Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet provided an update on Dakota Joshua’s status during a recent media scrum at the club’s training camp in Penticton, B.C.

When asked what Sammy Blais can bring to the team, Tocchet spoke on some of the things Blais will help fill the void left by Joshua while also adding a rough timeline of the latter’s return to the fold.

“Sammy played on the Blues when they won the [Stanley] Cup and stuff, so he’s got some pedigree there,” Tocchet said, “I want to see if he can step up, supply that stuff that Dak does. But Dak’s not going to be out that long. I don’t know the target date, don’t get me wrong, but he’s going to be back soon.”

This is surely encouraging for Canucks fans to hear, given that Joshua has missed the start of camp due to recovering from a successful offseason surgery to remove testicular cancer that he discovered to have had this summer. He noted in a statement released by the Canucks on Tuesday that he would not be available to begin camp and planned on being back in the lineup as soon as possible.

That timeline was not made clear in the aforementioned press release, but the update by Tocchet signals that Joshua may not miss a lot of time. Of course, we don’t know when exactly the surgery took place and how long he has been recovering, so it is hard to put an accurate assessment of how long he will need to rest before getting the clearance to return. But if Vancouver’s coach says that he expects Joshua to be back in the lineup soon, then it’s possible he’ll be back in action either just before or sometime after opening night.

A good comparison would be to look at the sequence of events that occurred with another notable NHL player who successfully got the surgery done to remove testicular cancer: Phil Kessel. He was diagnosed with cancer in mid-December 2006, and a week following the surgery to remove it, he was deemed cancer free. Kessel ended up being on the sidelines for a month (11 regular season games) as he recovered from the procedure and worked his way up from a conditioning standpoint.

This doesn’t mean that this sequence of events will follow suit for Joshua because his diagnosis and surgery occurred during the offseason, which interrupted his training. What this entails is that there is a precedent for NHL players not to miss a significant amount of time when successfully removing testicular cancer – especially when you consider that according to the Testicular Cancer Society, testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer in men between the ages of 15 and 35 and can be highly treatable if caught early.

Joshua is coming off a strong season where he emerged as one of the Canucks’ most dependable bottom-six forwards. He recorded 32 points (18 goals and 14 assists) in 63 games while adding eight points (four goals and four assists) in 13 postseason contests. It helped him secure a four-year extension with Vancouver in the offseason that carries an average annual value (AAV) of $3.25 million.