To start, the trio were getting used to playing together. But that didn\u2019t take long to turn into chemistry, as Novotn\u00fd took a Rogowski pass just inside the blueline, faked the shot, switched the angle on his shot and fired a shot far side on Nikke Kokko.<\/p>\n
SHOOTER’S SHOOT.<\/p>\n
Lethal shot from Adam Novotn\u00fd. \ud83c\udfaf <\/p>\n
Fast forward to the second period and the line really started to get cooking. After watching Bennett Schimek and Gabe Chiarot score two quick goals, this line wanted in on the action. With all the momentum on their side, Novotn\u00fd shovelled a silky backhand pass by the Kraken defender and onto the tape of Rogowski, who used his long reach to fire a cross-crease pass over to Cootes for a one-time tap-in to extend the Canucks\u2019 lead to three.<\/p>\n
Things we love to see:<\/p>\n
Rogowski to Cootes \ud83e\udee1 <\/p>\n
Later in the period, Novotn\u00fd had one of the best plays of the game. The full extent of the work he did along the wall is not shown in the clip below, but to paint the picture, Novotn\u00fd went into the corner with speed, won the puck battle, fought off an extra defender, and still managed to exit the corner with the puck. He then passed the puck out of danger to the point, where Alonso Gosselin wired a shot past the Kraken netminder for the Canucks\u2019 fourth goal of the period and Novotn\u00fd\u2019s third point of the night.<\/p>\n
Alonso Gosselin restores our 3\ufe0f\u20e3 goal lead!<\/p>\n
Even in the third period, they were dangerous and kept threatening the Kraken. When two first-round picks and a player selected with the first pick of the second round get stacked on a line together, fans expect big things, and they pulled through. Novotn\u00fd led the line in scoring with one goal and two assists, Rogowski had two assists, and Cootes had the lone goal. All three players were named the three stars of the game.<\/p>\n
Next stop for these guys? Canucks training camp next week in Penticton. It\u2019s one thing to look good against other prospects, but how will they look against professionals in an NHL environment? Regardless of how they do there, the future looks bright with these three after what they showed at this year\u2019s prospect showcase.<\/p>\n
2. Ilya Safonov\u2019s opportunity to drive his own lineIn Game 1, Ilya Safonov<\/a> was paired on a line with Cootes and Bennett Schimek. The trio looked great, but Safonov was then trusted to drive his own line. But how did he do? The answer: just fine.<\/p>\n Perhaps the term \u201cdrive\u201d isn\u2019t the correct one to use, because he wasn\u2019t much of a play driver at all. That was Schimek. To be fair to Safonov, being an offensive play driver has never really been his game. However, as a 25-year-old with six years of professional experience in Russia, Safonov should be able to kind of do whatever he wants offensively against these younger prospects. And we just didn\u2019t see that from him in this contest.<\/p>\n Again, that isn\u2019t his game. Safonov is more of a defensive role player. He\u2019s got the prototypical size and does the little things right that NHL teams covet, but projecting him as anything higher than a fourth-line defensive specialist may be a bit too ambitious for what we saw from him this weekend.<\/p>\n One-offsI mentioned Bennett Schimek as a player to watch in this game, and boy did he come through with a nifty goal in the second period.Winger Gabe Chiarot played centre for this game. He won a few draws, looked fairly comfortable in the middle, and got rewarded with a goal.Yaroslav Bryzgalov flashes another strong shift. He\u2019s done something in back-to-back games now that piqued my interest.Although he played just one period, Aku Koskenvuo was lights out. He made multiple impressive saves. But after playing professionally last year, this was sort of expected.PRESENTED BY THE CANUCKSARMY NEWSLETTER![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789377012_32_image.webp\"\/)
<\/a>Never miss what matters in the game. From lineup changes to breaking trades and must-read analysis, CanucksArmy delivers the insight serious hockey fans rely on\u2014straight to your inbox. Sign up for the CanucksArmy newsletter here!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canucks Prospect Showcase Notebook: The Novotn\u00fd-Cootes-Rogowski line steals the show Head coach Ryan Papaioannou made some adjustments to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-895235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895235","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=895235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}