The Vancouver Canucks are dressing many of their stars for tonight’s preseason game against Seattle at Rogers Arena.

Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk and Evander Kane will all be in the lineup. However, the player many fans attending the game will be watching closest will be 2025 first-rounder Braeden Cootes, who will play in front of a Vancouver crowd for the first time.

Kevin Lankinen will make his first start of the preseason. As in Abbotsford on Wednesday, the Canucks will make a decision on Lankinen’s night based on the workload. It’s possible the Finnish netminder plays 40 minutes before giving way to a backup.

The Canucks made one small change to their game group from practice on Thursday. Danila Klimovich will get an opportunity to skate tonight on a fourth line with Aatu Räty and Vilmer Alriksson. At practice yesterday, MacKenzie MacEachern skated in Klimovich’s spot.

With a large preseason roster, the Canucks skated in two groups on Friday morning. After getting Thursday off as a maintenance day, Thatcher Demko was back on the ice and a full participant in the second session. Conor Garland skated with the group for a second straight day. And Ty Mueller, who wore a red non-contact jersey on Thursday, has been cleared to join the group and wore a regular white uniform at practice today.

Veteran defenceman Tyler Myers was not on the ice for a second straight day, but was spotted in the hallway outside the team locker room in workout gear. Nils Höglander was also seen in the hallway, wearing a walking boot and using crutches.

Tonight’s game will be the first preseason game televised on Rogers Sportsnet. John Shorthouse and Dave Tomlinson will have the call. All four remaining games on the Canucks’ exhibition schedule will be shown on Sportsnet.

Assistant coach Brett McLean on what the staff is looking for from the Canucks tonight: “One thing we really liked in Abbotsford was that the team really started to play to the identity we’ve been talking about. That’s playing fast, D joining the rush, things like that, getting some O-zone time and we really liked what we saw in that game. So we’re going to be stressing that with our group here tonight obviously with more veteran players to continue that trend of playing more to the identity that we want to play with.”

Braeden Cootes on what he’s looking to show the coaches: “I think my goal is to maybe show people that I can play here. Maybe make the coaches be like ‘oh he’s got a shot’ making a little noise there. Any time I go to any camp I’m trying to make the team. That’s just who I am. I’m a competitive person.”

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