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Canucks’ Filip Chytil takes part in optional skate sporting full bubble visor
Photo credit: © Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Mar 26, 2026, 14:28 EDTUpdated: Mar 26, 2026, 14:29 EDT
The Vancouver Canucks were back on the ice at Rogers Arena on Tuesday morning, and a familiar face joined them.
Ahead of the club’s Thursday night home matchup with the Los Angeles Kings, centre Filip Chytil skated with some of his Canucks teammates in a highly optional morning skate. In particular, Chytil skated with Victor Mancini, Curtis Douglas, Nikita Tolopilo, and, for a brief period, Kevin Lankinen.
This is the first time Chytil has skated with his teammates since taking a puck to the face in a late-February practice. As he was parked off to the side of the net, a Brock Boeser shot ricocheted off a skate and then off the plexiglass and caught Chytil just below the visor. It was a freak accident, and it led to a facial fracture for Chytil, who has had awful injury luck, with multiple head injuries already suffered throughout his young career.
Yesterday, Jeff Paterson noted the following in Scenes from Canucks practice:
Injured forward Filip Chytil still has a locker stall with full equipment in the Canucks locker room. The Canucks confirm that Chytil has skated on his own since suffering fractured facial bones in a freak practice accident in late February. However, there is no chance that Chytil will suit up again this season. He has one year remaining on his contract, and it is unclear at this point if he’ll be fully healthy and whether he intends to attempt another return to action at training camp.
After today’s optional morning skate, Canucks head coach Adam Foote had this to say about Chytil:
“Yeah, that is a good sign for him. I’m sure he wants to,” Foote said when asked if Chytil might return to game action before the end of the season. “I’m sure our training staff is pushing, probably for him not to, to be honest with you, but we’ll see what happens.”
Foote added that Chytil is in the phase of his recovery where he’ll go through the process of seeing how he feels after each skate, and see how much he can ramp up over the next few weeks.
“He’ll go through that and then try to get into whatever, [when] they say he can practice, and then practice, and get into contact, and then, you know he’s missed some time, so we’ll see.”
The next noteworthy step for Chytil will be taking part in a full practice, presumably in a red non-contact jersey.
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