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Scenes from practice: Boeser, Chytil, and more Canucks resume skating at UBC following Olympic break
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Photo credit: © Tav Morisson-CanucksArmy
Jeff Paterson
Feb 17, 2026, 19:00 ESTUpdated: Feb 17, 2026, 18:59 EST
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After two weeks away from the rink, the Vancouver Canucks returned to the practice ice on Tuesday afternoon at the University of British Columbia. Due to the Olympics, National Hockey League guidelines restricted all teams from skating until 2 PM local time today. The players not in Milan assembled in two groups, with Conor Garland the only regular who did not participate. The veteran forward was excused from the session as he battles an illness.

What we saw

The first of the two groups to take to the ice was comprised of veteran players. Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk, Tyler Myers, Marcus Pettersson, Drew O’Connor, Evander Kane, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, and Marco Rossi were joined by Filip Chytil, who was a full participant in the 45-minute workout. However, Chytil, who missed the team’s final game before the break with migraine issues, wore a red non-contact jersey and was unavailable to the media, so his status moving forward remains unclear.
The second group of the day included primarily younger players on the roster, with the exception of Nils Höglander. Others in Group Two included Tom Willander, Elias Pettersson, Max Sasson, Linus Karlsson, Aatu Räty and Liam Öhgren. The group also included Zeev Buium, who returned to the ice wearing a full cage and a red non-contact jersey as he works his way back from a facial injury suffered in a January 25th loss to Pittsburgh.
The Canucks had three goalies on the ice for the sessions. Jiri Patera spent the Olympic break on the NHL roster and remains with the big league team. Aku Koskenvuo was called up from Abbotsford to practice with the NHL team. The club also had Alex Kotai, its usual practice netminder, taking part in drills. Abbotsford has three AHL road games over the next four nights so the plan, for now, is to leave Nikita Tolopilo in the minors to continue to log game action during the NHL break. 
Tuesday’s on-ice sessions started with players easing back into skating drills without pucks before ramping up into some in-zone activity.The idea behind breaking the team into two groups was to give players more puck touches after being away from the game for a couple of weeks.
The plan for the remainder of the week is to have the first consolidated practice at UBC on Wednesday. Thursday is a scheduled team day off. The club is slated to practice again at UBC on both Friday and Saturday before taking Sunday off. 
The Canucks resume their NHL schedule on Wednesday, February 25th, at home to Winnipeg. 

Plan for Olympic participants to rejoin the team

The Canucks say they are monitoring the workloads of their Olympians as they try to devise a plan for integrating them into the group before that first game out of the break. There is considerable concern for Filip Hronek, who has logged heavy minutes for Czechia and will be expected to do the same when he returns to the Canucks’ lineup. The NHL and NHLPA have mandated that all Olympians get one full day off upon their return to North America following the games. Depending on how far their teams go and when those players return to Vancouver, it’s possible they will receive more than one day off. Given that they have been playing hockey at the highest level for the past week, the concern is more of jet lag and fatigue than it is about fitting back into an NHL lineup.

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