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On day one of camp, one of the main storylines was top prospect Jonathan Lekkerimäki getting a shot with Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk on one of the Canucks’ top lines.
Now, this is nothing new. It’s not rare for prospects who are longshots to make the actual team get an early opportunity in training camp to play on a top line. Linus Karlsson found himself in that spot alongside Pettersson last year, and while it didn’t mean that he was going to find himself there on opening night, the Canucks wanted Karlsson to get some experience playing with Pettersson in the event they needed to call him up to play there. And sure enough, that’s where Karlsson found himself when he was called up last season.
So is Lekkerimäki going to make the Canucks out of camp? It’s not likely, but at the very least, he appears to have the inside track to be the first call-up in the event that the Canucks need a winger to play with EP40. Now, that being said, there is a chance he can make the team out of camp, but what would that look like?
This is the question I’ve wrestled with: What’s the actual path for Lekkerimäki making the team?
Dakota Joshua isn’t expected to be out for very long, and Teddy Blueger is coming back soon. That means that, all things, considered, the Canucks are likely to have a fully healthy forward corps to open the season. So how can Lekkerimäki make the team?
First and foremost, he needs to blow the doors off when he gets preseason games alongside Pettersson. With Joshua coming back “soon”, the frontrunners for that spot are Nils Höglander and Daniel Sprong — and maybe Conor Garland if Joshua’s absence is a bit longer than Tocchet hopes. Can Lekkerimäki outplay those players? Sprong sounds like a man on a mission to establish himself as a top six forward this year, and Höglander has experience in that spot.
It’s not going to be easy by any means, and Joshua returning earlier than expected may actually help Lekkerimäki’s chances by taking Garland out of the equation for that spot.
If Lekkerimäki is undeniably the best fit in that spot, it won’t be Höglander or Sprong losing their roster spot. Rather, it would likely end up being a player like Nils Aman or Phil Di Giuseppe going to the AHL, while Höglander or Sprong lose their lineup spot.
1. Max Sasson has looked good and is somebody the organization is high on, and Aatu Räty is playing with some NHL players to open camp. Those two would be the answer, but I still think their chances are extremely low, and worse than Lekkerimäki’s.
2. Silovs’ playoff performance was undeniable, but it doesn’t change that Silovs hasn’t found much success in the regular season at really any level. That being said, as the OG Silovs truther, I certainly believe in his ability, but I would still urge the Canucks to go out and get a real plan B like Kevin Lankinen. If Silovs falters, is Jiri Patera going to be much better? I don’t think so.
3. Quinn Hughes clearly doesn’t, as the captain made a good point in saying “don’t fix what’s not broken.” It makes sense why the Canucks want to split the two up, but the results were undeniable last season. Do they have enough depth to split them up though? That remains the question.
Now Tocchet trusts his team’s staples. I think that’s the biggest thing, is that they know they should be entering this season with a baseline level of defensive play and expectations that for the most part, everybody already knows about. There’s still teaching going on, but now Tocchet is able to put an emphasis on creating off the rush, 5v5 battle drills, and things other than stationary in-zone defending, like they did last year.
Alriksson turned heads in the Young Stars Classic and has been doing more of the same during training camp. He’s got the size and some raw tools, but this season, you’d expect him to be “the guy” and dominate the OHL before turning pro at the end of this season or going into next year. If he’s going to be an NHL player, he’s likely going to need to be at least a point per game player in junior this season.
Again, it feels like some things would have to happen in front of him for Arshdeep Bains to make the roster out of camp. At this juncture, he feels like a solid call up option for a bottom six spot, as he looked a bit out of place during his stint with JT Miller and Brock Boeser last season. That’s not to say Bains wouldn’t succeed if given another shot at that spot, I just don’t know if he’ll get that shot unless a few players in front of him go down.
The big difference I noticed this year is that most of the players know what’s expected, and that there’s a lot less work on in-zone defending compared to last year. There’s certainly been more work on rush offence than last year as well.
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FINAL UPDATE: 2 PM
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