PENTICTON, B.C. — The Vancouver Canucks welcomed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7,000 fans to the South Okanagan Events Centre for the final day of training camp on Sunday.
Despite charging a relatively high price for a training camp scrimmage — individual seats ran fans north of $30, and parking at the venue was extra — the sense of excitement that surrounds this Canucks team in British Columbia is clearly through the roof.
Those Canucks fans in attendance were treated to a fast-paced if relatively low-event scrimmage pitting two evenly matched Canucks teams against one another.
These scrimmage environments are always fascinating. Vancouver’s actual NHL stars are on the top end of both lineups and tend to be on the ice against one another throughout the scrimmage. If a young player on those lines doesn’t look out of place, like Jonathan Lekkerimäki on Sunday afternoon, that tends to be a good sign.
Further down the lineup are the middle-six players. This group is comprised of players who are safely on the NHL roster but are still competing for minutes and plum assignments up the lineup. And then the fourth line and third pair on both teams are the fringes of the NHL lineup. It’s toward the bottom end of the lineup where the performance can really matter, as players seek to make an impression and build momentum heading into the exhibition schedule.
Beyond the scrimmage on Sunday, which concluded with Elias Pettersson’s Team Blue defeating Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller’s Team White 2-1, the Canucks also showed us a brief training camp session featuring some interesting power-play work — with some implications for what we’ll be looking for over the balance of the preseason.
As we wrap up our Canucks training camp coverage from Penticton, let’s get briefly into what we saw from Vancouver on the power play and spotlight three Canucks skaters who helped themselves and three who probably didn’t at Sunday’s intrasquad scrimmage.
The new power-play mentality
The biggest strategic tweak we saw during the Canucks’ power-play practice was the off-puck movement of their flank players and what it signals about the group’s new attacking philosophy.
Whenever the puck moved high in the offensive zone, the two players on the wall, especially on the weak side, started moving inside the dots and toward the net. This meant the Canucks constantly had two or three forwards down low, ready to crash the net.
It suggests they want to emphasize an aggressive, shot-first mentality with players crashing the net rather than looking for premeditated, perfect passing plays. The goal with this mindset would be to create havoc with screens, tips/deflections and rebounds by outnumbering the penalty kill down low once a shot is taken. It also makes it potentially easier to recover loose pucks in the corner to extend possessions once an initial shot has been taken.
These changes align with a lot of the criticisms Tocchet had of the power play in the second half of last season. On numerous occasions, he told media he didn’t want Vancouver’s power play to be overreliant on set plays or looking for picture-perfect passing sequences.
“We’ve got to start scoring more off broken plays,” Tocchet said of the power play after a late March practice last season. “If you look at some of the really good power plays around the league, a big percentage of their goals are off broken plays whereas a lot of our goals are off set plays and we’ve got to get the broken play attitude.
“There’s a shot and that puck goes in the corner, you got to attack. You might have two guys in front, so let’s get the puck in front.”
Sunday’s special teams’ work indicates the Canucks are doubling down on this philosophy.
The bumper audition
The Canucks may have done some power-play work on Sunday, but they didn’t really trip their hand as to what precisely their first power-play unit will look like when the puck drops for the start of the regular season.
The club is facing a back-to-back set of preseason games this week to kick off their exhibition schedule. The Canucks will play five games in seven days, which is going to make it a bit difficult for Tocchet and company to get down to their numbers.
With these logistics in mind, Vancouver trotted out some split power-play units designed to compete in the preseason:
#Canucks doing some power play work, but appears to be in split units.
PP1:
🥅
Miller
Höglander-Suter-Boeser
HughesPP2:
🥅
Sherwood
Garland-DeBrusk-Pettersson
Hronek— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) September 22, 2024
The club also rolled out some secondary units, which will surely factor into preseason action:
🥅
Karlsson
Räty-Höglander-Wolanin
Myers🥅
PDG
Lekkermäki-Sprong-Bains
Soucy— Brendan Batchelor (@BatchHockey) September 22, 2024
Given that these lineups are designed for preseason, there probably isn’t a lot that we should read into. We strongly doubt Kiefer Sherwood would be an option at the net front on the second power-play unit, for example, once Dakota Joshua is back in the lineup. That Lekkerimäki isn’t playing on the same unit as Pettersson to open the preseason slate probably doesn’t augur poorly for his chances of breaking camp with the team.
What we do think we can read into a bit, however, is the composition of where exactly various Canucks players were lined up. If you look across the two main groups, for example, you’ll notice Brock Boeser is at the net front; Miller is at his perch on his downhill, left-side flank; Pettersson is on the right side and obviously Hughes is quarterbacking things from the top on their assorted units.
In contrast, however, with the other spots, it seems notable that the four players playing in the bumper are all realistic NHL options to complement Vancouver’s more established PP1 group: Jake DeBrusk, Daniel Sprong, Pius Suter and Nils Höglander.
Tocchet indicated on Saturday that DeBrusk was going to get the first look in the bumper, and he’s played it before with the Boston Bruins, but often on the second unit. It’s fair to say that generally DeBrusk hasn’t been the sort of power-play point producer throughout his career that the Canucks will hope he can develop into with the opportunities on offer in Vancouver this season.
So while we should assume DeBrusk has the inside track on starting the season in the bumper entering preseason play, the extent to which Vancouver seems to be giving some realistic options — a do-it-all contributor like Suter who logged a fair number of minutes with Canucks PP1 last season, a 20+ goal scorer in Höglander and a legitimate power-play ace in Sprong — some run in the same spot of the ice seems notable.
This may, in fact, shape up to be one of the more interesting training camp battles to monitor as the preseason rolls along.
Three players who helped their chances at Sunday’s scrimmage
Mark Friedman
Friedman could be at risk of getting waived if the Canucks roll with three goaltenders on the NHL roster. He has a ton to play for and made a positive impression during Sunday’s scrimmage.
The 28-year-old right-shot defender played his usual steady, simple brand of hockey. He defended well because of his positioning. He showed underrated mobility on a couple of defensive zone retrievals under pressure which he converted into clean breakouts. Friedman also showed sharp instincts to get open and attack downhill to score a goal after Nathan Smith forced an offensive zone turnover.
What really separates Friedman is he rarely makes mistakes. Other depth/young defenders will show exciting flashes in camp but may turn a puck over or make the wrong defensive read on the next play. Friedman’s height — he’s listed at 5-foot-11 — is a disadvantage but he’s making up for it with reliable, consistent play.
Artūrs Šilovs
Šilovs played the first half of the scrimmage and was absolutely peppered. Team White had the lion’s share of offensive zone possession and tested him with 16 shots. Šilovs stood on his head — he didn’t surrender a single goal and helped Team Blue take a 1-0 lead into the half despite being heavily outplayed.
These weren’t just long-distance, low-danger shots either; Šilovs was forced to make some spectacular saves. He moved across his crease explosively to rob Danton Heinen with his glove after Boeser made a dangerous pass across off the rush. He was perfectly positioned to deny a Sprong chance from the inner slot and stayed compact to stone Arshdeep Bains on the rebound. Šilovs played a two-on-one rush with Bains really well, too. He stopped Bains later again on a two-on-one rush.
Šilovs looked dynamic but in control with his crease movement. He was reading plays and tracking pucks well. He wasn’t leaving any juicy rebounds. It was an impressive performance for a goaltender who suddenly has more competition for NHL minutes following the Kevin Lankinen signing.
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Jonathan Lekkerimäki
It wasn’t the loudest scrimmage performance from Lekkerimäki, but he looked really sharp away from the puck and showed off some pro-level details while skating with Pettersson and DeBrusk.
On one sequence in the first half of the scrimmage, he tracked back and pickpocketed Miller in the neutral zone, earning a clear for the top line. Later, in a five-on-six delayed penalty situation, Lekkerimäki read a Hughes pass and picked it off, killing the threat.
Offensively too, there are some solid details in Lekkerimäki’s approach. On a slowly unfolding two-on-one with DeBrusk, in which DeBrusk kept the puck and made an extra toe-drag move before trying to find Lekkerimäki with a cross-crease pass, Lekkerimäki showed solid patience and real goal-scoring poise when he just stopped at the net front to give himself an opportunity. It didn’t result in a goal, but those are the sort of disciplined goal-scoring instincts that matter for a player trying to break into the NHL.
The competition will still be stiff, and the Canucks surely will want to be patient with their prized prospect, but Lekkerimäki is leaving his first NHL training camp and heading into exhibition play with what feels like a realistic shot at breaking camp with the big club. His performance on Sunday will have given him real momentum in working toward that goal.
Three players who didn’t
Arshdeep Bains
The Canucks have a logjam of borderline NHL-calibre forwards who are contending for the 13th forward spot. There are several intriguing options and not enough jobs to go around.
Bains was likely already on the outside looking in on an NHL roster spot. He needed to stand out to change that outlook but certainly didn’t help his cause on Sunday.
Bains showed sparks of deception, skill and creativity but it wasn’t enough to really move the needle. He also had a few turnovers that the coaching staff won’t like.
In the second half, Bains was loose with the puck and turned it over inside his defensive blue line. Team Blue took the puck and fed Conor Garland, who was all alone in front of the net and scored.
He had a couple of turnovers on offensive entries in the first half, too. There was one play where he made a nifty move to create space high in the offensive zone. It looked promising but his spinning pass was off the mark and ended the possession. He had another entry on the right flank that didn’t work out and resulted in a change of possession.
Sammy Blais
When a player is on a PTO, the onus is on them to blow the door down. It usually isn’t enough to play competently; PTO players have to positively stand out in a big way. Blais not only struggled to make an impression on Sunday’s scrimmage, but he made matters worse with some loud mistakes.
The physical 28-year-old winger turned the puck over high in the offensive zone which directly led to a two-on-one chance the other way. Near the end of the first half, he again turned it over in the neutral zone after losing it in his feet. He lost the puck trying to make a move on Hughes at the offensive blue line during the second half. On top of that, he didn’t look disruptive on the forecheck nor did his line control possession or manufacture energy.
Blais has had a strong camp overall, but he’ll need to play faster, be more disruptive on the forecheck, show some jam and manage the puck better than he managed on Sunday if he wants to earn a contract — and, potentially, a 23-man roster spot — with the Canucks.
Linus Karlsson
Karlsson didn’t necessarily have a poor scrimmage but it was probably a missed opportunity, especially given a variety of other forwards in the mix for that 12th or 13th forward spot on the Canucks roster were quiet on Sunday.
Karlsson had some decent moments, like a sharply created scoring chance in the second half of the scrimmage and some really good defense cutting off the top as Hughes walked the blue line, forcing a point shot wide.
He also had a few moments where he left some stuff on the table. A giveaway at the offensive blue line will be something Tocchet noticed on Sunday, and there was also a breakout pass he missed that resulted in an icing.
(Photo of Artūrs Šilovs: Derek Cain / Getty Images)
