{"id":453456,"date":"2026-02-10T17:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/453456\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T17:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:39:14","slug":"vancouver-canucks-rookie-defenseman-tom-willander-proving-why-hes-the-future-of-the-franchise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/453456\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver Canucks rookie defenseman Tom Willander proving why he\u2019s the future of the franchise"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\nVancouver Canucks rookie defenseman Tom Willander proving why he\u2019s the future of the franchise
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n

Vancouver Hockey Daily has no direct affiliation to the Vancouver Canucks, NHL or NHLPA<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t \"Jan <\/p>\n

Photo credit: Bob Frid – Imagn Images.<\/p>\n

Vancouver Canucks rookie defenseman Tom Willander is trying to level up his game during the National Hockey League’s Olympic break rather than going on vacation.<\/p>\n

As the Vancouver Canucks begin their rebuild, they’re starting to identify players that will be part of their core for the long haul and there’s no question that one of them will be defenseman Tom Willander, the team’s first round pick in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.<\/p>\n

Since being called up by the Canucks in late-October, Tom Willander has surprised many people<\/a> with how well he’s played, but there’s been some bumps in the road too, as is the case with any player when they make the jump to the National Hockey League.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got some young D in a position where they’re not used to playing this many games. That’s why we’re rotating some of them now. Coming from college, they’re used to playing 40 games from September to April and this is a condensed schedule.” head coach Adam Foote said last month after making Tom Willander a healthy scratch.<\/p>\n

Vancouver Canucks rookie Tom Willander levelling up his game during Olympic break<\/p>\n

As everyone knows by now, the National Hockey League has sent their players to the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014 and leading up to the roster freeze that went into effect last Wednesday, the Vancouver Canucks had some difficult decisions to make<\/a> and one of them included whether or not to assign Tom Willander to the AHL.<\/p>\n

General Manager Patrik Allvin opted to keep Tom Willander on the active roster after the freeze went into effect, which meant that he would be entitled to time off during the league’s Olympic break, however the 21-year-old decided not to vacation, but rather continue to work on his game.<\/p>\n

During Monday’s edition of Donnie & Dhali, Rick Dhaliwal shared that Tom Willander decided to use his time off to go home to Sweden and work on certain aspects of his game with his strength and mobility coach.<\/p>\n

“So I reached out to his agent Todd Diamond to see what Willander is going to do during the Olympic break. I was told that Tom went back to Sweden to do some work on his game with his strength and mobility coach. Willander does not take anything for granted. He saw some things he can improve on and chose to utilize this opportunity, this break, to get it done.” Dhaliwal said.<\/p>\n

Taking it upon himself to go home to Sweden to work on his game rather than head to a tropical destination for a vacation speaks to the commitment Tom Willander has to being a professional hockey player and it wouldn’t shock anyone if he is wearing a letter on his jersey in the not-so-distant future.<\/p>\n

Previously on Vancouver Hockey Daily<\/p>\n

POLL<\/p>\n

19 MINUTES AGO|12 ANSWERS<\/p>\n

Vancouver Canucks rookie defenseman Tom Willander proving why he\u2019s the future of the franchise’s blueline<\/p>\n

Do you think Tom Willander could be a future captain for the Vancouver Canucks?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[894,5,4,51396,1615,31177,893,27,5692,8742,5313],"class_list":{"0":"post-453456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver-canucks","8":"tag-canucks","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-nhl-olympic-break","12":"tag-tom-willander","13":"tag-tom-willander-canucks","14":"tag-vancouver","15":"tag-vancouver-canucks","16":"tag-vancouver-canucks-news","17":"tag-vancouver-canucks-rumors","18":"tag-vancouvercanucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116047562098491959","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}