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Scenes from morning skate: DeBrusk out with illness, Räty draws in for Canucks vs. Flames

Photo credit: Bob Frid-Imagn Images

By Jeff Paterson

Oct 3, 2026, 15:06 EDT

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The Vancouver Canucks (1-1) look to rebound from a wild 9-7 loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Thursday’s home opener when they host the Calgary Flames (0-1) tonight at Rogers Arena. Game time is 7 pm PT.

Jake DeBrusk arrived at the rink this morning, but was sent home due to illness. The veteran winger will not play tonight.

What we saw

Jeff Paterson

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optional morning skate for #Canucks

5:30 PM · Oct 3, 2026

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The Canucks conducted a well-attended optional morning skate. Eight defencemen and eight forwards took part along with both goalies. Forwards Elias Pettersson, Marco Rossi, Brendan Gallagher and Drew O’Connor opted out. Without a full roster on the ice, the Canucks did not show lines for this evening’s game.

With DeBrusk out, Aatu Räty draws into the lineup and will make his season debut. He has not played since the second game of the preseason 10 days ago. Raty centred a line with Drew O’Connor and Brendan Gallagher at Friday’s practice at UBC.

The Canucks may show several new looks based on Friday’s skate. Marco Rossi shifted to the wing on a line with Elias Pettersson and Linus Karlsson while Paul Cotter bumped up to a line with Liam Öhgren and Brock Boeser. Max Sasson was at centre between Arshdeep Bains and Jonathan Lekkerimäki.

Despite giving up 14 goals in the first two games of the season, it appears the Canucks will stick with the same six defencemen they’ve used so far. That means Victor Mancini and Guillaume Brisebois are likely healthy scratches once again.

Jeff Paterson

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Leevi Meriläinen with a new #Canucks mask doing the starter’s drills ahead of morning skate

5:22 PM · Oct 3, 2026

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Manny Malhotra does not name a starting goalie on game days, but based on the morning routine, it certainly looks like Leevi Meriläinen will make his first start as a Canuck. The waiver claim was pressed into action midway through the second period of Thursday’s 9-7 loss to Edmonton. He stopped 10 of the 11 Oilers shots he faced, beaten only by Leon Draisaitl on a third period power play.

Paul Cotter and Marco Rossi have each scored in the first two games and share the team lead with three goals. Elias Pettersson has scored power play goals in each of the first two outings. He scored four goals with the man advantage all of last season, so he’s off to a quick start in that regard. Cotter, Rossi, Pettersson and Filip Hronek all have four points to start the season.

Liam Öhgren is set to appear in his 100th NHL game tonight. He played his first 46 with Minnesota and has played 53 with the Canucks. He has taken just one minor penalty in those 53 games since being acquired from the Wild. He has been assessed only two minor penalties in his NHL career.

The Opponent

Derek Wills

@dwillsnhl

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#Flames vs. #Canucks: Gridin-Frost-Coronato Honzek-Backlund-Farabee Othmann-Strome-Sharangovich Tsyplakov-Pospisil-Klapka Hanley-Nemec Bahl-Whitecloud Middleton-Parekh Cooley (Starter) Wolf

6:31 PM · Oct 3, 2026

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The Flames arrive in town on the heels of a 6-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken in their season opener on Thursday night. Calgary fell behind 5-0 before Ryan Strome put the home team on the board late in the third period. Dustin Wolf surrendered six goals on 32 shots.

Defenceman Simon Nemec led the Flames in ice time at 21:18 and shared the team lead with Strome with four shots on goal.

Veteran forward Jonathan Huberdeau continues to recover from hip resurfacing surgery last March and is out indefinitely.

After watching as the backup on Thursday, Devin Cooley will make his season debut in goal. The Las Gatos, CA native was 10-10-6 and posted a 2.69 GAA and .909 save percentage last season.

News and notes

The Flames took two of three from the Canucks last season, splitting the two meetings in Vancouver and winning the lone matchup in Calgary. The teams will square off four times this season, including their next meeting on Boxing Day in southern Alberta and Game 84 in what will likely be the final game ever played at the 43-year-old Saddledome, which will be replaced next season.

These were the two lowest-scoring teams in the league last season. Calgary scored 208 goals while the Canucks managed two more than that.

The Canucks will debut their black skate jerseys tonight for the first of 16 appearances this season. They’ll wear them again tomorrow night when the team hosts the Vegas Golden Knights.

The referees for tonight’s game are Jordan Samuels Thomas and Tom Chmielewski.

What we heard

Manny Malhotra on Jake DeBrusk’s absence tonight: “Jake showed up to the rink today and we had to send him home ill. So he won’t be part of the line-up tonight.”

Malhotra on needing a response from his guys after allowing nine goals on Thursday: “We obviously need to start a lot better than we did last game. That needs to be a mandate for our group moving forward. We expect to come out a lot harder and a lot faster. And we’re expecting much the same from them (Flames). They’re probably going to be pissed off after their last outing. So you can expect a very spirited start to the game.”

Jamie Oleksiak hoping tonight’s game does not resemble the first two defensively: “We need to limit the chances again and play well structurally. Obviously, you’re not going to see similar games to the last two too often. We just have to make sure we keep working as a group and as a five-man unit and shut things down defensively.”

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