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Canucks close preseason with shutout, acquire depth Dman Riley Stillman |
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Friday October 7 - Vancouver Canucks 4 - Arizona Coyotes 0
There wasn't much to compare between the rosters, but Bruce Boudreau appreciated the fact that his Vancouver Canucks worked hard and didn't take anything for granted as they closed out their preseason with a 4-0 shutout of the Arizona Coyotes on Friday night.
Thatcher Demko went the distance in net for Vancouver, but saw just seven shots in the entire game and didn't get his first test until there was 1:15 left to play in the first period. I think his most engaged moment came in the third period, as he inserted himself into some pushing and shoving as the game got more and more chippy.
On the scoreboard, Bo Horvat got things started with a tip of an Oliver Ekman-Larsson point shot on the first of 10 Vancouver power-play opportunities for the night, 3:29 into the first period. Dakota Joshua then doubled the lead from the low slot at 6:14, converting a pass from Curtis Lazar after Arizona goalie Karl Vejmelka put the puck right on Lazar's stick in an inexplicably poor clearing attempt behind the net.
Vancouver scored twice more in the second — with some serious style points as well. Elias Pettersson fired a laser from the left circle for his third of preseason at 8:58...
Then Andrei Kuzmenko finished off the scoring with his third of preseason on a breakaway out of the penalty box, with five seconds left to play in the second.
Named first star, Kuzmenko took a crack at addressing the media after the game and handled himself wonderfully. Smiling all the while, humble about his progress so far and happy to lean on Vasily Podkolzin for an assist when the vocabulary got tough, he left a great impression on everyone in the room.
He's a work in progress. But he's fun — both on and off the ice.
Of course, in the midst of a lopsided game against a barely NHL-worthy opponent, the biggest news of the night came in the form of a trade.
Patrik Allvin gave himself another $1.3 million of cap flexibility and added a hard-nosed defenseman to his injury-depleted group when he acquired Riley Stillman from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Jason Dickinson and a second-round pick in the 2024 draft.
I wrote that up for The Hockey News — and also included some thoughts and quotes from the game, preseason as a whole, and the Canucks' very murky injury situation.
On the back end, Tyler Myers is now projected to be absent for 2-4 weeks with a lower-body injury. Allvin confirmed during his media availability that Travis Dermott did suffer a concussion when he was injured in practice, and called Dermott's status week-to-week. Quinn Hughes didn't play against Arizona, but I think that was more about just wanting to take a look at other players.
Paired with Kyle Burroughs, Jack Rathbone finished second to Oliver Ekman-Larsson in ice time on Friday night, playing 20:59. OEL paired up with Tucker Poolman — who has looked better and better as preseason has progressed, after having essentially been on the shelf since late January. And Luke Schenn and Christian Wolanin formed an effective third pair.
There was some talk that the Canucks might be interested in a potential waiver pickup in Winnipeg Jets righty Jonathan Kovacevic, who hit the wire on Friday. As it turns out, he didn't make it past the first team in the pecking order — he was claimed by Montreal.
Saturday's list has some familiar names on it, with Calgary's 2017 first-rounder Juuso Valimaki jumping off the page.
With the Flames' blue-line depth and MacKenzie Weegar now locked up on an eight-year contract extension, I guess they just didn't have the room. I imagine he'll also be snapped up long before Vancouver gets a crack at him.
Valimaki is a little more pricey than most waiver pickups. He's in the second year of a two-year deal that carries a cap hit of $1.55 million a year.
The Canucks also placed two of their own players on waivers — Wolanin and forward Sheldon Dries.
No big surprise here — both players are on two-way contracts, so they were earmarked for Abbotsford in the club's offseason planning and should most likely clear.
Dries' assignment — and Dickinson's trade — also pretty much cements Nils Aman into the fourth-line center role, on a line with Lazar and Joshua. That's a terrific outcome for him, as a newcomer to North American hockey, and an early sign that the new regime's offseason scouting has unearthed a potential hidden gem.
Linus Karlsson is also still with the big club for now. He (and Aman), are waiver exempt, so they can easily be moved to Abbotsford if necessary, even if it's only for cap-compliance reasons.
The deadline for teams to become compliant and set their opening-day rosters is 2 p.m. PT on Monday. So we're getting down to the wire — although Allvin certainly sounded like he was open to the possibility of more moves when he spoke with the media during the second intermission on Friday night.
As for the players — Saturday is a day off. Then, the plan is to run through three hard practices on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before heading to Edmonton to kick off the season-opening five-game road trip on Wednesday.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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