Canucks training camp preview: New players, new management, new energy

VANCOUVER — Three training camps, three coaches.

The Vancouver Canucks’ upheaval over the last two years is reflected by the staggering volume of changes among staff and players. But the greatest change of all was the dramatic veer last winter into a rebuild after a team that started the National Hockey League season with plans to return to the Stanley Cup playoffs instead plummeted to the bottom of the standings and finished last overall for the first time in franchise history.

Rookie head coach Manny Malhotra, with a staff almost entirely new, is now in charge of training camp that opens Thursday morning in Penticton, B.C. A year ago, Adam Foote was head coach.

Twelve months before that, it was Rick Tocchet.

Tocchet was successful. Foote was not.

But assessing success for Malhotra will be more nuanced than wins and losses because he’s not just trying to install systems, he’s at the sharp point of the Canucks’ biggest rebuild since they held their inaugural NHL training camp in 1970.

Run by new general manager Ryan Johnson and co-presidents Henrik and Daniel Sedin, and backed by what seems like almost universal support for the rebuild in their frantic fan base, the Canucks are essentially breaking ground at the start of a years-long megaproject.

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Aligned from top to bottom, the organization is brimming with new energy and new ideas. And it will continue to add new players.

Salary cap space: $16,964,167

Head coach: Manny Malhotra

Assistant coaches: Ryan Mougenel, Jordan Smith, Jason Krog, Marko Torenius

Key additions: RW Brendan Gallagher, C/LW Paul Cotter, D Jamie Oleksiak, D Luke Schenn

Key subtractions: LW Nils Hoglander, LW Evander Kane, C Teddy Blueger, D Marcus Pettersson, D Derek Forbort, D Pierre-Olivier Joseph, C/W Curtis Douglas

1. How do you spell structure?

With a D. Just as when Tocchet took over from Bruce Boudreau in 2022, Malhotra’s biggest coaching task is restoring defensive structure and on-ice cohesiveness to the Canucks after Foote’s one-and-done season in charge.

Foote tried to make the Canucks faster and more potent by emphasizing transition and giving defencemen a permanent green light to go forward. The idea was fine, the application a disaster.

Not only is Foote gone, but so is most of his staff. There is going to be a lot of teaching during the pre-season.

2. Who will be the pick of the kiddie litter?

The rebuild brings opportunities for younger players that simply didn’t exist until the start of last season, when the team was only 17 months removed from a 109-point campaign and 13-game playoff run under Tocchet. The coach and most of the players who drove that success are now gone.

Last season’s trade of Quinn Hughes brought three new faces to the Canucks — and a fourth, Adam Novotny, also looks capable of becoming an impactful NHL player. There are lots of other new faces and several prospects pushing to win or solidify jobs in the next two weeks.

But while many are called, few are chosen.

The makeup of the blue line seems mostly determined, although Victor Mancini will be trying to dislodge Elias Pettersson ("Junior") from the top six and will himself be under pressure from defencemen such as Kirill Kudryavtsev pushing up from the minors.

The race for spots at the bottom of the forwards group is more wide open. Four years since his draft, 22-year-old first-rounder Jonathan Lekkerimaki, who has struggled for health and consistency, faces a critical camp.

Centres Ty Mueller (from the AHL) and Braeden Cootes (from the WHL) will be given the opportunity to win jobs. And while No. 1 prospect Caleb Malhotra is spending this season at Boston University, Novotny, the skilled and powerful winger who was the Canucks’ other first-round pick in June, was exceptional at both development camp and last weekend’s prospects showcase games against Seattle.

3. Is Thatcher Demko healthy and ready?

The single biggest wild card for the Canucks individually is their often-injured goalie, Demko, who underwent season-ending surgery on both hips last February and has been working his way back to health since. Two different managers and Demko himself, at the end of the Canucks’ season in April, have offered encouraging but general updates about his recovery, and the former Vezina Trophy runner-up’s plan is to be ready for Game 1.

Seeing will be believing.

Demko is a game-changer, both for the impact his elite form can have on Canuck results and ability if he so chooses to step into a leadership role, but also what a potential trade might bring for the rebuild during the veteran goalie’s three-year contract. And while we’re talking possible game-changers, what of Elias Pettersson?

4. Is Zeev Buium ready for the spotlight?

Ready of not, Buium will be paid $75 million over the next eight seasons (starting in 2027) to replace Hughes as their franchise defenceman. That is a lot to ask of a 20-year-old who has played only 76 games in the NHL and produced just 26 points.

There is no doubt that Buium has the skills and disposition to become a top-pairing, puck-moving blue-liner. But even GM Johnson has said the San Diegan still needs years of development to become the player the Canucks want him to be.

Still, it would be nice for everyone involved if Buium follows this month’s stunning contract announcement with a superior camp and pre-season.

The Canucks will be better than people think at the start.

Could they really be that 58-point team that won only nine home games last season? Maybe.

But the health of Demko and happiness of the original Pettersson are factors that could significantly boost a group that still includes some pretty good players in Filip Hronek, Marco Rossi, Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk and Drew O’Connor, as well as talented and promising prospects Buium, Liam Ohgren, Tom Willander and Braeden Cootes.

More than that, there is a palpable energy coursing through the organization, from management to players, about the rebuild and massive changes that have occurred since last winter. Further stoke these good vibes with better defensive structure and player understanding on the ice, and it’s quite possible the young and exuberant Canucks will win a bunch of games in the early weeks of the season before the NHL heavyweight get going.

But no matter how the fall unfolds, there is no chance the people in charge will be seduced into making shortcuts in their careful plan for a full, multi-year rebuild.

Paul Cotter — Filip Chytil — Drew O’Connor

Braeden Cootes, Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Victor Mancini