Dakota Joshua’s return to the Vancouver Canucks’ lineup is imminent.

Out to start the season while recovering from a procedure to treat testicular cancer, the 28-year-old forward rejoined the team for their recent four-game road trip and managed to hit the ice for their morning skate in Philadelphia on Saturday.

That likely puts Joshua’s return somewhere in that three-game homestand that closes out October. And given that, we note after a hearty knock on wood; there are currently no other forward-related injuries impacting the Canucks, which means decisions will have to be made about the roster and the lineup in the very near future.

Getting Joshua from the injured reserve (IR) to the active roster isn’t particularly difficult. Right now, the Canucks have a full active roster of 23, made up of 13 forwards, eight defenders, and two goalies. To activate Joshua, either that extra forward or one of the extra defenceman will have to go. Arshdeep Bains doesn’t require waivers and is currently outside of the lineup looking in, so he’s the most likely candidate. If not him, Erik Brännström can be demoted without waivers for 30 days following his recent recall. One of them goes down to Abbotsford, and Joshua rejoins the roster. Easy peasy.

The question of where Joshua fits into the lines themselves, however, now might be complicated than it was at the season’s outset.

Coming into 2024/25, it was assumed that Joshua would rejoin Conor Garland in what has become one of the team’s most enduring duos. With Elias Lindholm out the door via unrestricted free agency, that might have left Pius Suter and Teddy Blueger competing for the centre job between them, with Blueger having the edge due to past precedent.

And in some ways, that’s still the likeliest outcome in the long term.

But a lot has changed in Joshua’s absence.

One of those key changes? How good Garland has looked elsewhere. He’s been partnered with Nils Höglander for much of the 2024/25 season thus far, and the two have been terrorizing opponents with their mutual high-compete, low-centre-of-gravity playstyle. Aside from perhaps Brock Boeser and JT Miller, Garland and Höglander have been the Canucks’ best forward duo through five games, skating 55:31 together at 5-on-5 with numbers like a 54.00% Corsi, a 65.12% control of shots, and a 64.10% control of scoring chances. In other words, the Canucks have been fairly dominant with both Garland and Höglander out there.

The instinct might be to keep those two together. That’s especially true since the last two games have featured Garland and Höglander flanking Elias Pettersson, and resulted in what were easily Pettersson’s best games of the year thus far.

Keeping Höglander-Pettersson-Garland together is certainly an option. That would probably allow for Jake DeBrusk to stay on the Miller-Boeser line, which seems like it could be a winning combination. And then we’d have Joshua returning to his usual spot on the third line, albeit minus Garland. Under this scenario, Joshua probably lines up with Blueger and one of Danton Heinen or Daniel Sprong – though the option of a Joshua-Blueger-Kiefer Sherwood line is also all sorts of fun.

But there have been some legitimate questions raised about how long-term a line of Höglander-Pettersson-Garland can realistically operate, particularly when the playoffs hit and size becomes more important. And if that line isn’t going to be stuck with, more possibilities open up.

One intriguing option? Simply bumping Höglander out of that spot and making Pettersson the new centre between Joshua and Garland. The addition of Joshua definitely takes care of the size issue, and if the team really wants to get Pettersson going and keep him going, then putting him between two players with unparalleled chemistry is probably a good start.

Höglander would go back down to the bottom six, where he’s proven capable of producing. Or, maybe he could slide onto Miller and Boeser’s wing, allowing for DeBrusk to become a premier feature on a scoring third line.

Or maybe Rick Tocchet and Co. go with the ‘ain’t broke, don’t fix’ approach, and just go right back to that third line of Joshua-Blueger-Garland. That would leave the Canucks exactly where they were in most preseason pencilings, with Pettersson, Miller, Boeser, and DeBrusk locked into top-six spots and two of Höglander, Sprong, and Heinen set to join them.

Or, on a similar note, we still haven’t seen what Aatu Räty looks like between Joshua and Garland, and that’s probably a combination worth looking into at some point.

But then we’re back to the current issue at hand, which is that none of those various combinations worked particularly well until the Höglander-Pettersson-Garland line got put together.

The hope there would have to be that, with Pettersson slowly coming out of his funk, he might be able to again have success with a variety of linemates.

Perhaps the real answer will be some combination of the above. As Joshua may reasonably need some reduced deployment to get up to speed, maybe the Höglander-Pettersson-Garland line sticks for a little longer and Joshua starts out on the third line.

Inevitably, though, things will change. Inevitably, the coaching staff is going to want to put Joshua and Garland back together.

From where we’re standing, the best current bet is to try out that Joshua-Pettersson-Garland line as soon as possible. That seems like a line that could achieve success not just in the regular season but in the postseason, as well. Plus, we really like the DeBrusk-Miller-Boeser line that it leaves on the table. Throw a Höglander-Blueger-Heinen line behind that top-six, and things are theoretically sitting pretty.

In reality, there won’t be any singular answer as to how Joshua fits back into the lineup. Several different combinations will be tried out, and the Canucks will only be able to count on a fully-staffed forward corps for a limited time at best, anyway.

The possibilities are numerous and positive enough to just mostly be excited about Joshua’s return and the quality of play he brings with him.