After the latest round of roster moves earlier in the day, the Vancouver Canucks practiced for 45 minutes at Rogers Arena in the noon hour on Tuesday. The session gave us our first glimpse at what head coach Rick Tocchet may be thinking about his opening night line-up.

What we saw

Pius Suter was the only regular missing from practice. The veteran centre was shaken up in Monday’s 3-2 shootout loss in Edmonton. The coach would only say Suter was being evaluated today and didn’t have any further update on his status.
For those concerned about JT Miller’s well being, he was a full and active participant in today’s workout. Afterward, he copped to dealing with ‘something’ and not wanting to force the issue. He said his lack of preseason action to this point was merely precautionary and vowed to be in the line-up on Friday night against Edmonton.
Miller skated on a line with Brock Boeser and Danton Heinen while Daniel Sprong saw his first turn of the preseason with Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk. Teddy Blueger, who has yet to appear in exhibition action, centred the third line between Conor Garland and Nils Höglander while Nils Aman was in the middle on the fourth line with Arshdeep Bains and Kiefer Sherwood on his wings. Camp standout Aatu Raty was the extra forward at practice on Tuesday.
There were no surprises among the defence pairs: Quinn Hughes skated with Filip Hronek, Carson Soucy and Tyler Myers were together, Derek Forbort and Vincent Desharnais appear to be the third pairing while Mark Friedman and Noah Juulsen skated as the extra duo. 
Akito Hirose suffered a concussion when hit awkwardly into the boards on Saturday night. He is in concussion protocol and did not skate today. Because he was injured in a preseason game, he will remain on the big league roster until he is cleared to return to action.
Arturs Silovs and Kevin Lankinen are the only two healthy goalies remaining with the group. They shared the workload on Tuesday. Lankinen still doesn’t have new Canucks equipment so was once again outfitted in his Nashville pads and mask.
The Canucks did a little bit of power play work at the end of practice, with Jake DeBrusk slotting into the bumper on the first unit. The drill seemed to be self-directed by the players and could be described as informal at best. Tocchet did say while the team hasn’t spent much time through camp and the preseason working on the man-advantage, the players have been conducting off-ice video sessions with assistant coach Yogi Svejkovsky.
For those who noticed Kiefer Sherwood on the telecast Monday night wearing a white cotton glove under his hockey glove, the newcomer says that is nothing new for him. He has skin irritation on his hand that is agitated by the sweat in his hockey glove and so he wears a layer of protection underneath in an effort to alleviate any issues.
Also, there was a power trio taking part in today’s action at Rogers Arena from the club seats. Team owner Francesco Aquilini watched the practice along with Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin and the team’s President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford.

What was said

Rick Tocchet on putting a veteran like Phil Di Giuseppe on waivers: ‘It’s a hard one. He’s a solid guy. He’s had a really good camp. There’s numbers involved and a lot more to it – the cap, LTIR – it’s over my head. I hope he doesn’t get picked up to be honest with you. But he’s a guy that if he doesn’t get picked up, he’s still in the mix. He’s just an unreal guy. That’s a tough one.”
JT Miller clears the air on his preseason status: “Just kind of been taking care of something and not forcing it. We’ve had the luxury of having some time over the last two weeks. I’ve been taking care of myself and not forcing it and I’ll be ready to go Friday. That’s me being about as honest as I can.”
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