Fortunately, the Canucks themselves are in a great spot to assist Lekkerim\u00e4ki in making it through said crossroads. In years past, the attitude around someone like Lekkerim\u00e4ki might be more \u2018sink or swim.\u2019 Either he makes the team on his own merits, or he doesn\u2019t, and eventually gets passed over by others within the organization.<\/p>\n
But the Canucks aren\u2019t in the same situation that they have been in years past. They\u2019re now firmly in a rebuild, and the opening stages of a rebuild at that. The Canucks are still in the process of collecting more picks and prospects, and as of this present moment, there aren\u2019t all that many forward prospects yet ready to directly compete with Lekkerim\u00e4ki for time.<\/p>\n
The 2026-27 represents an opportunity for both Lekkerim\u00e4ki and the Canucks, then. It\u2019s a chance to forget about merit for a half-second, and instead attempt to put Lekkerim\u00e4ki in the best possible situation to succeed this season, so as to really see what the Canucks might have in him before deciding upon his long-term future with the team. And it might be a last chance, too, before younger forwards like Caleb Malhotra, Adam Novotny, and others start hitting the scene to push Lekkerim\u00e4ki further down the depth chart.<\/p>\n
Really, there\u2019s little to lose and plenty to gain by putting Lekkerim\u00e4ki in the best possible spot to succeed this season. The question, then, is where that spot might be?<\/p>\n
Lekkerim\u00e4ki is a scoring winger<\/a>. His placement in the lineup probably starts with finding the best centre available, something that\u2019s in short supply with these current Canucks.<\/p>\n The default option here is Elias Pettersson. Until proven otherwise, he\u2019s still the 1C on the depth chart, and remains the most productive pivot on the roster.<\/p>\n That said, Lekkerim\u00e4ki and Pettersson both like to shoot from the half-wall an awful lot, and there\u2019s perhaps a bit too much overlap in their games for them to properly mesh. Neither is particularly fleet of foot. Neither is particularly good at digging pucks out of traffic. Were Pettersson and Lekkerim\u00e4ki to form a line, you\u2019d definitely want a particular sort of winger on their flank, and that\u2019s also tough to find on this roster. Is it Linus Karlsson? Or Drew O\u2019Connor? Maybe it\u2019s Liam \u00d6hgren?<\/p>\n There\u2019s also something to be said about the potential impact on Pettersson. You won\u2019t find many in this fanbase who don\u2019t want Pettersson to shoot more, and putting a dedicated sniper on his wing might reasonably have the opposite effect. Plus, Pettersson\u2019s job this season is to rebuild his own game, so adding the responsibility of also building up Lekkerim\u00e4ki\u2019s game to that is probably best avoided.<\/p>\n A better fit might be available in the form of Marco Rossi. He\u2019s a solid goal-scorer in his own right, but is typically stylized as more of a playmaker<\/a>, and specifically someone who makes plays from the middle of the ice, where he can often be found battling for space.<\/p>\n Right off the bat, there\u2019s some appeal to having Rossi flick pucks out of the middle to the awaiting stick of Lekkerim\u00e4ki on the wing. There may be some worry about a mutual lack of size here, but Rossi plays a lot bigger than his 5\u20199\u201d frame, and there\u2019s probably some good lessons that Lekkerim\u00e4ki can learn in there.<\/p>\n Going back to other wing options, it\u2019s hard not to like the chemistry that Rossi and \u00d6hgren formed last year as two-thirds of the BRO line. \u00d6hgren proved to be an excellent forechecker with some of the markings of a pseudo-power forward, and if we\u2019re talking just archetypes, that\u2019s the exact sort of winger that should be accompanying a duo like Rossi and Lekkerim\u00e4ki. There\u2019s also some history between \u00d6hgren and Lekkerim\u00e4ki to consider.<\/a><\/p>\n A line of \u00d6hgren-Rossi-Lekkerim\u00e4ki has good potential, at least on paper. Lekkerim\u00e4ki even makes sense as a direct replacement for Brock Boeser on that line, with the two sharing plenty of structural similarities in their game.<\/p>\n There will be other options, of course. It\u2019s possible that Lekkerim\u00e4ki could find some chemistry with, say, Braeden Cootes in camp, and a scoring line could be built around that duo. And, of course, line-shuffling is inevitable, and if Lekkerim\u00e4ki does make the roster, he\u2019ll almost certainly appear in a multitude of combinations over the year. But until the players actually hit the ice, we\u2019re sticking with the aforementioned unit as a line worth penciling in.<\/p>\n Where would an \u00d6hgren-Rossi-Lekkerim\u00e4ki line leave the rest of the top-six? That\u2019s a little trickier to figure out. If Jake DeBrusk is still around, it\u2019s easy enough to keep him next to Pettersson on the other top-six line. The other flank could go to Boeser or Karlsson, or maybe even O\u2019Connor if the team is looking to increase his opportunities. Are these particularly exciting lines? No, but then that\u2019s not really the point of the 2026-27 season. This is a developmental year, and if putting Lekkerim\u00e4ki (and \u00d6hgren, for that matter) in a position to succeed is all the Canucks can \u2018get\u2019 out of their top-six this year, it will still be developmental time well spent.<\/p>\n This is where the priorities really come to the forefront. Even if during the course of camp, Boeser continues to look like a great fit on that BRO line, it might be worth putting Lekkerim\u00e4ki there all the same. It\u2019s not about which line is going to work best in the short-term, but more about how the line arrangements are going to serve these individual players in the long-term. Finding the best fit for Lekkerim\u00e4ki, then, is so much more important than finding the best fit for Boeser, or putting together the line that is going to score the most in 2026-27.<\/p>\n To conclude, we think the best thing to do with Lekkerim\u00e4ki this year is to put him in the best possible situation to succeed, and for now, that situation would appear to be on Rossi\u2019s wing. But until Training Camp actually gets going, it\u2019s only theoretical.<\/p>\n
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