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Scenes from practice: Hronek takes maintenance day, will be ready when Canucks face Blues on Saturday
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Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Jeff Paterson
Mar 20, 2026, 16:18 EDTUpdated: Mar 20, 2026, 16:19 EDT
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After a 6-2 loss to Tampa Bay on Thursday night and with an early 4pm puck drop against St. Louis on Saturday, the Vancouver Canucks held a brief 30-minute practice at UBC on Friday morning. The Canucks were forced to skate on the Point Grey campus with the lacrosse floor down at Rogers Arena for tonight’s Vancouver Warriors game.

What we saw

With a heavy workload all season, Filip Hronek was given the day off Friday. Otherwise, the other 18 skaters on the roster took to the ice at Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre. The Canucks also had three goalies on the ice as practice netminder Alex Kotai joined Kevin Lankinen and Nikita Tolopilo. 
The focus on Friday seemed to be quick tempo battle drills. At one point, Linus Karlsson send defenceman Elias Pettersson sprawling to the ice with a heavy body check. That drew a reaction from the rest of the group. Afterward, both players appeared to have a good laugh about the collision.
The team did not conduct line rushes, and as such, head coach Adam Foote did not tip his hand in terms of any line-up changes for Saturday’s game against the Blues. Following practice, Foote indicated he was looking at his options, but said he had not yet settled on line-up decisions. With only two spare skaters these days, Foote doesn’t have much leeway to make significant changes. Pierre-Olivier Joseph practiced with the group and could be an option to return to the line-up for the first time since a March 2nd injury suffered against Dallas. Newcomer Curtis Douglas has been a healthy scratch the past two games and could find himself back in uniform on Saturday. Foote’s pattern recently has been to limit healthy scratches to consecutive games. Nils Hoglander sat out two in a row before being inserted against Florida on Tuesday. 
At the same time the Canucks were skating on the big rink at UBC Friday, the Blues were practicing on the Father David Bauer sheet. Neither team will hold a morning skate Saturday with the 4pm faceoff.

What we heard

Adam Foote on what he was looking for from his group at practice: “That was a reset practice. We had the win against Florida and then we got a little cozy and a (Tampa) team comes in and we weren’t ready, a little bit loose. Guys were great today. They closed faster in our end and used better technique. It was good.”
Foote on the struggles the Canucks have had in second periods all season (-37 goal differential): “We have to grow. We have to understand the odds. The second period is a long change, but that’s why we can’t extend the shift. We have a lot of guys that extend their shifts. We can’t burn ourselves in the second period. They’ve got to decide to stop it. The group in there has to be more mature about those second periods and the decisions and the odds so we can play a little smarter. We’re getting there, but we have to be more consistent and these have to happen for us to get there.”

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