It’s finally a real Vancouver Canucks game day! And that means it’s also time for a real edition of Scenes from morning skate, live from Edmonton!

The Canucks take on the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place tonight in Edmonton as both teams kick off their 2026-27 regular seasons. We travelled with the Canucks for this one, so here is what we saw from an optional Canucks road morning skate!

It was a well-attended morning skate for the Canucks, with 20 skaters on the ice. Kevin Lankinen and Leevi Meriläinen were the two goaltenders on the ice, with Lankinen expected to start for the Canucks opposite Tristan Jarry for Edmonton.

Canucks head coach Manny Malhotra wouldn’t divulge much lineup information, but he did confirm that he has all his skaters available tonight, which suggests Jake DeBrusk will be good to go after missing yesterday’s Canucks practice. Aatu Räty, Victor Mancini, and Guillaume Brisebois were the three Canucks out late shooting on Leevi Meriläinen, suggesting they’ll be the scratches tonight. With all that information in mind, here is what we’d expect the Canucks’ lineup to look like this evening.

DeBrusk-Pettersson-Lekkerimäki
Öhgren-Rossi-Boeser
O’Connor-Sasson-Karlsson
Bains-Cotter-Gallagher

Buium-Hronek
Oleksiak-Willander
E. Pettersson-Schenn

Lankinen

On the Oilers side, they will be without Ryan Nugent-Hopkins this evening, as he was banged up in their final preseason game. He joins Matt Savoie and Jason Dickinson among the Oilers regulars out with injuries.

Manny Malhotra said his excitement level was at an “11 out of 10” as he prepares to stand behind the bench for his first game as an NHL head coach. “It’s something that we’ve been waiting for a long time. Coming into camp, all the prep work that had been done. Being a very quick camp, to be able to get to this point has been a lot of fun. Much like the players, we’re really excited to get things going.”

Malhotra on his decision to go with Sasson and Cotter as his bottom-six centremen if Räty indeed finds himself as a healthy scratch tonight: “Well, I guess it’s a process that we go through with every player in terms of deciding our lineup, what gives us the best opportunity to win based off of obviously a very short training camp, a few exhibition games, just the overall chemistry that guys have formed over that short period of time. Again, that’s our thinking as we think through who goes in the lineup.”

Jake DeBrusk on what he and the rest of the team hope to hang their hat on for this season: “Well, there’s a lot of things. Obviously we’re kind of building from the ground up here, and I think we need to play a harder game in general. It’s about competing every single night. Obviously, there’s lots of things that are being said about our team, but we’re going to be a hard team to play against, and that doesn’t happen overnight. It happens continuously, and all good teams do it. But I think by playing with some pace and winning your battles and just the simple things, that’s one of the things we focused on from the coaching staff. That’s the building blocks to continue to get better as a group.”

Be sure to check out the Rink Wide Vancouver YouTube channel after the game for all your post-game analysis needs!