The Abbotsford Canucks got some good news ahead of their Wednesday night matchup against the San Jose Barracuda. Shortly before the game, Vancouver Canucks GM Patrik Allvin announced that Jonathan Lekkerimäki has been activated from Injured Reserve and reassigned to AHL Abbotsford.

Lekkerimäki has appeared in four games this season, scoring on opening night against the Calgary Flames. The 21-year-old winger played in the following two games before he was made a healthy scratch to start their first lengthy road trip. He slotted back in against the Washington Capitals as Brock Boeser returned to Vancouver for personal reasons.

The Swede was injured in the first period of that game after absorbing a hit along the boards from Capitals defenceman Matt Roy. Lekkerimäki has missed the following 12 games with an upper-body injury. He returned to practice in a red non-contact jersey on Friday, sporting the same colour on Saturday’s morning skate, and shed the non-contact jersey for a regular uniform on Tuesday’s morning skate ahead of their match against the Winnipeg Jets.

The Abbotsford Canucks are currently on an 11-game losing streak as they’ve certainly felt the effects of losing key players from last year’s team, such as Linus Karlsson, Max Sasson, Arshdeep Bains, and Aatu Räty, all of whom are currently part of the Canucks’ NHL lineup. Of course, they’ve also dealt with injuries of their own, most notably in goal, which was highlighted last week when the club had to use an EBUG thanks to Jiri Patera’s call-up to the NHL and Ty Young going down with a minor injury.

Young played two periods of last night’s game against the Barracuda, but was pulled in favour of Jonathan Lemieux after allowing five goals on 21 shots. While the goaltending wasn’t great, you can’t win when you don’t score, and the Canucks were shutout last night, with the final score reading 7-0 in favour of San Jose. Lekkerimäki should certainly help in the scoring department,  as he scored 19 goals in 36 AHL games last season.