Prior to flying out for their New Year’s Eve matchup with the Calgary Flames, the Vancouver Canucks took to the ice at Rogers Arena for their final practice of 2024. Here’s what went down at today’s Canucks practice.

The Canucks appear as though they won’t shake up their lines heading into tomorrow’s game in Calgary. There’s no indication yet on who the starting netminder will be, but Rick Tocchet did say after Saturday’s loss to Seattle that Kevin Lankinen would get into some games soon.

Thatcher Demko hasn’t done much to establish himself as the clear-cut number one ahead of Lankinen since returning from his knee injury. We knew that there’d be a feeling out process as Demko gets himself comfortable again, and that’s shown so far. Through six starts, Demko has a 2-1-3 record with an .879 save percentage.

We also saw the team participate in a small-ice 3-on-3 battle drill, which you can find at the bottom of this article.

JT Miller on if he takes it upon himself to rally his teammates while Quinn Hughes is out:

“I think it’s a committee thing. We all got to step up, and do a little more. Our best player’s hurt right now, not only that, he’s our captain, so we gotta make sure everybody’s pulling the rope together so we can accomplish the team goal.”

Rick Tocchet on missing key players at various times this year:

“Yeah, it’s challenging, but we don’t really use it as excuses. I mean, there’s situations where there’s opportunity for people to take advantage of it. We know the positive of it is that we’re going to get these guys back soon, and that’s the way you gotta look at it. So there’s opportunity, and you have to play even more of a team game. You’re gonna [have to] play your identity even more when you have people like that out.”

Finally, when asked about Hughes, the head coach shared that at the end of the day, the Canucks’ captain is itching to get back into the lineup. In fact, he’s bored.

“He thinks hockey, 24/7. Even when you have breakfast with him, you sit with him, he’s talking hockey. He’s watching hockey as you’re talking to him. So, you know, he just has the love of the game. You know, when you have players that love the game, it’s contagious. He just loves the game.

“This is killing him that he’s out. He told me today, ‘coach, I’m bored,’ because he’s out.

“You want guys who [while] injured, are just itching to get back in.”

Watch some raw footage from today’s practice in the video below!