tandem partner, Derek Mullahy, has moved on to a new school. It should be Aku’s crease next season and could turn pro by the season’s end.

After a disappointing freshman year at Clarkson University, Daimon Gardner has transferred to St. Cloud State University. At 6’4, 201 lbs, we’re very intrigued by his profile and are hoping to see much more in what we hope will be an elevated role.

Matthew Perkins will be returning to the University of Minnesota-Duluth for his sophomore year. He enjoyed deployment in all areas of the team’s top nine in his freshman year, so we expect much of the same. He’ll likely see even more consistent top-six minutes and push to show us more (we hope).

Jackson Dorrington took some strong steps in his sophomore season (2023-24), and we expect him to continue to build off that as a top-four, penalty-killing defender. Northeastern is not expected to be particularly strong for a second consecutive year. But as long as he’s getting his minutes and hopefully playing in some high-pedigree games – the Beanpot, for example – we are pleased.

Jackson Kunz will be returning to the North Dakota Fighting Hawks for his senior year. At 6’3, 227 lbs, he’s got great size, but we would like to see a little more “wow” in his game. This will be the final year of his rights, so he’ll have to impress to garner a look for a pro contract.

Aiden Celebrini was used primarily as an extra defender in his freshman year, and with most names on the right side returning, his sophomore year will be met with the same type of competition. We’re hoping that he’s able to squeeze in for a more stable third-pairing role, but there are no guarantees.

Kirill Kudryavtsev is in one of the more interesting scenarios among Canucks’ prospects and could land in any of three spots. Heck, from what we learned with Josh Bloom last year, he could even see all three. The Russian defender is eligible for one last season in the Soo (OHL). Here, he’d continue his role as the team’s go-to option on the backend, manning all scenarios and top-flight minutes.

The issue? With the defensive side of his game developed, it feels like he may have proved everything he needs to at the Junior level and could probably take on a new challenge. The other issue? With four left-shot defenders signed to NHL contracts and two signed to AHL contracts, there is very little room to breathe on the club’s backend.

So, do they let him start in Kalamazoo to take on pro-ranked men and work his way up into the Abby lineup? When all is said and done, it certainly feels like one more kick at the OHL can is in order, but we’d love to be proven wrong come October.

After taking on his second NHL training camp, Vilmer Alriksson will head back to Guelph. With several of the Storm’s top players graduating, there should be a significant role increase for him when he arrives. This is music to our ears, as we were already content with his versatile role in 2023-24.

Riley Patterson is fresh off a strong rookie year in the OHL and is expected to see an elevated role for the Barrie Colts (OHL). He doesn’t turn 19 until March, making him a young prospect who’s likely to remain in the Junior leagues for another couple of seasons.

Anthony Romani just turned 19 and will return to North Bay after setting the OHL on fire last year with 58 goals and 111 points. He’s expected to be “the man” next year and will certainly be a must-watch prospect to follow for our Blackfish instalments. Like Patterson, he could be there for another season beyond 2024-25.

Basile Sansonnens, Canucks’ final pick (seventh round) of the 2024 entry draft, was selected in the CHL import draft and will be reporting to the Rimouski Oceanic this fall to take his development to the North American game. Aside from our looks at Development Camp, we’re relatively new to his game, so we are happy to see him a little closer to home.

Sawyer Mynio enjoyed a rare one-game cup of coffee in Abbotsford last season, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready. The 19-year-old will return to Seattle, where he will be considered the go-to option on the Thunderbirds’ backend. Last year’s primary option, Jeremy Hanzel, has officially left, leaving that spot ripe for Mynio’s taking. Come April, Mynio will turn 20, and depending on how his season goes, we do wonder whether he will make the official jump to the pro level. As mentioned, the left side is incredibly crowded in Abbotsford, and with Kirill Kudryavtsev turning pro at the same time – assuming he doesn’t make the team out of training camp – it’s anyone’s guess as to how good they are at playing Tetris with all of these names.

Ty Young will be 20 by the time the 2024-25 regular season rolls around, and he has already lost the starting job in Prince George to a 17-year-old who’s eligible for the 2025 Entry Draft. In fact, Joshua Ravensbergen is currently ranked 28th by Daily Faceoff’s incredibly early draft rankings. All this to say, there’s likely no chance that Ravensbergen will lose that job. Young could be riding shotgun in his fourth and final Junior campaign unless a trade happens.

Parker Alcos is fresh off his official rookie year with the Edmonton Oil Kings after skating in just 12 games at the tail end of 2022-23. Freshly turned 18 (July 20th), the Port Moody native will return to the Oil Kings to take on an even larger role, with several of the team’s defenders either graduating or moving on.

Unfortunately, Lucas Forsell ran into an issue in 2023-24 that doesn’t look like it will resolve itself by next season. At 20 – he will be 21 in September – he was deployed as the youngest full-time skater on one of the league’s top teams (Färjestad) that pushed its way to the league finals. With little movement, that team doesn’t appear to be changing much, which could result in yet another year of low-utilized deployment. Last season, he averaged less than 10 minutes per game (9:24), and we’re just hoping this isn’t the case for a consecutive season. You could be seeing the #FreeForsell hashtag in our Blackfish installments this year.

Melvin Fernström split his 2023-24 between three levels of play: J18, J20, and SHL Swedish levels. Playing for Jonathan Lekkerimäki’s Örebro squad, we expect a bit of the same for the upcoming season – minus the J18. Shockingly, he was given third-line minutes in the SHL for Örebro’s playoff push last season, so the club could be a little higher on his game than expected. Lekkerimäki has officially crossed the pond, which opens up a spot, but he’s not yet listed on the big club. Our easiest calculated guess is that he begins in the J20 and enjoys back-and-forth play, depending on performance.

Hugo Gabrielson’s Västerviks team was relegated to the Hockeyettan league (Swedish Div. 3). Gabrielson signed a one-year extension last July and has yet to confirm a new contract. While it isn’t clear that he will be back, we understand that he may be in contract talks to remain in Västerviks.