{"id":167847,"date":"2025-09-25T06:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T06:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167847\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T06:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T06:44:11","slug":"canucks-aatu-raty-following-own-blueprint-in-battle-for-roster-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167847\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks’ Aatu Raty following own blueprint in battle for roster spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

VANCOUVER \u2014 For most players like Aatu Raty<\/a>, navigating the years-long journey to the National Hockey League is complicated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is no one-size-fits-all plan for making it although Raty, at least, has a blueprint. Literally, he has written a blueprint.<\/p>\n

Growing up in Finland the son of a hockey coach, the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> prospect kept a training diary from a young age. It wasn\u2019t so much about what made him happy or sad, but what made him better. And what didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Now 22 and the top candidate to fill the Canucks\u2019 hole at centre in the bottom six \u2014 pending any moves by general manager Patrik Allvin between now and Vancouver\u2019s season-opener on Oct. 9 \u2014 Raty continues to keep a journal.<\/p>\n

And for this training camp and pre-season, which included Wednesday night\u2019s solid 3-1 win against the Calgary Flames in Abbotsford, B.C., Raty has the advantage of looking at his notes from last year when he forced his way on to the Canucks\u2019 opening-day roster.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI mean, I don’t write everything in there,\u201d Raty said before the game. \u201cBut especially, like in training camp, we go over a lot of schemes and stuff that I want to write down, just to remember. And also just kind of how I feel each day, and then, you know, what worked and what didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways from a young age, I kept a food diary and, especially for summer training, what I did for workouts, and then what I ate, how I slept, all that stuff. I just feel like that’s where, at the end of the day. . . you can read and look back at that and evaluate. And if you say, \u2018I can’t do anything better than this,\u2019 then it’s pretty easy to go to camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s always a chance to take a big jump at any age, but especially at my age, it’s something that comes just with physiology. I\u2019m feeling great. Even though it was a short summer, I think I made some big strides. That stuff that I was talking about (last year) with my skating, it was easy to build on that blueprint knowing what worked. So I definitely feel good, really comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raty skated at training camp in Penticton with wingers Vitali Kravtsov<\/a> and Linus Karlsson<\/a>, two other guys with experience in Europe and the minors who are pushing to gain (or re-gain) a foothold in the NHL.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Raty centred Kravtsov and Chase Stillman, the former first-round pick the Canucks acquired in July in the trade that sent third-string goalie Arturs Silovs to the Pittsburgh Penguins.<\/p>\n

A second-period injury to Canucks winger Nils Hoglander, however, scrambled the forward lines.<\/p>\n

Raty has the advantage over most of the other prospects of playing as a robust centre who takes faceoffs ambidextrously and won 57.4 per cent of his draws in 33 games for the Canucks last season. Only J.T. Miller was better in the circle than Raty, and the Canucks badly missed Miller\u2019s faceoff dominance after he was traded last January to the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n

Eight months later, there continues to be a hole at centre that Raty, who has spent 2 \u00bd years in the Canucks\u2019 development pipeline, is eager to fill.<\/p>\n

Teenager Braeden Cootes and minor-leaguer Max Sasson<\/a>, who was lively and dangerous Wednesday on a line with Karlsson and Arshdeep Bains<\/a>, are other young centres contending for an NHL spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raty stuck with the Canucks last season until December, then spent three months in the American Hockey League before returning for the final three weeks of Vancouver\u2019s frantic and failed Stanley Cup playoff push after top centres Elias Pettersson and Filip Chytil were injured.<\/p>\n

In 33 games at the NHL level, Raty scored seven goals and 11 points in just 10:39 of average ice time while posting expected-goals-for of 48.3 per cent.<\/p>\n

He said he is a better player now than he was a year ago, an assertion endorsed by Allvin, who noted this week that Raty\u2019s fitness testing was impressive and that the six-foot-two player has more confidence than a year ago.<\/p>\n

Raty also has waiver eligibility for the first time, which adds another layer of urgency to his Canucks audition. If he\u2019s not playing in Vancouver this season, there\u2019s a chance he will be in another NHL city.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, you always want to get to. . . where you want to be,\u201d he said of his NHL development, which began with the New York Islanders before the 2023 trade of Canucks captain Bo Horvat. \u201cNow it’s easy to say, when I’ve been able to play in the NHL, \u2018you know, it wasn’t so hard.\u2019 But I can\u2019t lie; obviously, there’s been days I must have been frustrated or just kind of thinking that I could be there. But that’s the thing, you can\u2019t just skip that (development) time and get there right away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say (this is) the most opportunity that I’ve had. Every year, there’s so much competition and that doesn’t change for this year. But I think, yeah, there’s a chance, and I’m definitely going to give everything I can to play. I\u2019m really, really excited for that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dear diary, is this the year?<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Hoglander and Chytil on the power play, and Victor Mancini<\/a> at even strength, scored for the Canucks. But the most encouraging performance was probably starting goalie Thatcher Demko<\/a>, trying to bounce back from an injury-plagued season, opening his pre-season campaign by stopping 11 of 12 shots and looking sharp over two periods. But the undisclosed injury to Hoglander took some of the lustre off what was an impressive win in a game between mostly-young lineups. Hoglander left the arena in a walking boot, and coach Adam Foote said the winger would be re-evaluated Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Although the competition at centre is the most important positional battle for the Canucks, the most entertaining one is on defence where any of the three of Mancini, 23, Elias Pettersson (Junior), 21, or rookie pro Tom Willander, 20, could make the team on the third pairing. Canuck coach Adam Foote\u2019s desire to unleash defencemen offensively and be more aggressive seems to suit Mancini\u2019s skating and puck-carrying. But Willander was also good on Wednesday, finishing with a pair of assists and playing another understated but sound defensive game. Pettersson did not play in Abbotsford.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0The Canucks started five skaters who helped the Abbotsford Canucks win the AHL title in June. But the forward line of Bains-Sasson-Karlsson was more than ceremonial. The best line from the Calder Cup run was also Vancouver\u2019s best line on Wednesday. In a perfect world, they could graduate as a trio to the NHL but the Canucks probably don\u2019t have three roster spots available to them. Sasson also is still waiver-exempt at age 25, which makes it harder for him to displace others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 For most players like Aatu Raty, navigating the years-long journey to the National Hockey League is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-167847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}