Do the Vancouver Canucks have interest in the likes of Lukas Reichel? Sure, but that’s more about that isn’t not that they don’t like the player.
He’s a player who has some intrigue to him, a guy who has been a very good scorer in the American Hockey League, who is pretty speedy.
But you know who else fits that profile? Arshdeep Bains. And Linus Karlsson, to a degree. (With him it’s the scoring touch, not so much the wheels.)
All this is to say, yes, sure the Canucks could yet add another forward like Reichel, or say Nick Robertson, but before they do, they have some roster decisions to make.
Vancouver Canucks players, including Marcus Pettersson (29), Aatu Raty (54), Brock Boeser (6) and Derek Forbort (27) listen to instructions for a drill during the opening day of the NHL hockey team’s training camp, in Penticton, B.C., on Thursday, September 18, 2025.
Will it be 14 forwards or eight defencemen?
This is the easy question, the one that comes up every year: you are allowed 23 players on your roster. Usually that includes two goalies, though sometimes teams will keep a third around.
This team is going to go with two goalies this year, that’s obvious.
So that means that up to 21 skaters can be on the roster.
As it stands, there are still 24 skaters in the mix, but there’s very few real dilemmas left on who will make the final roster. Both Karlsson and Bains seem locks as depth wingers. Aatu Raty hasn’t had a great pre-season, but he’s at worst the No. 4 centre on the depth chart, for now anyway.
You presume that star prospect Tom Willander will end up in Abbotsford. Max Sasson and Nils Aman too — or perhaps one of them stays and Jonathan Lekkerimaki gets farmed out to start the season. (Sasson, by the way, does not need to clear waivers to be reassigned to the AHL, but Aman does.) Either way, two of those forwards will presumably go, which gets you down to one question: do you keep Braeden Cootes around to start the season at the expense of promising defenceman Vittorio Mancini?
Cootes would be the 14th forward, Mancini would make it eight defencemen.
Jonathan Lekkerimäki, who got into 24 games last season with the Canucks last season, is taking part with the Vancouver prospects in a two-game showdown against the Seattle Kraken this weekend.
Cootes plus Lekkerimaki?!
If you had said in July that both the newest draft pick Cootes and the diminutive but intriguing Lekkerimaki would make the opening roster, you’d have raised your eyebrows.
Lekkerimaki had a difficult finish to the season last year, struggling with his strength and stamina in the playoffs after a long season. And Cootes, well the last 18-year-old to make a Canucks roster out of training camp was Petr Nedved in 1990. (And in the past decade, just 17 18-year-olds have played significant minutes in the first NHL season after they were drafted.)
But we are looking at the possibility. Lekkerimaki has had a strong pre-season. That was something you know that Canucks management wanted to see. They had targeted this being a big year for the 2022 draftee for some time now, indeed this was something they had quietly identified as an important waypoint on his development more than a year ago.
And it looks like he may be about to deliver.
Cootes, though, is a surprise. He’s a smart, well-prepared young man, but the reality is guys like him rarely make the leap this early. It’s too bad the NHL-CHL agreement remains in place, because he’d be a slam-dunk to start the season in Abbotsford otherwise.
But the dilemma is keep him in the NHL or send him back to junior and the Canucks are now contemplating an alternative course, one where they keep in the NHL for the time being but probably don’t play him every night. He do well getting some NHL exposure now, giving him things to work on even if he ends up back in junior.
Victor Mancini of the Abbotsford Canucks moves the puck against the Charlotte Checkers on June 6 in Cedar Park, Texas.
What of Mancini?
There’s little doubt that Mancini has made a strong impression this pre-season. Pun intended.
It’s the second year in a row that the 23-year-old has impressed his bosses: he made the New York Rangers out of training camp in 2024 as well, grabbing hold of a roster spot — opened up after Ryan Lindgren was sidelined — with similarly strong play in his own end and a display of offensive prowess too.
Has he done enough to seize a spot in the top six, though? The presumed No. 6 defenceman right now is Elias Junior Pettersson, but obviously Mancini presents a potential alternative to the tall Swede, as either Pettersson or Derek Forbort, both left-handed shots, would have to swap over to the right side.
But if he’s not going to be in the top six, does it make sense to keep him around as a spare defenceman, or let him skate in Abbotsford while waiting to be the first call-up from the farm?
How do you handle the road trip?
In the past when the Canucks have gone on a long trip, they’ve looked to carry an eighth defenceman as an emergency what-if. But this road trip has only one back-to-back, in Dallas then Chicago. And obviously if two defencemen are hurt versus the Stars and an eighth defender needs to be called up, obviously getting to Chicago is very easy.
OFF-DAY: Both Forbort and presumed No. 7 blueliner P-O Joseph were absent from practice Thursday, but head coach Adam Foote said neither player is a real injury concern. Both were spotted around the rink at UBC in workout clothes; Foote said he and his staff felt it was best to just give them a day off skates and that he expected both would be ready for the season’s start next week. … Foote added that “90 per cent” of his roster is set and he expected most of his regular lineup to play at Rogers Arena Friday versus Edmonton.