{"id":307736,"date":"2025-11-26T08:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T08:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307736\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T08:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T08:27:07","slug":"west-notes-canucks-strategy-hart-hinostroza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/307736\/","title":{"rendered":"West Notes: Canucks Strategy, Hart, Hinostroza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, we covered reports<\/a> coming out of Vancouver that the Canucks had made it known across the league that key veteran players, namely, their pending unrestricted free agents, were available to other teams in trade talks. The Athletic\u2019s Thomas Drance provided some more detail<\/a> on the situation in Vancouver, reporting that the club\u2019s \u201chockey operations leadership spent much of the day in high-level meetings\u201d and emerged with \u201ca growing belief that the time has come to proactively chart a clear direction for the franchise.\u201d While Drance clarified that the team is unlikely \u201cto publicly brand their overall approach\u201d as a \u201crebuild,\u201d the Canucks have decided to realign their priorities \u201cinto a younger overall direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most alarming element of Drance\u2019s reporting, at least for the Canucks\u2019 short-term future, was his revelation that Canucks management \u201chas seen enough to be skeptical of this group\u2019s urgency and will to win on a consistent basis.\u201d That impacts the Canucks\u2019 immediate planning, as the team had long been rumored to be highly interested in acquiring an NHL-ready second-line center. That has now changed, with Drance writing that \u201cthe notion of paying futures for a second-line center upgrade will be off the table for the time being.\u201d The Canucks are in a difficult spot, to be sure, and the looming unrestricted free agency of franchise face Quinn Hughes<\/a> doesn\u2019t help matters. But at the very least it appears the team is engaging in an honest interrogation of its own competitive chances, one that appears to have led to them selecting a more sustainable path to contention.<\/p>\n

Other notes from the Western Conference:<\/p>\n

The Vegas Golden Knights are \u201cexpected to recall\u201d netminder Carter Hart<\/a> to their NHL roster as early as next week, according to TSN\u2019s Chris Johnston<\/a>. Hart, the former starting netminder for the Philadelphia Flyers, hasn\u2019t played in an NHL game since the 2023-24 season. He was acquitted of charges in this past summer\u2019s high-profile trial, and signed with Vegas in October. They sent him to their AHL affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights, in November, and he has played in two games, posting a 1-1-0 record and a .875 save percentage. He\u2019s expected to make one more start on his conditioning stint before joining the Golden Knights\u2019 NHL roster. The Golden Knights remain without Adin Hill<\/a> due to an injury, and have relied upon Akira Schmid<\/a> and Carl Lindbom<\/a> in Hill\u2019s absence.
\nMinnesota Wild head coach John Hynes provided the media, including The Athletic\u2019s Michael Russo<\/a>, with clarification on the recovery timeline of injured forward Vinnie Hinostroza<\/a>. Hynes said that Hinostroza is likely to miss four-to-six weeks with his injury, a lower-body ailment he suffered on Nov. 21. Hinostroza, 31, was acquired by the Wild off of waivers from the Nashville Predators last season and has scored 13 points across 46 games with the team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier today, we covered reports coming out of Vancouver that the Canucks had made it known across the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,17788,761,448,82,452,767,137711],"class_list":["post-307736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carter-hart","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-vancouver-canucks","tag-vegas-golden-knights","tag-vinnie-hinostroza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307736","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=307736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}