Canucks' centre conundrum remains as Raty goes for a reset

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David Kampf, Aatu Raty and Max Sasson are perfectly competent NHL centres but none are what the Canucks need: a second line centre.

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Published Nov 27, 2025 • 3 minute read

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raty Aatu Raty skates against Edmonton on Oct. 11. Photo by Greg Southam /10109424AArticle content

Aatu Raty needs a reset, his coach says.

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That’s why the young Finn found himself essentially benched in the late stages of Wednesday’s 5-4 win for the Vancouver Canucks over the Anaheim Ducks, a win that was very fun, very loose, and perhaps a touch lucky — at the very least won because of a great performance by another young player, goalie Nikita Tolopilo.

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Adam Foote said after practice Wednesday in Anaheim that Raty may need a break, that watching a game or two from up in the press box might help.

“Take a step back and look from up top … you want to do it without breaking their confidence,” the coach said.

Against the Ducks, Foote and the coaching staff leaned heavily on his top-end players, partly because of special teams, which limited the ice time of the bottom two lines. And as the game wore on, fourth line centre Max Sasson started taking shifts away from Raty, who had started the game between Drew O’Connor and Kiefer Sherwood on the third line.

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On Wednesday, Sasson was back practising with those two speedy wingers. Sasson’s been one of the Canucks’ better two-way players this season, playing pretty responsible minutes, even if limited, alongside his long-time AHL linemates Arshdeep Bains and Linus Karlsson.

The question has been whether he can keep playing those quality minutes as the quality of opposition increases? He did have a short stint earlier this season centring the second line and he got swamped. But playing with two quality two-way wingers like O’Connor and Sherwood may see him find success again.

The elephant in the room remains, though. This team is lacking a true No. 2 centre. David Kampf, signed last weekend, has shown all right so far, but his skill set is exactly as advertised, a defensive centre with little offensive punch.

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Through four games, he’s been on ice for three five-on-five goals against, not all that dissimilar from many of his new teammates. Then again, like Sasson was when he was on the second line, he’s being asked to do more than he’s probably capable of.

Realistically, the Canucks need to find a two-way centreman who can push Kampf, Raty and Sasson all down the pecking order, in whatever order they shake out.

Aatu Raty and Adam Foote during Vancouver Canucks practice at Rogers Arena early in October. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

And that brings us back to Jim Rutherford’s comments earlier this week: the team needs to get younger. That does not mean management has abandoned its stated ambition to find a second-line centre, but the kind of play they may target seems likely to have changed: Can they find a young player who isn’t obviously a second-line centre now but who could evolve into one?

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That was part of the reason they threw a dart at Lukas Reichel. He’s been a quality scorer at every level outside the NHL, so might he find a way to translate his talents to a secondary scoring role?

To date he hasn’t; indeed he’s been in the press box now for a week. He did skate as the fourth-line centre in Wednesday’s practice, a role similar to the one he filled in Chicago at the end — although even that’s generous, as in Chicago he was rarely given the chance to play centre.

The Canucks seem to have reached the same conclusion with Reichel as Chicago did: he just doesn’t have it. He can’t think the game fast enough to produce on offence and he doesn’t have the defensive instincts that all three of the other centres mentioned here have.

In the long term, the Canucks need to fill their second-line centre hole with a player who fits properly. Until then, this team will remain incomplete and any ideas of playoffs will be foolish.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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Canucks’ centre conundrum remains as Raty goes for a reset

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