{"id":96404,"date":"2025-08-20T08:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T08:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/96404\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T08:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T08:49:12","slug":"canucks-notebook-jack-roslovic-centre-upgrades-and-vitali-kravtsovs-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/96404\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks notebook: Jack Roslovic, centre upgrades and Vitali Kravtsov\u2019s chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer vacation is nearly over.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re firmly into back-to-school season now, and the Vancouver Canucks are only a month out from opening up training camp in Penticton and officially beginning the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

Despite the moody skies and the recent rainfall in the lower mainland, the scent of hockey isn\u2019t in the crisp fall air just yet. Still, as Canucks players begin to trickle back into town, we\u2019re inching our way closer to puck drop. We\u2019ll be back to it soon enough.<\/p>\n

As I check back in myself from a 3 1\/2-week break spent fishing and swimming and cycling to and from various Vancouver beaches, let\u2019s empty out the notebook and get into some of what I\u2019m hearing around the hockey club as the summer winds down.<\/p>\n

Cooling off the pursuit of value free agents<\/p>\n

When we last checked in<\/a> after the Dakota Joshua trade, we noted the Canucks were considering their options on the late-summer unrestricted free agent market, but didn\u2019t view what remained \u2014 including Jack Roslovic \u2014 as \u201cthe answer\u201d necessarily to their significant needs down the middle of their forward group.<\/p>\n

What was true in mid-July remains true today \u2026 mostly.<\/p>\n

The one change is that Vancouver\u2019s hockey operations leadership group has taken the time to do even more due diligence on some of the value free-agent options still available. They\u2019ve also spent some additional time considering their options in concert with head coach Adam Foote.<\/p>\n

The Canucks seem to have emerged from that process with a sense of conviction that between a healthy Filip Chytil and the late-season emergence of Aatu R\u00e4ty, the club has enough at centre to stay in control in the short term if necessary, and that a centre-capable option, like Roslovic, isn\u2019t likely to be the full-time answer the club requires down the middle of its forward group anyway.<\/p>\n

At this point, from what I can gather from senior club sources informed about the organization\u2019s thinking on the matter, the Canucks have cooled significantly on the prospect of adding Roslovic as an unrestricted free agent at this point. Vancouver is still in the market to land a centre, but the trade market is viewed as a more likely and realistic route of addressing the club\u2019s greatest remaining need.<\/p>\n

On that score, the club is actively kicking tires and exploring its options. Vancouver would execute a trade today if the deal returned a credible middle-six centre \u2014 even if that centre had more of a defensive bent to their game.<\/p>\n

The Canucks might, however, have to wait until closer to Canadian Thanksgiving to land the reinforcements they require. In three consecutive seasons \u2014 the Jason Dickinson trade in 2022, the Sam Lafferty trade in 2023 and the Tucker Poolman trade in 2024 \u2014 the club has executed trades in and around that first weekend of October, when rival teams make difficult roster decisions ahead of the regular season. That\u2019s the timeline that we\u2019ll be monitoring closely in the weeks and months to come.<\/p>\n

And though the Canucks would of course prefer to more proactively flesh out their centre depth ahead of time, hockey operations leadership is comfortable betting on the centres they have, especially Chytil and R\u00e4ty, going into the season. If the Canucks have to wait until November to land the centre upgrade this lineup craves, it seems they are comfortable enough with their options to be patient.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Canucks seem to have cooled significantly on the prospect of adding Jack Roslovic as an unrestricted free agent. (Katherine Gawlik \/ Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)The Vitali Kravtsov bet<\/p>\n

The only piece of Canucks news I missed on vacation was the club\u2019s bringing back winger Vitali Kravtsov on a one-year, veteran minimum contract, which carries a healthy $450,000 AHL salary.<\/p>\n

Acquired in a no-risk, jump-the-waiver-queue type trade<\/a> by the Canucks in February 2023, Kravtsov struggled in 16 games with Vancouver and signed in the KHL the next summer with little in the way of resistance from the Canucks, though Vancouver did tender him a qualifying offer to preserve his rights.<\/p>\n

The big-bodied 25-year-old went No. 9 to the New York Rangers at the 2018 NHL Draft, so he\u2019s got considerable pedigree. He\u2019s also got evident size and skill, although the skill is only so valuable in the absence of the hockey sense required to use it, and the size is only so valuable without the willingness to play a heavy game. Watching Kravtsov before and during his time with the Canucks, I struggled to wrap my head around exactly what he is as an NHL player.<\/p>\n

In the intervening years, Kravtsov has seemingly found his game in the KHL.<\/p>\n

This year, the 25-year-old winger was the sixth leading scorer in the KHL with 27 goals and 58 points in 66 games. That production seems auspicious, but it\u2019s worth noting that the KHL scoring leaderboard is dotted with players like former Canuck Josh Leivo and Abbotsford legend Sheldon Rempal, who, at best, would be hard-pressed to break camp with Vancouver.<\/p>\n

There are a few interesting things about the club\u2019s decision to bring Kravtsov back that are worth unpacking, however.<\/p>\n

First off, the club doesn\u2019t necessarily view Kravtsov as having added something new to his game or turned a developmental corner during his two seasons in the KHL. The organization, more than anything, views Kravtsov as a player who came to it at a moment in his career when his confidence was at an ebb.<\/p>\n

After having been one of the most productive KHL forwards the past two years, the club is hopeful Kravtsov is feeling more settled and that he\u2019s used the last two years to rebuild his confidence, more than anything else. On a low-risk deal, the club is hopeful confidence can make the difference for Kravtsov in his second go-around in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Secondly, though Kravtsov\u2019s two-way deal includes a healthy American League salary, it doesn\u2019t include a European out clause. Kravtsov will get a real opportunity to make Vancouver\u2019s NHL team out of training camp, but whether he\u2019s able to break camp in the NHL, he\u2019ll be an option to remain with the organization throughout the season.<\/p>\n

That said, there was a fair bit of interest in Kravtsov expressed by rival teams around the NHL before the Canucks signed him. Internally, the club seems to believe there\u2019s enough interest from other corners of the league that if he were to hit waivers ahead of the season, he\u2019d be at high risk of being claimed.<\/p>\n

Given the Canucks have 14 forwards on one-way contracts (which guarantee a player an NHL-level salary), plus another forward on a two-way deal in Arshdeep Bains with an inside track to break camp with the NHL club, Kravtsov will face an uphill climb at training camp.<\/p>\n

The pedigree, skill and size are there, and Vancouver, without incurring any sort of meaningful risk, wanted to take the first look at how Kravtsov\u2019s game has evolved in the wake of his successful two-year KHL stint at training camp.<\/p>\n

(Top photo of Vitali Kravtsov: Bob Frid \/ USA Today)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summer vacation is nearly over. We\u2019re firmly into back-to-school season now, and the Vancouver Canucks are only a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99,1320],"class_list":["post-96404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-vancouver-canucks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}