Travis Green and the Vancouver Canucks continue to mix things up as they move into their last few days of training camp before flying to Edmonton on Sunday.
Green will need to make a few roster decisions before that, too. The team can only take 31 players to Edmonton and currently has 34 in camp: 18 forwards, 12 defensemen and four goalies.
After practicing on Tuesday, the Canucks are holding an afternoon scrimmage on Wednesday at 3:30, with media availability via Zoom immediately afterward. The audio play-by-play will be broadcast on Sportsnet 650.
It's getting close to crunch time for the bubble players. Most of them haven't gotten much opportunity to practice alongside the regulars, so the scrimmages have been their best opportunity to show what they can do.
Olli Juolevi did that at the scrimmage on Sunday. He was rewarded by being promoted to the main group for Tuesday's practice, along with Jalen Chatfield.
Green had some praise for Juolevi on Tuesday, and admitted that the coaching staff has been doing extra work with him, trying to bring him along. That sounds to me like he has earned a Golden Ticket to Edmonton.
Tyler Myers and Brandon Sutter were both absent from Sunday's scrimmage, but returned to the ice on Tuesday. Myers slotted into his regular spot, on a pairing with Alex Edler, but Sutter skated as one of three extra forwards.
So did Jake Virtanen — still on the outside looking in, although Green acknowledged that Jake makes the team better when he's playing up to his potential. He's one of the players who should be out to prove himself on Wednesday.
The Canucks also did some special-teams work at Tuesday's practice. I wonder if they'll work any of that into Wednesday's scrimmage — so far, everything has been 5-on-5 except the extra-attacker situations near the ends of games. Just one penalty has been called — in the first scrimmage, last Thursday. Zack MacEwen was unsuccessful on his penalty shot, with the rest of the players chasing him to re-start the play after his miss.
As well as Juolevi, Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser also spoke with the media on Tuesday.
Petey talked about how he'd like the freedom to fully exploit the league's relaxed dress code — though it sounds like the Canucks will go with matching polo shirts and pants on their travels from the Sutton Place Hotel in Edmonton over to Rogers Place (a one-minute drive or five-minute walk, according to Google Maps).
Boeser talked about how hard he worked when he was home in Minnesota during the pause, thinking about how he has a chance to redeem himself after a down year, and starting fresh after that February rib injury which caused him to miss a month of action.
“A lot of Peloton. I rode a lot of peloton,”
he said.
The work has paid off. Boeser has been flying through practices and scrimmages over the past couple of weeks. Officially, he hasn't hit the net yet, although he had a buzzer-beater waved off at the end of the first half on Sunday. Another one of his shots either hit the crossbar or the back bar — without replays, who knows?
I won't be surprised if he lights the lamp today. Especially since he's also trying out some changes to his stick.
“I never like to change my stuff — especially if I’ve had success — but I tried a new curve today and we’ll see how it goes,”
Boeser said. “I’ve only toyed with my (stick) flex once and never my curve. I’ve had the same curve since peewee.
“I just tried it out with an 85 flex with a little bigger curve and it felt pretty good and I’m going to give it a couple of more days and see if it leads anywhere.”
“Definitely different and you can shoot a little harder and take better one-timers,” he continued. “I’m pretty sure it’s an Auston Matthews curve righty — a P90 — so I gave it a look and we’ll see if it leads anywhere. I’ve been working a lot on my shot and getting if off quicker and it’s kind of more deceptive.”
With such a long runway before the actual games begin, I didn't want to get ahead of myself in scouting the Canucks' qualifying-round opponent, the Minnesota Wild. We're 12 days away from Game 1, which will take place on Sunday, August 2, so there's still plenty of time.
But Wild beat writer Sarah McLellan is already in Edmonton, serving her 14-day quarantine but still connected to the team through the magic of Zoom. Her story from Tuesday is an interesting look at how the Wild are handling the challenge of the uncertainty that they'll be facing — including some astute observations on things like how the quality of the ice will be when Vancouver and Minnesota square off for the last game of the day.
Worth a read:
Enjoy the scrimmage!
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