The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The on-ice drills during Day 3 of Canucks training camp in Penticton didn’t showcase any groundbreaking line shuffles or game plans, but a whole lot happened off the ice today. Kevin Lankinen won’t be in Vancouver for another couple days, and when he does he’ll be filling in one of the final spots of some already cemented lineups. Let’s dive in on what we gathered during Saturday’s skates.

Locked In

Rick Tocchet and the Canucks coaching staff have made little to no changes to their groups across the last three days of camp, and that seems to be a clear indicator of who’s going where to kick off the preseason festivities.
There’s also the hint the Canucks gave out themselves. On Wednesday, the Canucks marketing department sent out an email for potential ticket buyers of the Sept. 25 game in Abbotsford against the Flames with the subject line “Hughes & Pettersson to play in Abby” and their pictures promenently featured. Also included in picture form were Tyler Myers and Jake DeBrusk; all four players have been skating with Group A throughout the week.
Barring any last minute minor changes, I would hazard a strong guess that Group B will make up the roster against the Kraken on Sept. 24th, and Group A will take the ice the next day versus Calgary.

Where there’s smoke, there *was* a fire

One of the few changes the Canucks made today was promoting Ty Young to Group B, demoting PTO signing Dylan Ferguson in the process. Couple that with Rick Dhaliwal’s reporting that things were picking up with free agent Kevin Lankinen, and we had ourselves a pretty good explanation why.
Five minutes later, it was done.
Including Demko, the Canucks now boast a goaltending unit with five viable options at various stages of development and, hopefully, more than enough depth to weather any amount of time their Vezina finalist is out for.

The Rät Pack

Last season, Conor Garland was part of one of the brightest stories of the Canucks’ season: The Toyota Line/Good Job Boys line of himself, Dakota Joshua and Teddy Blueger. But with both Joshua and Blueger recovering from separate surgeries, Garland entered training camp needing some new partners to fill the temporary void.
Enter Nils Höglander and Aatu Räty.
This new-look trio has been lining up together all weekend as the team’s de facto third line (at least until the start of the preseason), and the chemistry has shown up quickly. Having two of the team’s most competitive wingers on a unit together in Garland and Höglander, regardless of their size, makes too much sense not to work. Putting a centre fighting to prove his NHL readiness in Räty completes the puzzle.
Given the glut of centres the Canucks will have at their disposal when Blueger returns, and the increased depth on the wings, there’s likely no spot open for Räty to take just yet. But if things click in the preseason, he’ll certainly boost his stock for being among the first called from Abbotsford.
And it sounds like Tocchet is planning to give him, and some of the other bubble players, a full runway to prove it.
“Räty… Lekkerimäki, Bains, those guys I want to see in exhibition,” Tocchet said. “So they will probably play at least three to four games.”

Thrill for Kirill

As far as the players farther down the depth chart go, one junior that caught Tocchet’s attention has been Kirill Kudryavtsev. “I think he’s going to push that Abbotsford defence,” Tocchet said.
That’s why he was rewarded with an opportunity to play on a pair with Tyler Myers today. He certainly won’t be in the running for a Vancouver blue line spot, but his chances at cracking the AHL roster have certainly gotten a leg up.

Ending on a nice note

Is someone cutting onions in here?
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