Tuesday’s summer skate session was a treat for those in attendance as new players came onto the ice and we saw full scrimmage for about an hour.
There were some interesting notes from this scrimmage and while we won’t delve too deeply into row combinations, we will look at an interesting defensive pairing.
After skating, we caught up with Elias Pettersson as he spoke to the media for the first time, reflecting on the past year and his off-season preparation.
We’ve got some fun news and notes, plus some clips from our new social media manager, Jamie! Let’s dive into what we saw in the Canucks’ surprise scrimmage.
Quinn Hughes plays at right
We’ll try to restrain ourselves and remember that this is just informal team scrimmage where linemates and defensive pairs don’t matter.
Actually, we’re not going to hold back for this story.
Making his debut at a summer skate session in Canucks, Quinn Hughes jumped right into the crowd with Oliver Ekman-Larsson. As reported by last week Rick Dhaliwal from Donnie & DhaliJim Rutherford said Hughes approached the team to play at right flank.
Lo and behold, the first time we see him on the ice with his Canucks teammates, he’s running with veteran defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson on the right.
Canucks begin scrimmage with an OEL-Hughes pairing.
Hughes on the right. pic.twitter.com/hUk5DZ5xOg
β ππ΅πΏπΆπ Faber π₯π (@ChrisFaber39) September 13, 2022
The extremely early stages of the right-side Hughes experiment did not disappoint as he used space on the right side of the offensive zone to find Vasily Podkolzin’s stick for the first goal of scrimmage.
First goal of scrimmage goes to Podz! Endorsed by none other than Quinn Hughes π€ pic.twitter.com/wrFP06hZBx
β CanucksArmy (@CanucksArmy) September 13, 2022
As for the rest of the pairings, we’ll list them, although we have to remember that this is just a silly summer scramble and shouldn’t be read too much into it.
OEL Hughes
Poolman Schenn
Burroughs-Woo
Schmiemann keeper
Rathbone-Juulsen
Nychuk-Kannok Leipert
Travis Dermott and Tyler Myers missed Tuesday’s skating, but these pairings give us a sneak peek at some pairing ideas for boot camp and preseason.
You could read Jack Rathbone with AHLer Noah Juulsen instead of one of Tucker Poolman or Luke Schenn if you like, but we’ll save that for training camp as there will be a little battle for the bottom pairing when the OEL-Hughes- pairing remains the team’s top pairing.
The new ones fit in perfectly
Two players we wanted to bet on were Andrey Kuzmenko and Ilya Mikheyev. Both looked good in scrimmage and we’ll start with a few notes on Kuzmenko.
The KHL star spent a good portion of practice on Pettersson’s wing and the two scored a nice goal together during a two-on-one. We wanted to see Kuzmenko skate with and against NHL competitions, and while that skate wasn’t very physical, Kuzmenko’s pace looked good and his hands looked even better.
It is clear that many of Kuzmenko’s strengths are at the level of an NHL player. He handles the puck very well and can pass without having to think about the game. We also liked how much active racquet he had in the neutral zone. There will be many questions about Kuzmenko with the training camp and pre-season in full swing, but we expect many answers from him as well.
Aside from Hughes playing on the right flank, the biggest advantage I got from this fight was how damn fast Ilya Mikheyev is.
The guy can absolutely fly and there were a handful of times where he lined up with a defender at the blue line and he took three hard steps and was two steps ahead of the defender.
Micheyev π pic.twitter.com/ezPYNIJx4C
β CanucksArmy (@CanucksArmy) September 13, 2022
Preparing for young stars
We spoke to Ryan Johnson, Assistant General Manager and Director of Player Development after the skate and he mentioned that this scrimmage was a good opportunity for the Young Stars participants to get some wind in their sails and prepare for an exciting hockey weekend .
Arshdeep Bains scored a goal in scrimmage while getting a few shifts alongside some NHL players.
Podz prepares Bains for a goal! He can do anything! pic.twitter.com/Bwmen3Es1r
β CanucksArmy (@CanucksArmy) September 13, 2022
The local boy, who led the WHL as top scorer last season, is entering his freshman year as a pro hockey player and is expected to contribute to the Abbotsford Canucks this season. Bains shows a good baseline on all areas of the ice and seems to have the intelligence to do so. He can see how the games are developing in the offensive zone and has good enough hands to stop when an opportunity presents itself.
Bains is one of the names we’re betting on at Young Stars, but some other names from today’s scrimmage to keep an eye on this weekend include Jett Woo, Linus Karlsson, Tristen Nielsen, Chad Nychuk, Arturs Silovs and Nils Aman.
We’ll have a full preview of six players to watch at Young Stars, as well as another article from our conversations with Woo and Johnson, coming to CanucksArmy in the coming days.
Elias Petterson don’t want to find excuses for him.
Speaking about his slow start to last season, Pettersson didn’t want to talk about how some of the factors – like his then nagging wrist injury – caused his poor game.
“I didn’t play as confidently as I always did,” said Pettersson. “So with all the answers in hand, it sucks that it happened, but I’m also glad it happened because I got experience from it and I pulled out of it.
βI mean, we can be honest, my start last season wasn’t where I wanted to start. And I was just – I grew from it and learned why it happened and why I had the second half of the season, why I played like that.
βIt was basically two different mes out there and I just played with a lot more confidence in the second half. So I’m kinda glad I went through that because I know how I got out of there if that makes sense.”
We will have a full report of Elias Pettersson’s first meeting with the media of the season this afternoon.
#Scenes #Canucks #SCRIMMAGE #Elias #Pettersson #dangles #Quinn #Hughes #plays #side
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