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Arturs Silovs gets the start as Canucks kick off Young Stars vs. the Flames |
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Hello from Penticton!
I drove up on Thursday for my second visit to the Young Stars Classic. I was here in 2017 when Brock Boeser, Thatcher Demko and Olli Juolevi were headlining the Vancouver Canucks' roster — and I also remember chatting postgame with new signings like Jalen Chatfield and Zack MacEwen.
I've been gathering some material on all four teams for The Hockey News, and finally got to check in on the Canucks at their morning skate on Friday.
It's funny — this time around, the star power comes from the development staff. True to form, Daniel and Henrik Sedin were among the first skaters on the ice for the session — shooting some pucks at 2022 fifth-round draft pick Ty Young and saucing a few passes back and forth to each other.
There's something....calming...about seeing Daniel and Henrik back at work, even if it's now in the track suits of the coaching staff instead of the team's practice uniforms. There's no doubt that today's prospects are in good hands, and can pick up a lot from the two soon-to-be Hall-of-Famers.
Though he grew up in Alberta, Young said this morning was special for him, especially because he grew up as a Canucks fan.
Chase Wouters, the 22-year-old Abbotsford Canucks forward, chuckled ruefully when asked about losing a couple of draws to Henrik on the ice this morning.
"He's gotten me a couple of times in the past couple of days," Wouters said. "It's not the first; I'm sure it won't be the last time I lose to him."
The Canucks will face the Calgary Flames in Friday's late game, with puck drop at 7:30 p.m. PT. The game will be livestreamed at Canucks.com — and the Flames are streaming it as well.
Vancouver did mostly systems work at Friday's morning skate. Here's an idea of how the line combinations rolled at practice on Thursday.
One of the more highly pedigreed prospects on the Canucks' roster now is goaltender Arturs Silovs — the 21-year-old who was a sixth-round pick in 2019 and had a bit of a tough time finding a place to play last season. But Silovs showed that Ian Clark may have been right when he earmarked him for the draft based on a relatively sample size in Latvia. Last spring, he dazzled in net at the World Championship, stealing the net from Elvis Merzlikins and putting up a .952 save percentage and 1.22 goals-against average in four appearances.
The Canucks are playing their goalie plan for the weekend pretty close to the vest at this point, but Silovs is expected to start against Calgary on Friday night.
He'll be facing off against another highly touted 21-year-old netminding prospect — Dustin Wolf. I'll always remember the big cheer that went up for the then-Everett Silvertips' stopper when he was selected by Calgary with the fourth-to-last pick in the 2019 draft in Vancouver — long after most players and fans had cleared out of Rogers Arena.
But Wolf has continued to build himself a solid resume since then. Last season, he went 33-9-4 with the AHL's Stockton Heat, putting up a .924 save percentage in the regular season and improving that to .929 in the postseason, as the Heat reached the third round of the AHL playoffs.
So Silovs will be squaring off against an impressive rival at the other end of the ice. He'll also be staring down arguably the most highly pedigreed group of skaters here in Penticton. Even though the Flames had only three picks in the 2022 draft, their roster here in Penticton is led by 2019 first-round pick Jakob Pelletier and 2020 first-rounder Connor Zary. New arrival Cole Schwindt is also attracting attention — a third-round pick in 2019 who spent most of last season in the AHL but also logged three NHL games with the Florida Panthers before he was dealt to the Flames in July as part of the Jonathan Huberdeau/Matthew Tkachuk trade.
Who are the other Canucks players I'll be watching closely?
I'm curious to see what Danila Klimovich brings tonight. Abbotsford assistant Gary Agnew spoke to the media on Friday and acknowledged the tough road that Klimovich had been down last year — adjusting to a new culture and language as well as learning the North American game, all as an 18-year-old whose skills have often been described as 'raw.' Hopefully by spending the summer in Vancouver and continuing to work on his game, he'll have a greater comfort level coming into this year. This prospects tournament is also a much less intimidating environment for him to show his stuff, after having been thrust straight into the Canucks' main group after just a few days of rookie camp last season.
Meanwhile — as the prospects get the lions' share of local attention, Part 2 of the NHL's Player Media Tour is also underway in Vegas.
This year's rep from Vancouver: Quinn Hughes, who is making the rounds with his brother Jack.
After missing part of training camp last season due to his contract dispute, Hughes found his legs more quickly than Elias Pettersson and went on to have an outstanding year — hitting a new career high with 68 points and, as he'd set out to do, proving his value as a two-way defenseman by turning his minus-24 rating from the 2020-21 season into a more respectable plus-10.
He also added the penalty kill to his list of duties after Bruce Boudreau took over. And this fall, he's going to try his hand on the right side — mostly likely on a top pairing with Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Hughes turns 23 in October and so far, he has shown that he can successfully add more elements to his game. I feel like another summer of working out with Jack and the two of them pushing each other should deliver good outcomes in both Vancouver and New Jersey this fall.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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