{"id":192529,"date":"2025-10-06T01:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T01:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/192529\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T01:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T01:47:09","slug":"theyre-all-buying-in-youth-surge-fuelling-canucks-renewed-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/192529\/","title":{"rendered":"‘They’re all buying in’: Youth surge fuelling Canucks’ renewed energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2014 With the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> about\u00a0to name a National Hockey League roster bottom-loaded with graduates from their minor-league program and their first 18-year-old player since 1990, the team’s greatest transformation over the last three weeks has been its positivity.<\/p>\n

The bleakness of last season was eradicated by a training camp and pre-season of harmony, crisp execution, self-belief and optimism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can feel it,\u201d assistant coach Scott Young said after Sunday\u2019s practice. \u201cYou can feel the energy, the excitement of the players on the ice. It’s palpable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like we’re all buying in,\u201d longest-tenured Canuck Brock Boeser<\/a> said. \u201cI think it’s been great so far. I can’t get over how good I feel or how good the vibes feel, so I’m hoping that we can really take this into the season. I’m pretty excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

The excitement among players on Sunday was probably fanned by the realization that most of the 13 forwards and seven defencemen who practised on rented ice at the University of British Columbia would make the roster that the Canucks must finalize Monday, ahead of Thursday\u2019s regular-season opener against the Calgary Flames at Rogers Arena.<\/p>\n

The Canucks announced after practice that waiver-exempt Victor Mancini and Tom Willander, two of the team\u2019s three excellent defence prospects, had been assigned to the American Hockey League. But one (or both) could be recalled before Thursday pending the status of injured defencemen Pierre-Olivier Joseph (groin) and Derek Forbort (undisclosed), who missed a fourth straight day of on-ice work Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"3232 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/p>\n

Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.<\/p>\n

Latest episode<\/a><\/p>\n

Up front, it appears that Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Arshdeep Bains<\/a>, Linus Karlsson and Aatu Raty will all be graduating to the NHL roster after helping the Abbotsford Canucks win the Calder Cup in June. They should be joined by 18-year-old centre Braeden Cootes<\/a>, whose speed, poise and mature game allowed him to blow past expectations in his first professional training camp.<\/p>\n

Injured centre Teddy Blueger (lower body) is a roster wildcard. Winger Nils Hoglander will start the season on injured reserve after undergoing pre-season ankle surgery that could keep him out of the NHL until December.<\/p>\n

The surge of young players into the bottom of the Vancouver roster has added to the positive energy engineered by Adam Foote and his new coaching staff, and driven by top players and leaders determined to prove the Canucks are much better than they showed last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s maybe five or six of us and we’re all trying to fight to be regulars,\u201d Bains said after practising again on the second line, beside Filip Chytil and Conor Garland. \u201cAnd we compete hard to push each other. I think that’s why a bunch of us have gotten to this point now, is that we compete against each other trying to stick.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been pushing for a while. I think we’ve been developing these last couple years, and came into this camp \u2014 we didn’t, you know, count the spots that we’re trying to take \u2014 but we just came in and tried to push each other and see what we can do. And, you know, it’s been pretty rewarding so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

After scoring twice in Friday\u2019s 3-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers in the Canucks\u2019 pre-season finale, Lekkerimaki practised on a line with Cootes and Evander Kane.<\/p>\n

With Blueger absent, Raty centred the fourth line between Drew O\u2019Connor and Kiefer Sherwood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Subject to waivers if re-assigned, Karlsson was the extra forward on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Speedy centres Max Sasson and Nils Aman were assigned to the AHL on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose Abbotsford guys look unreal,\u201d Boeser said. \u201cThey’re flying around, making plays, and it just shows how much last year helped them. I think it\u2019s super important for our team, them taking that next step and competing. I think, you know, all of them should probably make the team. That’s how good they\u2019ve been. That’s huge for our group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our practices have been great. I think we’re flying around the ice and we’re kind of pushing the pace, and I feel like that’s translating to our game on ice. I know it was just pre-season, so I guess we’re going to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

After missing the playoffs by six points last season amid an avalanche of injuries and drama, the Canucks went 4-2 in the pre-season and noticeably gained cohesion and momentum. Their pace and play were impressive considering the team has been incorporating new strategies from Foote about speed, aggression and how the Canucks attack.<\/p>\n

Training camp opened just 17 days ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I didn’t know where I thought we\u2019d be,\u201d Young said when asked about the rate of change. \u201cBut I think we’re very pleased where we’re at right now. Like I said, they’re listening, they’re coachable, they’re all buying in and that’s all we can ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday practice lines and pairings<\/p>\n

DeBrusk-Pettersson-Boeser<\/p>\n

Pettersson (Junior)-Mancini<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 With the Vancouver Canucks about\u00a0to name a National Hockey League roster bottom-loaded with graduates from their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-192529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}