On Thursday, I went for a walk with a friend along the North Shore waterfront.
As we passed a couple of older gentlemen sitting in the shade in lounge chairs, one of them called out to my friend, "Why are you wearing that Canucks T-shirt?"
My friend asked what was wrong with it. "Well, they're gonna lose Pettersson. He's gonna leave, he doesn't want to be here."
We were both pretty flabbergasted. Somehow, a translated tweet from Sweden has caused this man to believe that the Canucks organization has reached a new low, all within less than 48 hours. Tough market, indeed.
Of course, there have also been many counterpoint opinions expressed over the last couple of days, which seem to lie much closer to the truth. Petey never said anything about wanting to leave anytime soon, or requesting a trade. And yes, it's understandable that someone who's as driven as he is would want to be part of a winning organization. Do you remember — Connor McDavid actually got backlash for *not* making a bigger deal out of wanting to be part of a winning organization when he signed his eight-year second contact with the Oilers back in 2017?
It'll be fine. Petey and Quinn will get their new contracts. They might be short, given the Canucks' cap constraints. And that could create a new set of issues down the road. Boeser's new deal looms next offseason. Then, Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller will face unrestricted free agency at the end of the 2022-23 season, with big tickets for Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Tyler Myers, Thatcher Demko and Conor Garland all still on the books.
That probably won't be Jim Benning's problem, though, unless the moves he has made this offseason pay big dividends. If that happens, the Canucks will be winning. And Petey will probably be happy to stick around.
In the meantime, the organization has signed three more bubble players this week.
On Thursday, defenseman Guillaume Brisebois signed a new one-year, two-way deal that will pay him $750,000 at the NHL level and $180,000 in the AHL. That's a bit of a raise from last season, when he earned $700,000 in the NHL and $125,000 in the AHL,
according to CapFriendly.
Drafted in the third round in 2015, Brisebois played one NHL game with the Canucks last season. He has now logged nine NHL games in his career, but is still looking for his first point.
Last season, he also got into nine games while on loan to the AHL's Laval Rocket, where he picked up a goal and an assist, and added one assist in five games with the Utica Comets.
On Friday, the Abbotsford Canucks also announced that they'd inked two players to AHL contracts.
An undrafted defenseman, Ashton Sautner has spent his entire pro career with the Canucks/Comets organization. Now 27, he graduated out of the WHL's Edmonton Oil Kings and has played 23 games with the Canucks (three assists) and 242 games in the AHL (11 goals, 38 assists). All but two of those AHL games were in Utica with the Comets; he got into two games on loan to the Manitoba Moose last season.
The second AHL signing is centre Tristan Nielsen, a 21-year-old from Fort St. John.
Undrafted, he hit his stride offensively in his last two WHL seasons with the Vancouver Giants, leading the team with 30 goals and 65 points in 61 games before the shutdown of the 2019-20 season. Last year, he led the Giants with 15 goals, and his 32 points in 22 games were two fewer than team leader and Florida Panthers third-rounder Justin Sourdif. Nielsen finished in the top 10 in both goals and points in the shortened WHL season.
A B.C. boy who plays in the middle and has a nose for the net? Seems like a low-risk add with some tantalizing potential upside.
Also on the social feeds on Thursday, nice to see Jack Rathbone hobnobbing with his old Harvard defense partner Adam Fox as part of fellow Harvard alum Dominic Moore's Smashfest charity table tennis tournament in support of research on concussions and rare cancers.
Normally part of the Toronto offseason schedule, the event took place this year in Stamford, Connecticut. In addition to Fox, Rathbone was in some good company with other young studs like Charlie McAvoy and Connecticut boys Trevor Zegras and Spencer Knight.
And finally — we're getting to the point where European hockey action is starting to ramp up. If that's your bag, make sure you follow @Fan2Abby, who is diligent about tracking the action of Canucks prospects overseas.
On Friday, the spotlight was on Lukas Jasek and Toni Utunen, teammates this year on the Pelicans in the Finland's Liiga.
He also tracked Linus Karlsson, the forward the Canucks received from San Jose in the Jonathan Dahlen trade, with Skelleftea of the Swedish League — up one level from Allsvenskan, where he played last year.
I'll have a full rundown soon on where to find all the Canucks prospects this season, including the latest crop of draft picks.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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