The Vancouver Canucks’ pre-training camp skates continued Friday, as a big group of players took the ice out at UBC to continue their preparation for what head coach Rick Tocchet has promised will be a difficult training camp. Camp kicks off in just two weeks in less than two weeks from the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria, BC, but we just couldn’t wait.

Folks, it’s time for another edition of Scenes from morning skate/practice!

It was a well-attended skate today, as Ian Cole was the only notable absence among notable roster players.

Arshdeep Bains and Akito Hirose are among the 84 players in Virginia participatating in the NHL/NHLPA Player Orientation Program this week, for those wondering why they haven’t seen either of those players’ names mentioned in the skate articles this week.

Conor Garland, Ian Cole, Pius Suter, and Elias Pettersson were among the newcomers on Thursday, and you can read more about that skate with quotes from BC boy Matt Irwin and Suter here!

Jeff Paterson caught some sweet footage of Andrei Kuzmenko looking like he’s in mid-season form. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Thatcher Demko:

Yeah, yeah, I know he’s not trying to save these shots. Let’s move on to the what was said section!

Anthony Beauvillier is looking forward to playing his first full season in Vancouver. The 26-year-old winger was acquired in the Bo Horvat trade back in January, and produced the same number of goals and assists (9-11) with the Canucks as he did with the Islanders. The only difference was that it took Beauvillier 49 games to reach that point total in Long Island and just 33 games upon arriving in Vancouver.

Both fans and Beauvillier’s hopes are high, to say the least. Beauvillier talked about the comfort level now that he’s coming in having already met most of his Canucks teammates

“It makes a huge difference,” said Beauvillier. “I just feel more comfortable around the guys, around the organization, the staff and stuff, so I’m really looking forward to this season.”

Beauvillier wasn’t here for the Canucks’ slow start last season, but he’s clearly been briefed on what a disaster it was and is well aware why getting into town and getting prepared early is so important for this group.

“I think we’re doing everything we can right now, especially guys coming in early, trying to get an edge, and trying to get ready for the start of the season. It’s important to have a good start and we’re working hard. We’re competing out there even if it’s not training camp and we’re going to be ready for training camp for sure.”

Dakota Joshua is entering his second season with the Canucks, but his hopes are understandably higher this time around given how Rick Tocchet used him after taking over as head coach. Joshua shared what he took away from his end of season meetings with the coaching staff and what he focused on this summer in his training as a result.

“Just really utilizing the most of my potential and my reach,” said Joshua. “My peak is what we talked about so just working hard in the gym, making sure I’m coming in ready to go. It’s gonna be really competitive this year, a lot of people are expecting big things out of us.”

Joshua knows he is in his coach’s good books with how he played last season, and that the confidence Tocchet showed in him only adds to Joshua’s personal confidence heading into training camp.

“I played well under him, so he knows what I can bring to the table and that’s nice going into camp. Obviously I just want to make sure I’m picking up right where I left off and and build it off last year and keep it going to be better this year.”

Joshua also spoke about how the Canucks’ offseason additions of Teddy Blueger, Pius Suter, Ian Cole, and Carson Soucy — all of whom are proficient penalty killers —  should be a huge help to the club’s abysmal PK.

“I think it’ll be really good,” said Joshua. “You know, maybe take a little heat off the top guys, lowering their minutes so they can produce more. Having those veteran presence on the PK should go a long way, and I think everybody in the organization expects it to be a lot a lot better than last year. I don’t know if we could really do much worse actually. So it will be better and yeah, all the new faces that were brought in will help a lot.”

Canucks training camp kicks off on September 20th, but we’ll still have you covered with up-to-the-minute coverage of everything that happens from now until then!