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Elias Pettersson takes centre stage as the Canucks get a preseason win |
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Wednesday, October 5 - Vancouver Canucks 5 - Edmonton Oilers 4 (Abbotsford)
They saved the best for the Valley.
Icing what was close to an NHL lineup on both sides, the Vancouver Canucks finally earned their first win of preseason in an entertaining tilt against the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday at Abbotsford Centre.
Elias Pettersson led the way for Vancouver with a pair of power-play goals and seven shots total, on a night when the Canucks outshot the Oilers 31-21. The 23-year-old was unequivocally the most dominant player in the game, starting right from a physical first shift.
He and Quinn Hughes were also fortunate to escape unscathed during a third-period sequence that saw them both targeted by Edmonton players. First, Derek Ryan took down Hughes with a high stick in the neutral zone. Then, 6'6" bubble defenseman Markus Neimelainen hammered Pettersson hard into the end boards.
Both Oilers were whistled for penalties — as was Tanner Pearson. He took a roughing minor for stepping in to defend his teammates' honour, but earned some praise from his coach after the game.
After scoring the game's opening goal late in the first period, a bloody Nils Hoglander went to the dressing room midway through the second, after he was clotheslined by Darnell Nurse. But he also returned to the game.
As expected, the Canucks dressed a close-to-NHL-ready lineup on Wednesday night, after announcing another round of cuts on Tuesday. J.T. Miller took the morning skate with the game group at UBC, so his absence in Abbotsford surprised the media. But Boudreau said after the game that was planned, and there was nothing to worry about.
Here's the full postgame personnel update:
And here's how the lines and pairings rolled out.
Because the game was played in a non-NHL barn, we don't have access to the full compliment of stats that we usually receive. So from a 50,000-foot viewpoint, perhaps the most interesting takeaway here is Quinn Hughes' return to the left side, with Luke Schenn — and the fact that it worked well.
Hughes did get turnstiled at one point, on Connor McDavid's opening goal. But with McDavid's explosive speed, that happens to pretty much everybody from time to time.
As part of Tuesday's cuts, Danny DeKeyser was released from his PTO, taking one candidate out of the competition for a left-side spot on the blue line. Amazingly, Hughes and Oliver Ekman-Larsson were the only natural lefties in the mix on Wednesday — Kyle Burroughs slotted onto the left side of the third pairing, alongside Tyler Myers.
With Travis Dermott still on the shelf, this could be the Canucks' blue-line group when the regular season opens next Wednesday in Edmonton. After all the chippiness in Abbotsford, it's not a stretch for me to imagine Boudreau favouring the tougher Burroughs over Jack Rathbone for the rematch at Rogers Arena.
Christian Wolanin also remains in the mix on the left side, one of nine defensemen left in camp.
There were no big surprises among Tuesday's cuts.
Any thought that Collin Delia would challenge Spencer Martin for the backup job on the big club was effectively snuffed when he was placed on waivers — and cleared. Arturs Silovs and Mikey DiPietro were also assigned to Abbotsford so for now, the AHL squad is still dealing with a three-headed goalie monster. If DiPietro doesn't get traded, I imagine they'll try to find a place for him to play.
As I've been watching Stuart Skinner move capably into the backup role with the Oilers, I noticed last night that he was part of the same draft as DiPietro in 2017 — selected 14 picks after DiPietro, at 84th overall.
Skinner has good NHL size at 6'4" and 206 pounds and of course, no amount of training with Ian Clark is going to make six-foot DiPietro any taller. But he was coming off that big Memorial Cup win with Windsor as he headed into the draft.
At one point, Skinner had the edge on Hockey Canada's depth chart. He got into three games at the 2016 World U18 tournament, while DiPietro didn't see any game action as the squad's third goalie, but eventually climbed to starter's status for the 2019 World Junior Championship.
Meanwhile, Canada's starter in that U18 tournament was Evan Fitzpatrick, who was drafted late in the second round by St. Louis in 2016 but has languished since. He played three games with the Utica Comets in the 2020-21 season, when the Canucks and Blues were sharing the franchise during the depths of COVID complications. Last year, he spent most of his season with the Greenville Swamp Rabbits in the ECHL, where he posted a 9-11-2 record in 24 games.
That's my long-winded way of saying that goalies' development paths are unpredictable. And that the Oilers may end up with the best prospect out of that group in their hometown boy, Skinner.
Up front, 18 players remain on the main roster. That includes the injured Boeser, Mikheyev, Justin Dowling and Di Giuseppe. Once they're subtracted, we're down to 14 forwards.
Three bubble players are still in the mix: Nils Aman, Linus Karlsson and Sheldon Dries.
Dries is a known entity, who had a strong season last year in Abbotsford and acquitted himself successfully in 11 games with the big club last season.
Among the newcomers, Aman and Karlsson are now the last men standing. Both are waiver exempt, so they can easily be slid down to Abbotsford when final cuts are made and/or when the forwards get healthier, as circumstances dictate.
With one more game on the preseason schedule, the Canucks are back out at UBC for practice on Thursday, at 11 a.m. Friday night, they'll host the Arizona Coyotes at Rogers Arena.
With lots of people expecting that the Coyotes will have the inside track in the Connor Bedard sweepstakes this year, Arizona is 0-4-1 so far in preseason. Their single point was a 4-3 overtime loss to Dallas in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Sept. 27, but their games so far have all been close.
Barrett Hayton, their 2018 fifth-overall pick, has been leading the way with six points in three games. Dylan Guenther, the winger acquired with the Canucks' ninth-overall pick after the Ekman-Larsson/Garland trade in 2021, has three points in four games.
The Loui Eriksson/Jay Beagle era is now over, but the Coyotes' roster does still include a couple of Canucks. Zack Kassian was acquired in an offseason trade with the Edmonton Oilers, while Troy Stecher signed a one-year deal on the first day of unrestricted free agency.
The Coyotes are wrapping up their preseason with back-to-back games — Friday in Vancouver and Saturday in Vegas. That makes it tough to speculate on who we might see in the lineup on Friday night, but there is one interesting tidbit floating around.
Enjoy the game!
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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