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Canucks take Friday’s summer skate to Britannia Community Centre

Photo credit: © Tav Morisson-CanucksArmy

By Jeff Paterson

Sep 4, 2026, 16:20 EDT

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In what was perhaps a glimpse into the future, the Vancouver Canucks skated at Britannia Community Centre on the city’s east side Friday morning. Weekend concerts forced the team out of its Rogers Arena home base. So the players shifted the site of their informal on-ice workout to what one day may be the club’s permanent practice facility.

Jeff Paterson

@patersonjeff

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an artist’s rendering of what a #Canucks practice at Britannia could look like some day. The artist? My iPhone

5:32 PM · Sep 4, 2026

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Veteran forwards Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser took the day off; otherwise, every skater on the NHL roster was accounted for, along with several hopefuls. In all, 28 players took to the ice – 17 forwards, eight defencemen and three goalies.

While it’s hard to read too much into a few practice drills followed by a spirited two-period scrimmage, there were a couple of things that stood out. The first was that the defensive duos that skated together on Friday could very well be the same ones we see at training camp and into the preseason. To no one’s surprise, Zeev Buium and Filip Hronek skated as a pair throughout the scrimmage, as did Elias Pettersson and Luke Schenn. Jamie Oleksiak paired with Victor Mancini on Friday, while Tom Willander worked in tandem with Kirill Kudryavtsev.

With no Brock Boeser, a couple of different wingers cycled through his spot with Marco Rossi and Liam Öhgren. Max Sasson had an opportunity to showcase his speed on that line, giving Rossi a pair of wingers who can motor. Later in the day, Jonathan Lekkerimäki slotted in with Rossi and Öhgren.

As has been reported elsewhere this week, Filip Chytil looks ready to prove the doubters wrong. It’s only the first week of September, and there is virtually no contact in these scrimmages, but the Czech forward was flying again on Friday, and his speed is noticeable. Chytil shuttled between centre and the wing during the scrimmage, and it’s going to be worth monitoring to see if that continues to be the case once training camp gets underway.

With nine forwards on one team and eight on the other, there was plenty of line juggling and different looks shown throughout the scrimmage. Again, it’s difficult to draw many conclusions from an informal skate two weeks ahead of camp.

Latvian forward Anri Ravinskis was a full participant in Friday’s session, although he stood out in a red non-contact jersey.

The blue team ended up beating the whites 7-6. As is customary, the losing team was forced to skate lines at the end of the day as punishment for coming up on the short end on the scoreboard. The Canucks are expected to take the long weekend off from on-ice workouts and resume skating again on Tuesday.

Jeff Paterson

@patersonjeff

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Team White punishment for losing the scrimmage #Canucks