The Vancouver Canucks hit the ice for Day 1 of 2026-27 training camp, and we got our first look at what the potential line combinations may look like for the upcoming season.

Here is how each group lined up:

Of course, there are a few recently drafted youngsters and players on AHL contracts that we can fairly safely cross off the list of potential candidates to make the big club.

Instead, we’d like to focus on the combinations that we could actually see come puck drop on opening night against the Edmonton Oilers. As a mock-up solely based on combinations we saw today, I provided this as a list of forward and defensive pairings:

But how should we read into these? According to head coach Manny Malhotra, we shouldn’t read into any of it at all:

“You shouldn’t read into any of them,” Malhotra joked post Day 1 of Canucks training camp. “No, it’s a starting point. The guys have been made aware that there’s obviously a lot of bodies right now, so the way they play and the chemistry they form early on is really important. But we are not setting any lines in stone right now. It’s a starting point for everybody.

“Same thing [on the backend],” Malhotra continued. “We’re looking for that chemistry early on. We’re looking to see who plays well together, who complements one another. So we’re not in a rush to put pairs together and say this is how it’s going to be for 84 games.”

While Malhotra may have been joking that we shouldn’t read into anything, he still pointed out that this was a starting point. So, this was his first vision of what trio of forwards and defensive pairings he believes will best complement each other. Now, there’s something to read into.

The forward corps looks balanced across all four lines. Malhotra is sticking with the duo that should work together on top with DeBrusk and Pettersson, while adding a hard forechecking player in Karlsson who can cause chaos in the crease. In the middle six, we see the BRÖ line get split up, but it may be what’s best. The second line of Cotter-Chytil-Boeser may not be a strong defensive line; they’ll make up for it with Cotter and Chytil’s speed and Boeser’s offence. Reuniting Öhgren and Lekkerimäki seems like a good fit to get the most out of the latter, while Rossi adds two-way stability to his young wingers. And for the fourth line, it feels very well constructed in terms of each guy complementing one another. O’Connor and Gallagher’s forechecking, paired with Sasson’s speed, popped as one of the most impressive lines from both sessions today.

One flaw in these mock-up lines is that they do not include Räty. While we believe he is pegged for a defensive depth role in the NHL next season, that isn’t how he was deployed on Day 1 of training camp. Instead, he was skating with Mueller and Fix-Wolansky, a pair of players hopeful for bottom-line roles. We’ll see if Malhotra decides to give Räty a different opportunity tomorrow.

If everything sticks together on the back end, it appears the Oleksiak-Hronek pairing will play a lot of heavy, shutdown minutes for the Canucks this season. The second pairing of Buium-Schenn looks familiar from Schenn’s other stints in a Canucks uniform: playing the mentor role with a young, budding offensive star defenceman. This will allow Buium to fully develop his offensive game while being protected by Schenn. And the bottom pair of Pettersson and Willander, two young blueliners who may have been thrust into a higher role than they may have been ready for last year, will be fun to watch as they continue to develop in a sheltered role against bottom-sixers.

It was interesting to note on Day 1 that Malhotra had Kudryavtsev and Mancini on separate pairings in the same group. However, we still got something notable from that. Whenever the top two forward lines were out there participating in drills, it was the Oleksiak-Hronek pairing and the Schuldt-Kudryavtsev pairing that battled them. Potentially an early sign that Kudryavtsev may be higher than Mancini on the depth chart?

We’ll have to see how groupings and line changes differ tomorrow for Day 2, but based on today, this is how we’re deciding to read into the new line combinations.