Vancouver Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin announced on Wednesday morning that the club has recalled Nils Aman from AHL Abbotsford and reassigned forward Linus Karlsson ahead of tomorrow’s matchup against the San Jose Sharks.
Allvin and Co. have been very active through their transactions to accrue cap space for this year’s trade deadline. However, with just 12 players on the roster with this move, Aman will have an opportunity to stick with the big club.
Karlsson played in eight games on his recent call-up and scored his first NHL goal in that span. He found some chemistry playing on an all-Swedish line with Elias Pettersson and Nils Höglander. After a quick stint, he and Höglander were relegated to the fourth line to play with Teddy Blueger. The 25-year-old showed some consistency during his time up and played his role well, though there wasn’t much on the stat sheet to prove it. 
Nils Aman has appeared in just five games with Vancouver this season early on, a stark dropoff from his 43 appearances last year. In those five games, Aman has two assists in those contests. The 24-year-old Avesta native is in the first year of a two-year, $825,000 AAV contract he signed back in 2023. 
The recent acquisitions of Filip Chytil and Drew O’Connor have shaken up the forward depth and provided an opportunity for other players to crack the lineup. Another name to keep an eye on is Aatu Räty, who has been playing well for Abbotsford and was honoured as the AHL’s Player of the Week in January.
The Canucks look ahead to their matchup tomorrow in San Jose against the Sharks after stringing together two solid performances without captain Quinn Hughes. With 29 games to play, the Canucks are tied with the Flames for the last Wild Card spot in the Western Conference with 59 points, with the tiebreaker currently going to Calgary for head-to-head wins.