Summer&#8217;s over in Penticton, BC, as the Vancouver Canucks are descending upon the South Okanagan Events Centre for training camp. Ahead of training camp, <a href="https://canucksarmy.com/news/canucks-allvin-demko-blueger-mcward-joshua-unavailable-training-camp">Patrik Allvin, Jim Rutherford, and Rick Tocchet met with the media</a> for his first press conference of the 2024-25 season.
Here are some takeaways from that conversation.
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<blockquote>Players that will not be participating at the start of training camp</blockquote>
Allvin spoke right away about players that will not be available for day one of camp. Dakota Joshua will be out as he <a href="https://canucksarmy.com/news/vancouver-canucks-dakota-joshua-testicular-cancer-surgery">recovers from his testicular cancer procedure</a>, while both Teddy Blueger and Cole McWard will be out on the first day due to minor lower body procedures. Blueger was stated as being probably a week away, while McWard would be listed as week-to-week. Thatcher Demko will also be unavailablce, with the netminder addressing the media tomorrow regarding his situation.
<blockquote>Excitement to build off last year</blockquote>
Tocchett spoke at length about the excitement he, the staff, and the roster had about getting this training camp underway. &#8220;Getting the coaches together the last two, three weeks periodically, talking to some of the players, I know they&#8217;re excited. They&#8217;re asking a lot of questions, you know, what are we doing? The skating test? Who&#8217;s where, who&#8217;s what? So I see an excited group and our coaches too in our meeting,&#8221; the head coach said. &#8220;It&#8217;s helped, you know, these hour meetings are now turning three hours, but they&#8217;re so excited to get started.&#8221;
It&#8217;ll be time for experimentation too. &#8220;Training camp, it&#8217;s only five days, and you go into exhibition games,&#8221; Tocchet said. &#8220;We have themes for every day, so we&#8217;re excited about implementing a lot of those little things here and trying a couple of different things.&#8221;
The Vancouver Canucks surprised many with their performance last season &#8211; now, they&#8217;re seeking to show that it wasn&#8217;t just a flash in the pan. &#8220;To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it&#8217;s going to be hard. We know that. So that&#8217;s the next level. Starts day one tomorrow,&#8221; Tocchet said when asked about following up their 2023-24 campaign. &#8220;Don&#8217;t waste a rep out there. Let&#8217;s make sure that we make each other accountable like we did last year.&#8221;
<blockquote>(Non)update on the practice facility</blockquote>
News has long been circulating about Vancouver finally getting a practice facility, but Allvin put a dampener on anything concrete. &#8220;There&#8217;s not a big update. We have made some headway. We have a few options now that we are considering, but we&#8217;re not at the point to feel comfortable to make any announcement,&#8221; he said. &#8220;No use in me saying hopefully it&#8217;s getting done soon, because they said that last year.&#8221;
<blockquote>The PTOs</blockquote>
Allvin talked about the tryouts that the Canucks brought in for camp. &#8220;Sammy Blais, an experienced guy, played games on a contending team in St Louis a couple of years ago. I think what he contributes to on the ice is the way we want to play. We want to be hard to play against,&#8221; he said. &#8220;[Dylan] Ferguson was a goalie, local with pro experience, and we talked about if we [didn&#8217;t have] six goalies to start the camp, there were options that we looked about, and he was the strongest that it was available.&#8221;
<blockquote>&#8220;Everything has to go right&#8221;</blockquote>
Rutherford gave his own assessment on how the team stood to follow up their success from last season. &#8220;Everything has to go right. It&#8217;s like Tocc just pointed out. The challenges will be greater, certainly, but I believe that the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year as we did last year, and probably better,&#8221; he said, while also being realistic. &#8220;Now that&#8217;s not saying a whole lot, because we have to get to that step at the trade deadline and prepare for playoffs and be a good enough team to contend. We&#8217;ll see where this team is as we go along during the season.&#8221;
&#8220;We get into January, February, make those decisions to what adjustments have to be made, but as long as the team builds off of what they did last year, stick to what the coach is telling them, stick to the system through good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.&#8221;
<blockquote>A focus on special teams</blockquote>
Tocchet also touched briefly on what a couple of days during camp might look like, specifically to do with the penalty kill and power play. &#8220;We&#8217;ll probably dive into special teams a little bit earlier than other teams. I think a lot of guys were excited about that, I know Millsy [JT Miller] was excited about that, about doing Power play a little bit earlier. I think that&#8217;s important, even though we have a lot of guys in camp because even in the rookie camp, I really saw some guys make some strides from last year.&#8221;
<blockquote>The kids are all right</blockquote>
The head coach of the Canucks was also tuning in to the Young Stars tournament. &#8220;I look at some of the elements, like the big Swede [Alriksson] there. This guy really impressed me. He was doing stuff last year, and they talked about the development, and I watched what he did, it was like, oh my God. He went from here to here, getting the puck off the wall, deep, delay, body position makes a play, did it three times, like last year, I didn&#8217;t see as much, so that makes you excited.&#8221;
&#8220;Lekkerimaki, he&#8217;s a buzzsaw, great shot &#8230; actually see him play with some good players and see what he can do. Petterson on the back end, really like the way he played, smart guy,&#8221; he spoke about some of the players that impressed him. &#8220;Hopefully maybe a couple of guys get some exhibition games. But I&#8217;m looking for the stuff that we&#8217;re teaching them in the development, and are they applying it and they did in the games, and now can they do it in the big camp?&#8221;
<blockquote>EP40</blockquote>
Rutherford made sure to keep in contact with the superstar Swede in the offseason. &#8220;I&#8217;m really impressed with what how he&#8217;s come back in the offseason. He seems to be a guy that&#8217;s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons, last year, he&#8217;s whether players say they think about their contracts or not, deep down, they do. Everybody does, okay,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is a guy that I believe worked really hard this summer. He&#8217;s done everything he can to play as a top-line player.&#8221;
&#8220;Everybody here has seen him play, we all know how good he is, so the expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.&#8221;
<blockquote>Microanalyzing camp lines (or not)</blockquote>
Tocchet said to not read too deep into the line combinations that he would have to start the camp. &#8220;When you fill a lineup out for day one tomorrow, you can&#8217;t really read it too much, because I&#8217;m going to switch some things.&#8221; However, he did throw out some combinations already off the bat. &#8220;Obviously, Millsy and Boes [Brock Boeser] they got a great chemistry. I think Petey and Jake [DeBrusk] together from the start, would like to see them, give them some time together, and it&#8217;s okay to rotate wingers. Dakota and then Garland, those guys together played damn good hockey for us. It&#8217;s hard for me to break those guys up.&#8221;
<blockquote>LTIR </blockquote>
Allvin provided an update on Tucker Poolman&#8217;s situation and the LITR picture. &#8220;Tucker Poolman obviously is not going to play this year. Our job as a management is to to manage our roster cap situation, and as of today, we have different options to not utilize Tucker&#8217;s contract or to put him in the LTIR starting the season. We&#8217;ll see here over the next couple of weeks if anything changes. But we have, as I said, different options.&#8221;
<blockquote>How to keep the good times rolling</blockquote>
With many of the Canucks core pieces getting career bests last year, how do they keep up their production? Tocchet seems to have an idea of how to do so. &#8220;I think that the practice habits have gotten way better, and that&#8217;s going to help your personal goals. I think the accountability the leaders have amongst themselves is going to drive having another good year. You just have to drive yourself every day. When you have a great year, it&#8217;s sustainable and things like that. JT Miller, over the last bunch of years, he&#8217;s had a lot of points with the Canucks. Petey&#8217;s scored a lot of goals. Quinn&#8217;s always been one of the top defenseman, Brock, he can score. You got to keep creating that environment where they can reach those goals, whatever they are, and the main goal is winning.&#8221;
<blockquote>Camp competition</blockquote>
There are still a couple of roster spots up for grabs, and management wants to see the competition be fierce for them. &#8220;The tweeters I see there, we want them to push. I&#8217;ve seen some guys in the rookie camp, these guys are looking really good,&#8221; Tocchet said about seeing players making cases for themselves in the camp.
Allvin echoed these sentiments organizationally. &#8220;I  think it&#8217;s extremely important for the whole organization to have competition, and we believe that the young players need leadership from experienced, character players. We are very fortunate with the job Ryan Johnson has done with Abbotsford, and the affiliation we have with Kalamazoo has worked really well, bringing in some of the guys on American League contracts and giving them an opportunity to grow and hopefully that down the road translates into an NHL contract.&#8221;
<blockquote>The system</blockquote>
Some noise was made at the end of the season when Tocchet spoke about opening up the system more. When asked about it in the presser, he revealed a little more. &#8220;It&#8217;s not like brain surgery, or we&#8217;re trying to reinvent the wheel, but there are stuff that, I think especially off the rush or off our breakouts, where we can attack better. And I think we&#8217;ve done a good dive into it. We got some good video for the players, we got some good drills. A lot of times, we&#8217;re not getting the puck in the middle enough, and we&#8217;re only having a certain chunk of players middle-driving enough,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;If we get our D up in the play a little bit more, not just Hughes, that&#8217;ll help, but our breakouts are really good. Sometimes we break out and we&#8217;re ahead of everybody, but somehow the other team catches up. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s the other team&#8217;s faster, I think sometimes we play a little bit safer. Guys are just content and get and chip in a puck because we are one of the best teams forechecking teams, especially on the same side chip. But I think there&#8217;s more weak side plays for us, and I think that&#8217;s on me to get the players to do that.&#8221;
The Canucks training camp officially begins tomorrow at 9:30 AM.
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Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin speak ahead of Vancouver Canucks training camp in Penticton, BC on September 18th, 2024.

Summer's over in Penticton, BC, as the Vancouver Canucks are descending upon the South Okanagan Events Centre for training camp. Ahead of training camp, <a href="https://canucksarmy.com/news/canucks-allvin-demko-blueger-mcward-joshua-unavailable-training-camp">Patrik Allvin, Jim Rutherford, and Rick Tocchet met with the media</a> for his first press conference of the 2024-25 season.

Here are some takeaways from that conversation.
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&nbsp;
<blockquote>Players that will not be participating at the start of training camp</blockquote>
Allvin spoke right away about players that will not be available for day one of camp. Dakota Joshua will be out as he <a href="https://canucksarmy.com/news/vancouver-canucks-dakota-joshua-testicular-cancer-surgery">recovers from his testicular cancer procedure</a>, while both Teddy Blueger and Cole McWard will be out on the first day due to minor lower body procedures. Blueger was stated as being probably a week away, while McWard would be listed as week-to-week. Thatcher Demko will also be unavailablce, with the netminder addressing the media tomorrow regarding his situation.
<blockquote>Excitement to build off last year</blockquote>
Tocchett spoke at length about the excitement he, the staff, and the roster had about getting this training camp underway. "Getting the coaches together the last two, three weeks periodically, talking to some of the players, I know they're excited. They're asking a lot of questions, you know, what are we doing? The skating test? Who's where, who's what? So I see an excited group and our coaches too in our meeting," the head coach said. "It's helped, you know, these hour meetings are now turning three hours, but they're so excited to get started."

It'll be time for experimentation too. "Training camp, it's only five days, and you go into exhibition games," Tocchet said. "We have themes for every day, so we're excited about implementing a lot of those little things here and trying a couple of different things."

The Vancouver Canucks surprised many with their performance last season - now, they're seeking to show that it wasn't just a flash in the pan. "To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it's going to be hard. We know that. So that's the next level. Starts day one tomorrow," Tocchet said when asked about following up their 2023-24 campaign. "Don't waste a rep out there. Let's make sure that we make each other accountable like we did last year."
<blockquote>(Non)update on the practice facility</blockquote>
News has long been circulating about Vancouver finally getting a practice facility, but Allvin put a dampener on anything concrete. "There's not a big update. We have made some headway. We have a few options now that we are considering, but we're not at the point to feel comfortable to make any announcement," he said. "No use in me saying hopefully it's getting done soon, because they said that last year."
<blockquote>The PTOs</blockquote>
Allvin talked about the tryouts that the Canucks brought in for camp. "Sammy Blais, an experienced guy, played games on a contending team in St Louis a couple of years ago. I think what he contributes to on the ice is the way we want to play. We want to be hard to play against," he said. "[Dylan] Ferguson was a goalie, local with pro experience, and we talked about if we [didn't have] six goalies to start the camp, there were options that we looked about, and he was the strongest that it was available."
<blockquote>"Everything has to go right"</blockquote>
Rutherford gave his own assessment on how the team stood to follow up their success from last season. "Everything has to go right. It's like Tocc just pointed out. The challenges will be greater, certainly, but I believe that the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year as we did last year, and probably better," he said, while also being realistic. "Now that's not saying a whole lot, because we have to get to that step at the trade deadline and prepare for playoffs and be a good enough team to contend. We'll see where this team is as we go along during the season."

"We get into January, February, make those decisions to what adjustments have to be made, but as long as the team builds off of what they did last year, stick to what the coach is telling them, stick to the system through good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well."
<blockquote>A focus on special teams</blockquote>
Tocchet also touched briefly on what a couple of days during camp might look like, specifically to do with the penalty kill and power play. "We'll probably dive into special teams a little bit earlier than other teams. I think a lot of guys were excited about that, I know Millsy [JT Miller] was excited about that, about doing Power play a little bit earlier. I think that's important, even though we have a lot of guys in camp because even in the rookie camp, I really saw some guys make some strides from last year."
<blockquote>The kids are all right</blockquote>
The head coach of the Canucks was also tuning in to the Young Stars tournament. "I look at some of the elements, like the big Swede [Alriksson] there. This guy really impressed me. He was doing stuff last year, and they talked about the development, and I watched what he did, it was like, oh my God. He went from here to here, getting the puck off the wall, deep, delay, body position makes a play, did it three times, like last year, I didn't see as much, so that makes you excited."

"Lekkerimaki, he's a buzzsaw, great shot ... actually see him play with some good players and see what he can do. Petterson on the back end, really like the way he played, smart guy," he spoke about some of the players that impressed him. "Hopefully maybe a couple of guys get some exhibition games. But I'm looking for the stuff that we're teaching them in the development, and are they applying it and they did in the games, and now can they do it in the big camp?"
<blockquote>EP40</blockquote>
Rutherford made sure to keep in contact with the superstar Swede in the offseason. "I'm really impressed with what how he's come back in the offseason. He seems to be a guy that's more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons, last year, he's whether players say they think about their contracts or not, deep down, they do. Everybody does, okay," he said. "This is a guy that I believe worked really hard this summer. He's done everything he can to play as a top-line player."

"Everybody here has seen him play, we all know how good he is, so the expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team."
<blockquote>Microanalyzing camp lines (or not)</blockquote>
Tocchet said to not read too deep into the line combinations that he would have to start the camp. "When you fill a lineup out for day one tomorrow, you can't really read it too much, because I'm going to switch some things." However, he did throw out some combinations already off the bat. "Obviously, Millsy and Boes [Brock Boeser] they got a great chemistry. I think Petey and Jake [DeBrusk] together from the start, would like to see them, give them some time together, and it's okay to rotate wingers. Dakota and then Garland, those guys together played damn good hockey for us. It's hard for me to break those guys up."
<blockquote>LTIR </blockquote>
Allvin provided an update on Tucker Poolman's situation and the LITR picture. "Tucker Poolman obviously is not going to play this year. Our job as a management is to to manage our roster cap situation, and as of today, we have different options to not utilize Tucker's contract or to put him in the LTIR starting the season. We'll see here over the next couple of weeks if anything changes. But we have, as I said, different options."
<blockquote>How to keep the good times rolling</blockquote>
With many of the Canucks core pieces getting career bests last year, how do they keep up their production? Tocchet seems to have an idea of how to do so. "I think that the practice habits have gotten way better, and that's going to help your personal goals. I think the accountability the leaders have amongst themselves is going to drive having another good year. You just have to drive yourself every day. When you have a great year, it's sustainable and things like that. JT Miller, over the last bunch of years, he's had a lot of points with the Canucks. Petey's scored a lot of goals. Quinn's always been one of the top defenseman, Brock, he can score. You got to keep creating that environment where they can reach those goals, whatever they are, and the main goal is winning."
<blockquote>Camp competition</blockquote>
There are still a couple of roster spots up for grabs, and management wants to see the competition be fierce for them. "The tweeters I see there, we want them to push. I've seen some guys in the rookie camp, these guys are looking really good," Tocchet said about seeing players making cases for themselves in the camp.

Allvin echoed these sentiments organizationally. "I  think it's extremely important for the whole organization to have competition, and we believe that the young players need leadership from experienced, character players. We are very fortunate with the job Ryan Johnson has done with Abbotsford, and the affiliation we have with Kalamazoo has worked really well, bringing in some of the guys on American League contracts and giving them an opportunity to grow and hopefully that down the road translates into an NHL contract."
<blockquote>The system</blockquote>
Some noise was made at the end of the season when Tocchet spoke about opening up the system more. When asked about it in the presser, he revealed a little more. "It's not like brain surgery, or we're trying to reinvent the wheel, but there are stuff that, I think especially off the rush or off our breakouts, where we can attack better. And I think we've done a good dive into it. We got some good video for the players, we got some good drills. A lot of times, we're not getting the puck in the middle enough, and we're only having a certain chunk of players middle-driving enough," he said.

"If we get our D up in the play a little bit more, not just Hughes, that'll help, but our breakouts are really good. Sometimes we break out and we're ahead of everybody, but somehow the other team catches up. I don't think it's the other team's faster, I think sometimes we play a little bit safer. Guys are just content and get and chip in a puck because we are one of the best teams forechecking teams, especially on the same side chip. But I think there's more weak side plays for us, and I think that's on me to get the players to do that."

The Canucks training camp officially begins tomorrow at 9:30 AM.

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