One day after announcing their opening day lineup, the Vancouver Canucks announced they had placed defenceman Mark Friedman on waivers for the purpose of AHL assignment to Abbotsford.

On Wednesday morning, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed that Friedman had cleared waivers and will report to the Abbotsford Canucks.

This won’t be Friedman’s first stint in Abbotsford, playing in four games with the team last season, scoring one goal and three assists for four points, finishing with a plus-five rating and logging four penalty minutes.

Friedman was acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins as a necessity add with Soucy going down with an injury. The former third-round pick suited up for 23 games in Vancouver last season, registering just one assist, 16 shots on goal, 21 penalty minutes, and a plus-four rating in 12:14 minutes of ice time.

Friedman had a strong preseason, appearing in three games, finishing with one assist, four shots on goal, and seven penalty minutes – including one fight against Brandon Tanev – with a minus-one rating in 19:13 minutes of average ice time.

The Canucks’ addition of Erik Brannstrom – in a move that sent Tucker Poolman and a 2025 fourth-round pick to the Colorado Avalanche – allowed Vancouver the flexibility to risk sending Friedman down in the chance he got claimed. Fortunately for the Canucks, Friedman went unclaimed and will assume the number one right-handed defenceman role in Abbotsford.

Vancouver now enters tonight’s game against the Calgary Flames with seven defencemen on the roster: Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Carson Soucy, Tyler Myers, Vincent Desharnais, Derek Forbort and Noah Juulsen. At Canucks practice yesterday, the defensive pairings were:

The Canucks’ defence corps will try to handle the Flames’ competitive top-nine forward group of Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau, Andrei Kuzmenko, Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman, Anthony Mantha, with young players Connor Zary, Martin Pospisil and former Vancouver Giant making his NHL debut, Samuel Honzek.