The Vancouver Canucks have a scheduled day off on Thursday after Team White beat Team Blue 6-4 in an evening scrimmage on Wednesday at Rogers Arena.
The groups were the same as what we've seen so far in training camp:
Both Thatcher Demko and Braden Holtby went the full 60 minutes in net — Demko for the White team, and Holtby for Blue.
Demko was shaky early. Blue jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, fueled by goals from Will Lockwood, Tyler Graovac and Alex Edler, before Sven Baertschi got white on the board on a play that probably should have been called back on a high stick.
I was listening to Brendan Batchelor's call on Sportsnet 650. And there's no doubt that as the game went on, I heard Nils Hoglander's name more and more. He helped fuel the comeback that ultimately led to a 6-4 win for White — and moved him one step closer to retaining that spot on the Horvat-Pearson line on opening night in Edmonton next Wednesday.
As far as I can tell, the only real black mark Hoglander has against him is his size. I was in a face-to-face scrum with him at the Canucks' 2019 development camp at UBC a few days after he was drafted — back when we were allowed to do that sort of thing. I'm around 5'8"/5'9", and we were pretty much eye-to-eye, from what I remember. So he's not one of those guys who's actually 5'6" and says he's 5'9". And even though he's not tall, his stockiness makes him very sturdy — he's solid, to go along with those crazy puck-handling skills that we've seen in all the GIFs.
From Wednesday, this play might be even more impressive than his goal:
Let's not forget that one year ago, Hoglander finished third in tournament scoring when Sweden won bronze at World Juniors. He just turned 20 on Dec. 20, so he's not much older than this year's all-stars Dylan Cozens, who turns 20 in February, or Trevor Zegras, who turns 20 in March.
But he's had a good year of development so far in Sweden. And while some other players are shaking off the rust, he's already running in high gear. It'll be fun to see if he can catch the Oilers by surprise a little bit next week — I imagine it's next-to-impossible to do much pre-scouting right now with travel so limited, no preseason games, and no video available.
Of course, if Hoglander makes the opening-night lineup as a 40th overall pick, that's a lot different than a No. 5 in Pettersson, a No. 7 in Hughes, or even a No. 23 in Boeser.
Added to that, if Thatcher Demko really establishes himself as a No. 1 this year and Olli Juolevi grabs a roster spot, I have a feeling we're getting into an era where the Canucks will have more of their own drafted-and-developed players in their lineup than ever before in franchise history.
Starting from 2013, one year before Jim Benning came on board, we could have nine on the main roster, I think:
2013: Horvat
2014: Virtanen, Demko
2015: Boeser, Gaudette (Brisebois, Jasek)
2016: Juolevi (Lockwood)
2017: Pettersson (Lind, Gadjovich, DiPietro, Rathbone)
2018: Hughes (Woo)
2019: Hoglander (Focht, Silovs)
And Alex Edler was also a Canucks draft pick, even if was from a different era. So — probably 10, which is basically half the team — without any real longshots. Have we ever seen anything close to this in Vancouver before?
The players listed in brackets are draftees who are also in camp — or, at least, in Vancouver in the case of Jasek and Silovs. They're probably destined for Utica or, best-case scenario for them, the taxi squad.
If you missed it, we got a bit more clarification on the AHL season earlier this week. The Comets will play, in Utica. But the franchise will be shared with the St. Louis Blues this season.
That's about all we know so far. The season is scheduled to begin on Feb. 5, but there's word that the number of games could vary across the different divisions. And while I don't know if this has explicitly been spelled out yet, I believe they'll be looking at a similar inter-divisional structure to the NHL, to limit travel and costs. Even in normal years, teams in the AHL's Eastern and Western Conferences don't play the same number of games, and don't play each other.
The good news, there, is that at least the Canucks prospects who aren't on the taxi squad should have a place to play this year. And for 2019 fifth-rounder Carson Focht, that opportunity led to him signing his entry-level contract on Wednesday.
I'm happy to see this. Focht turns 21 in February; he was passed over in his first year of draft eligibility before being selected by the Canucks. And the Comets have been notoriously thin at centre over the past few years, so this is a signing that should help the Utica team as well as giving Focht a place to play.
According to
CapFriendly, Focht also got a tidy little signing bonus of $80,000 when he put pen to paper on Wednesday — not a bad way to start the year. He'll make $70,000 at the AHL level this season, and $700,000 if he does get called up to the big club.
Having the Comets in operation will also provide a cushion for the Canucks if injuries strike. Yes, the two-week quarantine will still apply for players coming from the U.S. into Canada, but at least the taxi squad can get replenished if anybody goes down long-term.
I think the taxi squad will need to be made up of players who will be most easily able to jump in at a moment's notice in place of an injury — and yes, once Travis Hamonic is signed, it's not a stretch for me to imagine Loui Eriksson, Sven Baertschi and Jordie Benn all being put on waivers to start the season, then assigned to the taxi squad. Then, if they got recalled, they wouldn't have to clear waivers again for a little while — I believe it's usually 10 games played or about 30 days with the big club.
I don't think the club would mind if any of them were claimed, and I'm pretty sure they won't be, anyhow. One again, if you look at
CapFriendly, you can see that only a handful of players have been slid through waivers so far. I expect the torrent will begin this weekend. If the system is operating as usual, opening-night rosters will need to be declared on Tuesday, which means anybody who needs to go on waivers will probably need to do so no later than Monday.
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