After a large 30-player scrimmage on Wednesday, the Vancouver Canucks split into two separate groups for Thursday’s session at Rogers Arena.

The first session consisted of: Brock Boeser, Zeev Buium, Filip Chytil, Paul Cotter, Jake DeBrusk, Filip Hronek, Linus Karlsson, Drew O’Connor, Jamie Oleksiak, Elias Pettersson (D), Aatu Räty, and Max Sasson as the skaters, with Kevin Lankinen and Nikita Tolopilo as the two netminders, with last season’s EBUG rotating in on both sessions.

This group started with a few stick-handling drills, followed by a shot on net to test the goalie. They then transitioned to passing plays with the next guy up in line, where the skating player had to pass through the obstacles and then rip a shot on net. To round out the session, players went out in pairs, passing through the obstacles before getting a shot off on the goaltender, as shown in the clip below of Jake DeBrusk and Filip Chytil:

The second session consisted of: Vilmer Alriksson, Arshdeep Bains, Brendan Gallagher, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Victor Mancini, Ty Mueller, Liam Öhgren, Anri Ravinskis, Marco Rossi, Ilya Safonov, Luke Schenn, and Tom Willander as the skaters, with Ty Young and newcomer Chris Driedger.

Driedger made his debut in a Canucks sweater today, sporting what appears to be his old Seattle Kraken pads with ice-blue and red stripes.

The 32-year-old netminder signed a professional tryout contract one week ago today, and now he’s making his case to earn a full-time contract for next season.

Räty on his offseason training with other Finnish pros over in Finland: “Yeah, tons of good players. It was great to see [Aleksander] Barkov at the World Championships and then Stanley Cup Champion Sebastian Aho from Carolina; I worked with him a bunch, and it was kind of great to compete against great players like that on the ice. Both of those guys centres too, so it was good to pick up stuff from them.”

Oleksiak on what he sees his role being on the Canucks this season: “Yeah, I mean, I know I harp on it, but just being a consistent, steady presence, you know. Just a guy that can come in and be reliable and play solid defensive hockey, move the puck well, and be a physical presence. I think that’s something I bring that’s a little bit different, obviously. So those are key things I’m going to focus on here.”