Welcome back Canucks fans! Day two of Vancouver Canucks training camp is just about to get underway from the South Okanagan Events Centre on another beautiful day here in Penticton, BC, and we’ll be bringing you live updates from the rink all day long.
In case you missed yesterday’s live blog — or any of our additional coverage from yesterday’s session — here are the big stories to get you up to speed:
-Thatcher Demko detailed his injury, which he called “rare and unique.” Demko and the Canucks have enlisted the help from doctors all over the world and answers are limited at this time. There is no timeline for Demko’s return, but he has been progressing very well over the past couple weeks, and was facing light shots, dropping into the butterfly, and moving from side to side ahead of yesterday’s session. The big test for Demko will be dropping into his RVH, as that will put the most strain on his knees and is a vital part of Demko’s game. Read more about what Demko had to say by clicking here.
-Vincent Desharnais emerged as an early favourite to fill the soundbite gold void left by Nikita Zadorov. Read about him and JT Miller burying the playoff hatchet early by clicking here.
-Elias Pettersson talked about expectations for himself, and gave his early thoughts on playing with Jake DeBrusk and Jonathan Lekkerimäki on day one. Pettersson also talked about his knee injury, calling it a “nagging injury that doesn’t want to go away,” but adding that it isn’t giving him trouble right now and that he feels good about managing it heading into the new year. Read Pettersson’s media availability in full by clicking here.
-Rick Tocchet was “pleasantly surprised” by some Canucks on day one of camp, and talked about his team’s path forward without number one netminder Thatcher Demko, at least to start the preseason. Read that by clicking here.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way… let’s get into the live blog from day two of camp!
Day two schedule and groups
Groups for day ✌️ of Training Camp.#Canucks | @lululemon pic.twitter.com/A3GkS2Oi0w
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) September 20, 2024
Group C hits the ice at 9:30, followed by Group B at 10:30, and Group A at 12 PM.
Group (McWar)D(emko)
Group D — featuring Cole McWard (week-to-week lower-body injury) and Thatcher Demko — hit the ice prior to everyone else, just like they did yesterday. The two did basically the same workouts and reps that they did on Thursday, and the good news is that neither player seems to have hurt themselves further, which is all you’re really looking for in a skate like that.
Group C
Group C is skating away from the main sheet of ice, but according to Adam Kierszenblat of The Hockey News, Teddy Blueger was out with the group in a green jersey. Patrik Allvin said that Blueger would be out “about a week” after a minor procedure over the offseason, so today is certainly a good sign.
Group B
Group B has spilled onto the ice, with the fans in attendance giving them a solid cheer as they did. One thing I needed to mention, and I hope the dear fan is reading this, because it gave me a good laugh.
While Daniel and Henrik Sedin were out working with the goaltenders ahead of Group B, Henrik threw a casual long stretch pass to Daniel that struck one of the few pucks that was in between them. It was dead quiet in the rink most of the morning, and after that “gaffe” from Henrik, a fan in attendance jokingly yelled “you suck” at the first ballot Hall of Famer. It got a good laugh in press row.
As for the rest of group B, the lines remain unchanged. While Thursday was largely about generating off the rush — there were plenty of 3-on-1s and 2-on-0s — today was more focused on five on five play. Again, Tocchet told us right from the get-go that he wasn’t trying to kill anyone with his camp, and that he wanted it to be “educational.”
Here’s a video of the first drill they did:
#Canucks drill to start day two, where Tocchet said they’d work more on 5on5 play. pic.twitter.com/OBcVY8Uw9i
— David Quadrelli (@QuadrelliD) September 20, 2024
The drills the Canucks are doing obviously aren’t super conducive to making goalies look great, but it’s hard not to at least notice how the goaltenders just haven’t looked all that sharp since the beginning of camp. The next drill the Canucks did was a two-on-two battle drill of sorts, and after a nice takeaway, Kiefer Sherwood got to show off a bit of skill, beating Dylan Ferguson on a breakaway:
Kiefer Sherwood showing off a bit of skill pic.twitter.com/WWeUIgSN0s
— David Quadrelli (@QuadrelliD) September 20, 2024
The Canucks got some actual 5v5 work in shortly afterwards, with some spirited battles taking place. Vincent Desharnais bobbled the puck a couple times while trying to successfully break it out of the zone, something we already know from his time in Edmonton was a weak spot of his game. Here’s a video of the drill:
#Canucks with some 5v5 work here on day two pic.twitter.com/15XhvrmAxY
— David Quadrelli (@QuadrelliD) September 20, 2024
Group A
Group A filtered onto the ice with the same line combinations that they showed yesterday, with Elias Pettersson between Jake DeBrusk and Jonathan Lekkerimäki. Aatu Räty skated between Conor Garland and Nils Höglander.
Since they are doing the same drills as Group B did, I will be very interested to see how Lekkerimäki looks in the battle drills. Can he create space for himself? Can he withstand physical pressure of NHL defencemen? We’ll see!
Elias Pettersson drew some oo’s and aa’s from the Penticton crowd when he undressed Elias Pettersson in a battle drill, dangled out Jiri Patera, then set up Jake DeBrusk for a back door tap in on an empty net with a nifty last second backhand pass. Is EP40… back?
Lekkerimäki held up fine in the battle drills, although he didn’t really find himself in any spots where he needed to battle all that hard, which wasn’t on him by any means, the situation just didn’t seem to present itself. He didn’t look out of place by any means for the second day in a row.
That concludes our live blog for today. Tomorrow we will have a live mailbag from day three of camp, and we still have plenty coming to the site for the rest of the day!
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