Canuck’s training camp preview: are the young stars ready to win?

VANCOUVER — Everything has changed about the Vancouver Canucks, and nothing has changed about the Vancouver Canucks.

Less than 10 months since the most sweeping midseason regime change brought coach Bruce Boudreau and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford to the West Coast, the strengths and weaknesses of the Canucks lineup are largely unchanged: lots of offensive prowess up front that should keep the power play impressive make, a young superstar (Quinn Hughes) leading a defense who has questions about her bottom half and a Vezina-able goalie (Thatcher Demko) who needs to stay healthy and be as good as possible for the team to win.

But this training camp, which opens in Whistler on Thursday, will be given a fresh energy with the new regime, new ideas and a completely rebuilt hockey ops department.

There are also some new forwards, most notably former Toronto Maple Leaf Ilya Mikheyev and KHL free agent Andrei Kuzmenko.

Early in the pre-season at least, Hughes will be courted at right-back, likely in an alpha pairing with Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

But the biggest change for the Canucks is the mindset of new general manager Patrik Allvin, who helped the Pittsburgh Penguins win three Stanley Cups: Nothing these players have done was good enough, so everyone must get better.

It’s time for the Canucks’ young stars to lead the team back to the playoffs.

Current Cap Place: $586,000 (with Michael Ferland on LTIR)

Director General: Patrick Allwin

head coach: Bruce Boudreau

Assistant Coach: Mike Yeo, Trent Cull, Jason King, Ian Clarke, Dylan Crawford

Unsigned Players: Danny DeKeyser (PTO)

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION: Are you ready to win?

Had you not witnessed it, it would have been hard to believe that the team that finished last season 32-15-10 under Boudreau was the same one that started 6-14-2 with former head coach Travis Green. Those last 57 games have sparked a lot of excitement and hope in Vancouver, but they also bring significant expectations and pressure on a team that has only made the playoffs once in the past seven years – in the Edmonton bubble after a regular season 69 Play .

No wonder, Allvin told Sportsnet: “Whatever people think of those last 50 games, it wasn’t good enough because we didn’t make the playoffs. So let’s stop talking about it.”

The real Canucks are probably somewhere between the two extremes they showed last season, but potentially a lot closer to the Boudreau version. You have to be to make the playoffs.

Demko is 26, Brock Boeser 25, Elias Pettersson 23 and Hughes 22. Top scorer JT Miller is 29 and team captain Bo Horvat is 27, still in their prime. Defenseman Ekman-Larsson is 31 and Tyler Myers is 32.

If you don’t win now, then when?

CAMP BATTLE TO WATCH: Who is playing – and with whom – on defense?

The Quinn-Hughes experiment will draw a lot of attention, and fans will be obsessed with forward line combinations as Boudreau uses upgrades on the wings, trying to create a balanced top-9 with centers Miller, Horvat and Pettersson. However, the most important decisions will be made on defense, where there may be a big drop after Hughes, Ekman-Larsson and Myers.

Can rookie Jack Rathbone, who may be something of a Hughes Lite, make the line-up and actually play in a second fixture where he could be mentored by Myers?

Travis Dermott will be in the third pairing, but with who?

Tucker Poolman has reportedly recovered from his neurological issues (severe migraine symptoms) but needs to play better than last season to oust reliable, sturdy veteran Luke Schenn.

And then there’s local hero Kyle Burroughs, who finally became an NHL regular last winter and will fight to stay there.

Allvin could still alleviate some of the dilemmas by hiring another NHL defenseman to bolster the bottom half of defense, something he’s been attempting — to no avail — since last season.

PLANNED PLACEMENT

Forward

Vasily Podkolzin – JT Miller – Brock Boeser

Andrei Kuzmenko – Elias Pettersson – Ilya Mikheyev

Tanner Pearson – Bo Horvat – Conor Garland

Dakota Joshua – Curtis Lazar – Jason Dickinson

defender

Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Quinn Hughes

Jack Rathbone – Tyler Myers

Travis Dermott—Luke Schenn

goalkeeper

Thatcher Demko

Spencer Martin

extras

F Nils Höglander, D Tucker Poolman, D Kyle Burroughs