Rick Tocchet was upfront and honest when he was asked about getting newly-signed prospect Aidan McDonough into a game for his NHL debut.

“We’re going to try to get him into a game,” said Tocchet last week. “Great shot, really great scorer, needs to work on his skating a little bit, but apparently he’s a high level shot, so interested to see what he can do. It’s a tough one cause I like the way the team’s playing, so it’s not like he’s coming in and we’re going to put him in right now. We’re playing good hockey right now, a lot of guys deserve to stay in the lineup. You see if some guys’ play dips a little bit, but you don’t take a guy out if he has one bad game, but if you see consistency from a couple guys maybe you pop him in there, which is okay, but we haven’t made that decision yet.”

McDonough joined the Canucks on the road following his senior season at Northeastern University coming to a close, but was a healthy scratch for the Canucks’ loss to the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night. The Canucks signed the 23-year-old McDonough to a two-year entry-level contract this past week.

McDonough has a heavy shot, and admittedly, needs to work on his skating a bit. There’s no guarantee he’ll get into a game on this road trip, but no matter the case, the Canucks’ leadership group wasted little time in making him feel welcome.

According to Tocchet, the leadership group (Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, and JT Miller) took McDonough out for dinner.

“Leadership group took him out for dinner, which was really nice, I love that sort of stuff. He’s good, he’s got a good shot, we’ll work a bit in practice the next few days to get him up to speed on our system”

Tonight, the Canucks face off against the Los Angeles Kings, and look to get back to their winning ways after the Coyotes snapped their five game winning streak. Expect Thatcher Demko to make another start, with Collin Delia likely getting the crease tomorrow in the second leg of this back to back against the Anaheim Ducks.

Puck drop is at 7 PM on Hockey Night in Canada!