{"id":400520,"date":"2026-01-10T12:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T12:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/400520\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T12:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T12:53:08","slug":"jonathan-lekkerimaki-expected-to-rejoin-abbotsford-canucks-lineup-this-weekend-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/400520\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Lekkerim\u00e4ki expected to rejoin Abbotsford Canucks lineup this weekend: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jonathan Lekkerim\u00e4ki expected to rejoin Abbotsford Canucks lineup this weekend: report<\/p>\n<p>According to a report, one of the <a class=\"text-accent\" href=\"https:\/\/canucksarmy.com\/standings\/2025\/division\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a> top prospects could be returning to action this weekend in Abbotsford. <a class=\"text-accent\" href=\"https:\/\/canucksarmy.com\/news\/farmies-jonathan-lekkerimaki-extends-goal-streak-abbotsford-canucks-4-2-win-tucson-roadrunners\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jonathan Lekkerim\u00e4ki<\/a> has not played for the <a class=\"text-accent\" href=\"https:\/\/canucksarmy.com\/news\/blackfish-abbotsford-canucks-post-holiday-road-work-world-junior-medals-chl-trade-watch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canucks AHL farm team<\/a> since December 20th. He has missed six games with an undisclosed injury. However, according to Donnie &amp; Dhali\u2019s Rick Dhaliwal, the 21-year-old right winger is nearing a return to the lineup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe skated Monday, skated yesterday, he\u2019s getting close,\u201d Dhaliwal told Sportsnet 650 on Friday morning. \u201cI would not be surprised if he plays this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although he\u2019s dressed for just nine AHL games this season, Lekkerim\u00e4ki is tied for third in goal-scoring in Abbotsford and is tied for seventh in team scoring. He has six goals and 10 points on the season.<\/p>\n<p>Lekkerim\u00e4ki has also appeared in eight NHL games for the Vancouver Canucks, scoring once and setting up another goal. His goal came in the team\u2019s season opener on October 9th against Calgary.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__NEuOx\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">\ud83d\udea8 CANUCKS GOAL \ud83d\udea8<\/p>\n<p>Garland to Kane to Lekkerimaki and it&#8217;s 4-0 Canucks! <\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfa5: Sportsnet | <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/Canucks\" class=\"tweet-link_root__AKuKj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">#Canucks<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>With the big-league team floundering and with so many players struggling individually, Lekkerim\u00e4ki could be in line for another NHL look. First, the club wants to ensure that he is fully healthy and gets some game action in the minors under his belt before being recalled by the parent club.<\/p>\n<p>With the Canucks expected to ship out at least one winger before the trade deadline, Lekkerim\u00e4ki stands to benefit. The club has signalled its intention to give younger players more opportunities over the second half of the season, and the 2022 first-rounder certainly fits that bill. In 32 NHL games over parts of two seasons, the Tullinge, Sweden native has four goals and four assists while averaging 12:06 of ice time.<\/p>\n<p>Abbotsford is at home to the Calgary Wranglers on Saturday night and again on Sunday afternoon. The minor league Canucks will surely welcome Lekkerim\u00e4ki back to the lineup. The team has lost six straight and has not won since he left the lineup prior to Christmas. Abbotsford is having a rough go this season, sitting 16th out of 17 teams in the AHL Western Conference with a record of 9-19-3-3.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan Lekkerim\u00e4ki expected to rejoin Abbotsford Canucks lineup this weekend: report According to a report, one of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-400520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400520","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=400520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}