Team

Betting

CanucksArmy has no direct affiliation to the Vancouver Canucks, Canucks Sports & Entertainment, NHL, or NHLPA

Scenes from Canucks practice: Chytil ruled out for Saturday against the Maple Leafs

Photo credit: © Tav Morisson-CanucksArmy

By Jeff Paterson

Oct 30, 2026, 16:58 EDT

Comments

The Vancouver Canucks will have to get by without Filip Chytil for at least one game. The often-injured forward will not play Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs after taking a hard check from Darnell Nurse late in Thursday’s 3-2 loss in San Jose.

Chytil was excused from a quick 30-minute practice session at UBC on Friday afternoon.

What we saw

The Canucks did not conduct line rushes, so it’s hard to know exactly how the club plans to cover the loss of Chytil who logged a career-high 22:13 of ice time against the Sharks and led all Vancouver forwards in that department. Clearly, Marco Rossi will likely be looked upon to ramp up his game in Chytil’s absence. Rossi has no goals and just one assist in his last 11 games. With Chytil eating up big minutes on Thursday, Rossi was limited to just over 11 minutes of ice time against the Sharks.

The team did break the forwards into groups of top six and bottom six during the on-ice workout and from there it presented an opportunity to project what the lines might look against the Leafs.

DeBrusk-Pettersson-Lekkerimäki
O’Connor-Rossi-Boeser

Those six skated together as they worked on offensive zone drills. At the same time, the other six forwards at practice worked on small area drills in the neutral zone. That group included Max Sasson, Liam Ohgren, Linus Karlsson, Paul Cotter, Brendan Gallagher and Arshdeep Bains.

With O’Connor in the top six group, it seems like Paul Cotter is likely to slide back into the middle and centre a fourth line with Bains and Gallagher, who is expected to return to the lineup after being a healthy scratch for the past two games.

So the bottom six could very well lineup as follows:

Öhgren-Sasson-Karlsson
Bains-Cotter-Gallagher

Without line rushes, it was impossible to get a read on which six defencemen may suit up against Toronto. Luke Schenn and Guillaume Brisebois were the extras in San Jose on Thursday night.

With the quick turnaround after flying home from the Bay Area, the Canucks had a practice goalie on the ice Friday along with Kevin Lankinen and Leevi Meriläinen. Meriläinen has started three in a row for the first time since being claimed off waivers by the Canucks. Overall, he has started six of the last eight games.

Jeff Paterson

@patersonjeff

·Follow

Leafs practice at UBC 🍁

6:32 PM · Oct 30, 2026

Read 5 replies

An hour before the Canucks took the ice at UBC, the Toronto Maple Leafs skated on an adjacent sheet. The Leafs are expected to get former Canucks Chris Tanev and Dakota Joshua back from injury on Saturday.

What we heard

Manny Malhotra provided a Filip Chytil update: “He’s being re-evaluated for an upper body injury. Not his head, which is good. So we’ll see over the next couple of days how it pans out. I think we’re going to give him the day off (Saturday) and re-evaluate on Sunday.”

Brendan Gallagher looking forward to experiencing his first Canucks-Leafs battle after years of facing Toronto with Montreal: “Of course. I’ve spent a lot of time having them as a rival. I know anytime they come out West, they get a lot of support, a lot of energy in the building. It’s a fun team to play against, so it should be a good test for our group.”

Sponsored by bet365