Hilarious young Hamhuis training camp photo courtesy: @VanCanucks
The Vancouver Canucks opened training camp in Prince George on Friday morning, and while injured head coach Willie Desjardins wasn’t there, you can rest assured that his lieutenants were busy executing his plans during the club’s first on-ice session of the season. 
Desjardins made headlines last fall by putting Daniel and Henrik Sedin with Radim Vrbata right from the get-go at training camp, and then riding that line for several months. It’s a maneuver that allows us to read way, way too much into the trios and pairs that Vancouver’s coaching staff have composed on Day 1 of camp. 
So let’s get into it!
The teams have been divided into Team White and Team Blue, but let’s just list the lines based on what we might reasonably see as their likely spot in the team hierarchy:
  • Sedin/Sedin/Kenins
  • Baertschi/Sutter/Vrbata
  • Higgins/Horvat/Hansen
  • Prust/Vey/Dorsett
  • Burrows/Cassels/Virtanen
  • Gaunce/Cracknell/Grenier
  • Kurtz/Jones/Jensen
  • Shinkaruk/McCann/Zalewski
  • Bancks/Hamilton/Zhukenov
  • LaBate/Friesen/Fox
  • Stewart/Pettit
You can quibble, perhaps, with how I’ve listed the forward lines somewhat, particularly once you get beyond the Burrows, Cassels, Virtanen line, but it’s close enough. 
So what’s interesting there? Let’s start by discussing Ronalds Kenins getting a look as the Sedin twins’ triggerman. Kenins was found money last year, and showed excellent chemistry on a line with Bo Horvat. This is a much more plum assignment though. 
Kenins certainly helped Horvat drive play in the second half last year, and he had a few games where he got in hard on the forecheck and was the sort of disruptive net-front presence that the Sedins have often thrived with. He also flashed some decent finishing quality at times. 
When Canucks general manager Jim Benning suggested this past weekend that he’d give three different forwards a look with the twins, we wondered if perhaps there was a darkhorse on the roster (we thought it might be Alexandre Grenier). Could it really be Kenins? Or, alternatively, is Kenins just getting a look with the twins because the Canucks want to free up usual Sedin line mate and jack-of-all-trades defensive forward Alex Burrows, so that he can babysit two of the club’s youngest roster hopefuls – Cole Cassels and Jake Virtanen – in preseason action? 
Burrows has been used in recent years as a defensive ace, the sort of two-way forward capable of stabilizing any forward line, so it makes some sense to attach him to two rookies that could legitimately push for a roster spot. The problem with putting Burrows in this spot though is that he’s almost good enough defensively that he can create false positives – especially against the sort of soft competition he’ll face early in the preseason. Remember that time he made Mike Santorelli look like a serviceable second-line centre for half a season, for example?
The two middle-six lines and the fourth-line, are the lines that would seem most likely to remain intact for opening night. Putting Bo Horvat with Jannik Hansen and Chris Higgins could conceivably give the club a pretty interesting checking-type line, and the sort of tertiary forward group that can provide plus defensive value while having just enough skill to punish opponents going the other way.
Putting Brandon Sutter in between Sven Baertschi and Radim Vrbata, meanwhile, would give the club something of a mishmash second line. I’d describe the line as a mishmash because Vrbata and Baertschi are, sort of, pure offensive talents while Sutter is primarily known for his abilities as a north-south checker. 
It’ll be interesting to see if this trio can find any chemistry playing together, though conceptually I like the idea that Sutter can defer the playmaking and puck-carrying duties to either of his two skilled wingers, and focus more on getting open and doing yeoman’s work in the slot. 
After the first five lines we get to the sort of middle two groupings, which features a variety of players who should probably be seen as long shots to make the team. Blair Jones, Nicklas Jensen, Alexandre Grenier, Brendan Gaunce and Adam Cracknell may all play a few games for the Canucks this season, but they’ll have to blow their competition out of the water to make the opening night lineup. 
Jared McCann faces a similarly difficult task, and he’ll open training camp playing with two players likely to begin their respective seasons in the American League. Benning mentioned that McCann might have a shot at making the opening night roster, but his placement with two guys who we’re pretty sure will go back to the AHL would seem to indicate just how steep a hill he’ll have to climb. 
Shinkaruk’s spot way down the lineup to open training camp, meanwhile, would seem to indicate where he stands in the Canucks pecking order at the moment.
After that McCann-Shinkaruk grouping, we get to the AHL checkers and a variety of other forwards who are sure to be cut in the very near future. Training camp cannon fodder, as it were. 
Let’s turn our focus to the defense now:
  • Edler/Tanev
  • Hamhuis/Weber
  • Bartkowski/Sbisa
  • Hutton/Corrado
  • Pedan/Biega
  • Cederholm/Fedun
  • Sautner/McEneny
  • Brisebois/Subban
  • Negrin/Neill
  • Olson/Ehrhardt
The hierarchy here is a bit less obvious than it is with the forwards, at least once you get beyond the top-six of Tanev, Edler, Hamhuis, Weber, Bartkowski, Sbisa – which seems like the club’s probable opening night top six.
Behind them is an interesting pair featuring both Frank Corrado and Ben Hutton. We know that Corrado will spend his season with the big club, but the possibility that Hutton may show well enough to be of service in some limited capacity at the NHL level this upcoming campaign seems a very real one.
We know that Alex Biega is an elite AHL-level defenseman, and Andrei Pedan should play a bigger role with the Utica Comets this upcoming season now that he’s healthy and now that Kent Huskins is out of the equation.
Anton Cederholm, who will be in tough just to crack the Comets roster this season, is matched up with Taylor Fedun, who is probably the club’s ninth defender behind Corrado and Biega. Meanwhile Ashton Sautner and Evan McEneny – who will probably compete with Cederholm for the six and seven spots on the Utica Comets’ blue line – are matched up together.
Jordan Subban will be in the AHL and will likely receive a tonne of plum opportunities. He’s interestingly matched up with Guillaume Brisebois, who has little to no chance of making the NHL team as a just-turned-18-year-old, but who has shown well since the opening of rookie camp and could be the club’s top blue line prospect. The other two pairings aren’t that interesting, really.
So that’s how the Canucks have opened training camp. The most interesting battles would seem to be at the bottom-end of the lineup – the fourth line and the third pair. Meanwhile it’ll be very interesting to see how some of the new forward combinations – and especially the two middle-six lines that look opening-night ready – perform in preseason situations beginning early next week.
Lineup information comes courtesy Canucks.com.