Canucks Recall Jonathan Lekkerimäki
Nov. 11: The Canucks announced they’ve reversed the Silovs/Young flip, adding the Latvian back to the NHL roster while sending Young back to Abbotsford. Silovs played in yesterday’s game against the Oilers’ affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, making 23 saves on 25 shots en route to a 4-2 win.
Nov. 10: The Canucks have shuffled their roster in a big way, announcing the recall of 2022 first-round pick Jonathan Lekkerimäki from AHL Abbotsford. He’s likely slated to make his NHL debut on Tuesday against the Flames.
They’ve also switched out their backup netminders. Arturs Silovs has been assigned to Abbotsford after a tough start to the season, while 20-year-old Ty Young has been recalled to serve as Kevin Lankinen‘s No. 2 for now.
Arshdeep Bains and Nils Åman were also sent down to Abbotsford in corresponding transactions, giving them an open roster spot. That spot will likely be used to activate Dakota Joshua, who’s on the verge of returning after undergoing offseason surgery to remove testicular cancer, from injured reserve.
It’s far from an unexpected recall for Lekkerimäki. While he was banged up enough to miss last night’s contest for Abbotsford, he’s ready to go and should be available Tuesday. Most thought he would get the summons from the AHL after the Canucks dealt Daniel Sprong to the Kraken for future considerations on Friday, freeing up a lineup spot for a scoring winger. The 20-year-old Lekkerimäki has thrived this season, posting five goals and two assists in seven AHL contests.
Lekkerimäki is in his first full season in North America. The Swedish right-winger spent last season with Örebro HK of the Swedish Hockey League, where he broke out to lead the club in scoring with 19 goals and 31 points in 46 games. The 5’11”, 172-lb sniper closed out the year with a pair of points in six games for Abbotsford after his SHL campaign ended, but he’s taken leaps in his development over the summer. He’ll look to help jumpstart a Canucks offense that’s lagging slightly from last season, scoring 3.23 goals per game compared to 2023-24’s 3.40 mark.
While the Canucks would like to get a little more offense going, their goaltending situation is of much higher concern. While Thatcher Demko remains on the shelf with his popliteus muscle injury, Lankinen had been quite good as their temporary starter, entering last night’s game with a .923 SV%. That number is down to .905 after he conceded seven goals on 27 shots yesterday to the Oilers. At the same time, Silovs had been borderline unplayable as Lankinen’s backup with a .808 SV%, 4.77 GAA and -7.2 GSAA in just three starts and one relief appearance.
It’s not what Vancouver expected out of Silovs after the 23-year-old was forced into playoff action last year, doing well to record a .898 SV% and 2.91 GAA in 10 appearances after Demko and then-backup Casey DeSmith exited with injuries. The 2019 sixth-round pick doesn’t require waivers to head to the minors until next season, so the Canucks will take advantage of his exemption and ferry him back to Abbotsford to get him some additional development time. Silovs, who signed a two-year, $1.7MM contract after becoming a restricted free agent over the summer, now has a 3.17 GAA and .876 SV% in 13 regular-season NHL games dating back to the 2022-23 season.
Meanwhile, Young gets his first NHL recall just two games into his professional career. The 2022 fifth-round pick started the season on assignment to Kalamazoo, where he was lights out with a .974 SV% and 1.01 GAA in a pair of games. He was briefly recalled to Abbotsford last week but will bypass that level entirely for now, as he’s set to dress for his first NHL contest while Lankinen assumedly returns to action against Calgary. The 6’3″ netminder posted a .903 SV%, 2.79 GAA, one shutout, and a 23-11-0 record in 37 games for the Prince George Cougars of the Western Hockey League last season.
Bains has been subject to more than a few paper transactions this season, but with Joshua’s return pending, this demotion might be more permanent. The 23-year-old forward has one goal in seven games this season while averaging 11:40 per night.
Meanwhile, Åman returns to Abbotsford after being summoned solely for yesterday’s matchup with Edmonton. The 24-year-old center cleared waivers last week after sitting in the press box for four straight games. He has two assists and a -3 rating in five NHL showings for the Canucks this year and two assists in two games for Abbotsford.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Boeser Still Being Evaluated; Allvin Provides Other Injury Updates
The Canucks will be without winger Brock Boeser tonight against Edmonton as he’s still being evaluated for the upper-body injury he sustained on Thursday, shares Sportsnet 650’s Brendan Batchelor (Twitter link). After a breakout performance last season that saw him score 40 goals and 33 assists in 81 games, the 27-year-old is off to a nice start offensively this year with six goals and five assists in his first dozen games. It’s a contract year for Boeser so he’ll certainly be hoping to avoid any long-term absence.
Meanwhile, Canucks GM Patrik Allvin shared some updates on a few other players to Batchelor and other reporters. The team is hopeful that forward Dakota Joshua will make his season debut at some point on their current home stand as he continues to work his way back from testicular cancer. Goaltender Thatcher Demko still has no timeline to make his season debut as his knee injury continues to keep him out of the lineup. Lastly, prospect Jonathan Lekkerimaki (a speculative recall candidate following the Daniel Sprong trade), tweaked something and won’t be available for AHL Abbotsford tonight which takes him out of the potential recall equation for the time being.
Canucks Recall Nils Aman And Arshdeep Bains
The Canucks have been quite busy on the transactions front over the last couple of weeks, shuffling players back and forth to save cap space and, in some cases, pause the waiver clock of certain players. But with Friday’s trade of Daniel Sprong, they had a roster spot to try to fill on top of the usual paper moves. They’ve done so by announcing (Twitter link) the recalls of center Nils Aman and winger Arshdeep Bains from AHL Abbotsford.
Aman cleared waivers last weekend after spending the first few weeks of the season in the NHL. The 24-year-old had a very limited role over that stretch, however, only getting into four games and being scratched for the rest. He had two assists in those outings on the fourth line but is more known for being a defensive player than a point producer at the top level. Aman got into two games with Abbotsford following the demotion, picking up a pair of helpers there as well.
As for Bains, he has been no stranger to the shuffle as this is his fifth recall of the season already. The 23-year-old has a goal in seven games so far this season while collecting 12 hits and averaging 11:40 per night. Despite the frequent assignments to Abbotsford, Bains has played for them just once so far; he had a goal and two helpers in that contest.
With the promotions, Vancouver is now back to a full 23-player roster. That said, with the frequency of their moves over the first few weeks of the season, that’s unlikely to be the case for too long.
Kraken Acquire Daniel Sprong From Canucks
It appears Daniel Sprong will be returning to a team he’s already familiar with. The Canucks announced that they have dealt the winger to the Kraken in exchange for future considerations.
Sprong has been a productive player over the last couple of seasons but it hasn’t resulted in him getting much stability. In 2022-23, he had a breakout year in Seattle, notching 21 goals and 25 assists in 66 games. Before that, his previous career-high in points was 23. However, despite only being owed a qualifying offer of $787.5K, Seattle opted to non-tender him, getting out of a potential arbitration hearing in the process.
Still, the 27-year-old was able to do relatively well in free agency in 2023, landing a one-year, $2MM deal with Detroit. He showed that his production the year before wasn’t a one-off, as he collected 18 goals and 25 assists in 76 games while only averaging 12 minutes a night of action. But once again, he was non-tendered as the Red Wings opted to avoid the risk of arbitration as well.
Unfortunately for Sprong, the market wasn’t as strong this time around. It took nearly three weeks into free agency before he found a contract when Vancouver signed him to a one-year, $975K contract, cutting his pay from the year before by more than half in the process. It looked like a relatively shrewd pickup for a Canucks franchise that didn’t have much salary cap flexibility but wanted to add more offensive depth.
But things didn’t go as planned. Sprong has been healthy scratched three times already this season and when he has played, he hasn’t been able to produce at the same level, tallying just one goal and two assists in nine games while averaging 11:39 per night. Clearly, Vancouver had seen enough and decided the time was right to move on.
The Canucks are expected to welcome Dakota Joshua back to the lineup soon and it appears that this move will open up the roster spot to do so. In the meantime, they’ve upped their cap space to over $1.9MM per PuckPedia, giving them much more in-season flexibility than they’ve had in recent years. As for Seattle, they’re presently in LTIR and this move will push them a little deeper into it. However, they’re still close enough to the $88MM cap that it shouldn’t be too difficult to get back under that amount when Vince Dunn is able to return.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report the trade.
Kings’ Tanner Jeannot Receives Three Game Suspension
5:43 PM: The Department of Player Safety announced Jeannot has been suspended three games for the hit on Boeser last night.
10:30 AM: The NHL Department of Player Safety announced today that Kings winger Tanner Jeannot will have a hearing today for an illegal check to the head against Canucks star Brock Boeser. It’s not an in-person hearing, so his pending suspension will be five games or less.
The incident occurred midway through the first period of last night’s 4-2 road win for Vancouver. Immediately after Boeser completed a neutral-zone pass, Jeannot attempted to lay an open-ice hit on Boeser while crossing the other direction. He led with his shoulder, making contact with Boeser’s head and knocking him out of the game (video via Lachlan Irvine of Canucks Army). Officials assessed Jeannot a match penalty on the play, initiating an automatic league review for supplemental discipline.
Vancouver has yet to give Boeser an injury designation, so he remains uncertain for tomorrow’s game against the Oilers. Hearings that do not result in suspensions are rare, so the Kings are undoubtedly preparing to be without Jeannot tomorrow against the Blue Jackets and potentially for a couple of more games afterward. The heavy-hitting power forward has never been suspended in his 242-game NHL career, but he has been fined once before for kneeing Senators captain Brady Tkachuk in March 2022.
The 15 PIMs assessed to Jeannot last night gave him 36 on the season, the most in the league. Through his first 15 games as a King, the 27-year-old has struggled to produce offensively, with just a goal and an assist while averaging 10:28 per game. So far, it’s not the resurgence L.A. hoped for when they parted ways with a pair of draft picks to acquire him from the Lightning in June. He hasn’t been a legitimate top-nine player offensively since his rookie season when he potted 24 goals and 41 points in 81 games for the Predators in 2021-22.
Three years later, it’s become clear that his play that season was more of a flash in the pan than anything else. In 146 games since for the Preds, Bolts and Kings, he has just 14 goals and 34 points with a -18 rating. Upon completing the two-year, $5.33MM deal he signed with Tampa Bay in 2023, he’ll be an unrestricted free agent next summer.
Canucks Notes: Demko, Forbort, Joshua
The Canucks have waited a long time to see Thatcher Demko return to practice since exiting their first-round series against the Predators last season with a mysterious knee injury, and it finally came to pass yesterday, the team relayed. Vancouver has received expert goaltending from late-summer pickup Kevin Lankinen in the meantime (.923 SV%, 2.09 GAA), but getting last year’s Vezina Trophy runner-up back in the fold is still top of mind.
It’s the most demonstrable step toward a return that Demko has taken in months, although his return to practice has been on the horizon for the past week. He began working off-ice with goalie coach Marko Torenius last Friday and had an appointment to earn his medical clearance to practice earlier this week.
Demko told reporters during training camp that the specific injury was to the popliteus muscle in one of his knees. This small muscle in the back of the leg plays a key role in stabilizing the knee and allowing it to flex. Instances of popliteal injury in professional sports are rare, even more so in hockey, leading to much uncertainty around his return timeline over the past few months.
Demko, who will be 29 next month, had a career-best 35 wins, .918 SV%, 2.45 GAA, five shutouts, and 21.2 GSAA last season. In addition to finishing second in Vezina Trophy voting, he was selected to the 2024 NHL All-Star Game and was a Second-Team All-Star.
There’s more on the Canucks:
- Injury news isn’t as positive regarding defenseman Derek Forbort, who could be sidelined for over a month with the knee injury he sustained in practice Monday, reports Irfaan Gaffar of Daily Faceoff. Forbort missed Tuesday’s win over the Ducks with the injury and missed most of October due to personal reasons, limiting him to just one appearance since Oct. 15. Since signing a one-year, $1.5MM contract in Vancouver in free agency, he has one assist and a -2 rating in four appearances while averaging 16:30 per game. The physical left-shot defender has registered just one hit and has controlled 51.8% of shot attempts and 33.3% of expected goals at even strength.
- Dakota Joshua is still close to returning after undergoing surgery to remove testicular cancer over the offseason but won’t do so today versus the Kings, head coach Rick Tocchet told Sportsnet’s Iain MacIntyre. Tocchet said his absence from yesterday’s practice and unavailability today isn’t indicative of a setback but instead of the team’s cautious approach to his recovery. Joshua has missed all 11 Canucks games this season after signing a four-year, $13MM extension to stay in Vancouver a few days before the start of free agency.
Dakota Joshua Could Return Thursday For Vancouver
In an interesting decision for San Jose Sharks head coach, Ryan Warsofsky, defenseman Jake Walman will be a healthy scratch in the team’s game tonight against the Columbus Blue Jackets (X Link). Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now theorized that it could be linked to an apparent injury Walman suffered in the team’s most recent loss to the Vancouver Canucks.
- The Canucks organization may be getting a major boost this week with Harman Dayal of The Athletic reporting forward Dakota Joshua is a legitimate possibility to suit up on Thursday. Joshua hasn’t played for Vancouver since May 20th earlier this year as he continues to recover from testicular cancer. Despite the delayed start to the year, Vancouver re-upped with Joshua this summer to a four-year, $13MM contract as he’s expected to be a big factor in the team’s success over the next half-decade.
Canucks Reassign Arshdeep Bains, Recall Aatu Räty
The Canucks have reassigned left-winger Arshdeep Bains to AHL Abbotsford and recalled center Aatu Räty, general manager Patrik Allvin announced today. Räty will play against the Ducks tonight after spending the last few weeks in the minors. At the same time, Vancouver still has an open roster spot to activate Dakota Joshua from injured reserve as he nears a return to play after undergoing surgery to address testicular cancer in September.
Bains, 23, has been papered between leagues with frequency this season. Less than a month into the 2024-25 campaign, he’s now been recalled and assigned to Abbotsford on four occasions. Between those transactions, he’s been on the roster for every Canucks game aside from their season opener against the Flames. He’s played seven times and been a healthy scratch twice, recording his first NHL point – a goal against the Penguins on Oct. 26 – in the process. However, the hometown kid hasn’t produced any offense outside of that and has a -3 rating with only five shots on goal, averaging 11:40 per game.
An undrafted free agent signing from the Western Hockey League’s Red Deer Rebels in 2022, Bains has been quite productive in the minors in his young professional career, even if it hasn’t translated to the NHL yet. He’s yet to suit up for Abbotsford this season between brief demotions but was among their best players last season, scoring 16 goals and 39 assists for 55 points in 59 games and earning a spot on the Pacific Division’s roster for the AHL All-Star Game. But including an eight-game trial last season, he has just one goal on nine shots through 15 NHL appearances. His possession impacts have been quite negative, too. The Canucks control only 46.2% of shot attempts with Bains on the ice at even strength compared to 54.9% without him, a significant swing.
He’s also a winger, and with Pius Suter moving from center to second-line wing alongside Elias Pettersson and Conor Garland (per Harman Dayal of The Athletic), the Canucks needed a pivot to anchor the fourth line. Up comes Räty to fill the void. Acquired from the Islanders in 2023’s Bo Horvat trade, the soon-to-be 22-year-old cracked Vancouver’s opening night roster but was demoted to Abbotsford after three games. He recorded an assist and averaged 9:41 per game during his brief stint on the Canucks’ roster earlier this season, going 14-for-23 on faceoffs and controlling 53.6% of shot attempts at even strength. Whether Räty is a higher-upside option offensively than Bains right now remains to be seen, but he has shown in a small sample to be a far more influential player in other areas of the game.
The 6’2″ pivot has been quite good for Abbotsford since being sent down last month. In eight appearances, he leads the team in scoring with seven points (3 G, 4 A). He’s in the final season of his entry-level contract and will be a restricted free agent next summer.
Thatcher Demko Progressing Well Through Injury Recovery
McDavid hasn’t played since Edmonton’s blowout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on October 28th. The Oilers have done as well as possible in his absence securing wins against the Nashville Predators and Calgary Flames but have two difficult games this week against the New Jersey Devils and Vegas Golden Knights. Should McDavid return this weekend in the Oilers’ contest against the Vancouver Canucks he will have only missed a total of four contests.
- Another Pacific Division team with positive news on the injury front is the Canucks. The Athletic’s Rick Dhaliwal reported earlier that goaltender Thatcher Demko is on the last step before being medically cleared to practice although his timeline is still up in the air. Vancouver could certainly use a reinforcement in the crease. Free agency pickup Kevin Lankinen has held down the fort with a .919 save percentage through seven starts but backup netminder Arturs Silovs has struggled to a .797 SV% mark in three.
Canucks’ Nils Aman Clears Waivers, Assigned To AHL
11/3: Aman has cleared waivers and been assigned to the AHL, per a team release.
11/2: With Dakota Joshua nearing a return to the lineup, the Canucks need to open up a roster spot for him. It appears that Nils Aman will be the one losing his spot as the team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve placed him on waivers for the purpose of assigning him to AHL Abbotsford.
The 24-year-old has taken an interesting route to the NHL. Originally drafted in the sixth round by Colorado in 2020, Aman didn’t sign with them and then signed with Vancouver two years later. After a short stint in the minors to start 2022-23, he was up with the big club the rest of the way, getting into 68 games. Aman also spent time in the AHL last season, collecting 15 points in as many games while also getting into 43 NHL contests, tallying four goals and three assists while his waiver exemption expired.
He signed a two-year, $1.65MM extension in late November, ensuring that he’d remain a low-cost option for Vancouver for a little while longer. However, Aman has only played in four of their first nine games this season, although he does have a pair of assists but it evidently wasn’t enough to keep his roster spot secure.
As far as waiver placements go, this is one of the more intriguing ones. Aman already has 115 career NHL games (and 25 points) under his belt and with a cap hit only $50K above the league minimum, he’s a player most teams could afford if they’re looking to either add a depth piece or shake up the back end of their forward group so he’s far from a guarantee to clear.
Interestingly, this isn’t a move that Vancouver necessarily had to make. They’ve been sending two players back and forth from Abbotsford in recent days with one of them being winger Arshdeep Bains. The Canucks could have simply elected to send Bains down when Joshua returns to create the roster spot. Instead, it appears Bains will have a bit more of an opportunity to try to secure a full-time spot in the lineup.