It’s true that Aatu Räty was drafted more than five years ago, at 52^nd overall in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft. It’s true that he’s since played 114 NHL games spread over parts of three seasons for the New York Islanders and the Vancouver Canucks.

But at the same time, it also feels true that Räty has still yet to really establish himself in this league.

The 2025-26 season was, in many ways, a career year for Räty. He played 66 games, doubling his previous high, and spent zero time in the AHL. His 14 points were a new career high, as was his faceoff winning percentage of 60.5% – best on the Canucks by a long shot, and seventh overall in the league.

For some, that’d be a banner year. But for someone who has at various times in his career been a very highly-touted prospect, it feels a little unsatisfying. It feels a little incomplete.

Part of the equation here is opportunity. Despite his relative success in 2025-26, Räty averaged out to just 12:01 of ice time a night, and often much less than that. Many interpreted the situation as head coach Adam Foote not being overly fond of Räty’s game, and there may have been something to that. At times, Foote seemed to express a real lack of trust in Räty, as evidenced most strongly by that moment in early December when Räty put up five points in five games, including the first three-point night of his career, and then proceeded to be made a healthy scratch for several games in a row.

But now, as of 2026-27, Foote is gone. And Räty himself is coming into the season on a bit of a roll, having gone to the World Championships for Finland over the summer, where he posted seven points in 10 games and won gold. There’s an opportunity here to be built upon, and the Canucks have kept the door open to it by retaining Räty instead of perhaps bringing back an older option, like Teddy Blueger.

At the same time, the opportunity will be limited. Räty turns 24 in November. And while that’s not old by any stretch of the imagination, it is older than a lot of the forwards that are and will be making up the bulk of the rebuild in Vancouver.

If Räty doesn’t well and truly establish his name and his role in the NHL this year, he may start running out of time to do so. That, more than anything, has to be his primary and overarching goal for 2026-27.

Part of Räty’s issue last year was a lack of a clear spot in the lineup. He may have started the year pencilled in somewhere on the centre depth chart, but a combination of Foote’s mistrust and the Canucks’ in-season acquisition of centres like Marco Rossi and David Kampf threw that for a loop.

In the end, Räty played all over the lineup and never in any one place for all that long.

There’s a chance, though, that he enters the 2026-27 as the Canucks’ definitive third line centre. In order for that to happen, Elias Pettersson and Marco Rossi need to occupy their planned top-six positions. That part seems easy. But Räty also probably needs Braeden Cootes to not make the team, and for Filip Chytil to end up on the wing.

That seems like a likely enough outcome with Cootes having the ability to be assigned to the AHL and with Chytil’s health concerns. Another option on the table for Räty, of course, is to simply come into camp and show he’s the best candidate for the job.

A full-time 3C should be getting more than 12 minutes a night. It might also mean more opportunities for Räty to develop his defensive game with tougher matchups, and it should also mean higher-class linemates on a more consistent basis. Last year, Räty spent no more than 10% of his time with any one line. If he could get some lengthy stretches with wingers like Drew O’Connor or Linus Karlsson or Brendan Gallagher or whomever, it could go a long way toward Räty developing some offensive consistency of his own.

Räty only scored four goals last year, and that might have made folks forget that brief stretch in the 2024-25 season during which Räty was looking like a genuine sniper. After a later March recall, Räty posted five goals in his first eight games back in the NHL. That led to him finishing the year with a 20.6% shooting rate.

That’s not a percentage Räty can be expected to maintain. But if he can get his shot working for him again in the way, something like 20 goals doesn’t seem terribly out of reach. The seven goals he got in 33 games for 2024-25 doesn’t pace too terribly far behind that, and with a little more scoring-based opportunity, Räty could get there.

That would probably mean occasionally shuffling up from that 3C role we described in the previous section, and either filling in for one of Pettersson or Rossi in the top-six or, alternatively, taking some shifts on one of their wings. It could also mean Räty taking a leading role on the PP2 unit, which is currently looking a little sparse.

More goals are obviously welcome on the third-lowest scoring team in the league last year. And 20ish goals would go a long way toward establishing Räty as a genuine long-term fixture in the NHL. 

For Räty, more of the same is just not going to cut it. There probably aren’t too many scenarios in which the Canucks outright cut Räty and risk placing him on waivers – his ambidextrous faceoff prowess alone should give him some degree of trade value. The realer risk is that Räty is simply leapfrogged by other, young Canuck forwards until he has been shuffled far enough down the depth chart that he’s firmly out of their plans.

If Chytil takes back his centre spot and Cootes makes the team out of camp, especially if they do so because of a poor showing from Räty, this process could begin right away. At that point, Räty is back to being healthy scratched by his fourth consecutive head coach, at which point there start to be questions about how long he’ll really last in the league.

For Räty in 2026-27, there needs to be some genuine career progression. The status quo just won’t cut it.