I want to begin today by expressing my deepest condolences to Troy Stecher and his family and loved ones after the announcement earlier this week that Troy's father, Peter, has passed away.
Peter was deeply involved in Troy's hockey upbringing. He was a fixture around the Richmond minor hockey scene and Troy has spoken often of his memories of attending pivotal Canucks games with his dad when he was a kid.
Of course, Peter is also the third Canuck dad to pass this year, following Jacob Markstrom's father, Anders, and Zack MacEwen's father Craig.
Let's balance that with a couple of happier stories from the Canucks camp.
I enjoyed reading about how Adam Gaudette's tweet to help get Quinn Hughes into the All-Star Game through the Last Man In vote last January drew 145 retweets and nearly 1,000 likes. That was the most engagement of any NHL player promoting the All-Star Fan Vote, and earned Gaudette a chance to donate $25,000 to the charity of his choice through the NHL Foundation. He chose the charitable arm of the Center for Disease Control.
Gaudette often gets passed over in conversations about the Canucks' impressive core of young players, and wasn't even expected to be a regular this year until he played his way onto the team with a very impressive training camp — testing Jim Benning's common refrain that if a player earns a roster spot, they'll find a way to make room for him. Over the course of the season, he had some big moments — enough to cement himself as the Vancouver player with the most effusive goal-scoring celebrations. It's cool that he's now being recognized for giving an off-ice assist to one of his teammates.
In that spirit, the Canucks also made another cool announcement on Wednesday morning — the establishment of the Daniel & Henrik Sedin Award, which will be awarded to the player who demonstrates the best community leadership in the spirit of what Daniel and Henrik were known for.
The announcement also kicks off the Canucks' fan voting for the traditional team awards for the 2019-20 season. Fans can vote online
here until July 2 and the winners will be announced the week of July 6, right before the official training camp is scheduled to open on July 10.
Another tidbit that escaped my attention on Monday: the Canucks have now officially announced the Black Aces who will be joining their group to round out their roster:
According to Ben Kuzma, teams are allowed to have 30 skaters and an unlimited number of goalies at training camp, then will have to cut the roster to 28 when the games begin. Players on injured reserve do not count toward those totals.
I assume the setting of this roster also aligns with the announcements we saw last week, that Reid Boucher and Nikolay Goldobin have officially signed with KHL teams for next season.
No surprises with signings from college or Europe such as Will Lockwood or Nils Hoglander. And it makes sense, with the number of forwards that the Canucks are already carrying, that extra spaces would be allocated to defensemen.
Man, I hope we get to camp, just so we can see what Rafferty, Sautner, Brisebois, Juolevi and Chatfield bring to the table.
Rick Dhaliwal also guested with Thomas Drance and Jeff Paterson on "The Vancast" this week, which was an interesting conversation.
The group talked a lot about salary expectations for impending UFAs Markstrom, Tanev and Toffoli. Dhaliwal dropped a couple of other interesting details about defensemen:
• Even as the clock is ticking towards players being expected to report to KHL training camps in July, Dhaliwal says the Canucks are still telling Nikita Tryamkin's camp to hang tight — they haven't made a decision yet on whether they'll be able to offer his a deal for next season.
I wonder if that depends, in part, on what ends up happening with Tanev??
• Apparently Jack Rathbone also still hasn't decided what he's going to do next year. Dhaliwal says the decision hinges on what happens with the AHL and whether they'll be able to mount a season. If they can, apparently he's still open to turning pro in 2020-21.
Last week, the AHL announced the formation of a high-powered Return to Play task force. It's led by the just-retired former league president, David Andrews, who has received a great deal of credit for getting the league to the stable, effective form that it was in before Covid changed everything.
Finally — I'll leave you today with this interview with Jim Benning, from Iain MacIntyre.
More questions than answers as Benning and the Canucks try to coordinate players' return to Vancouver and how their training groups will work. The good news is that local health authorities are involved in this process, and they've done a tremendous job of making hard decisions and implementing workable plans up till now.
“It worries me as a person in society, as a dad, as a son,” Benning said about the complicated process of getting the team up and running again. “It’s upsetting, right? Of course, it worries me. As far as from a sports perspective, we don’t want to do anything that’s not safe for our fans or our players or all the people we have working around the team. We’re just listening to our health officials. The government agencies are directing us. We’re only able to do what they tell us.”
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»