Vancouver Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin made a bevy of roster transactions following the team’s defeat at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday. And while fans of the Canucks have gotten pretty used to the ol’ Trans-Canada Highway Shuffle of prospects between Vancouver and Abbotsford by now, a couple of these moves didn’t quite fit the particular pattern that recalls and re-assignments have taken thus far in 2024/25, so we thought we’d take a minute to explain the purposes behind them.
First, let’s rewind to the entirety of the week’s transactions.
On Tuesday, November 5, the Canucks sent Arshdeep Bains down to Abbotsford and brought Aatu Räty up in his place. No special cap purposes here; the coaching staff was just more interested in having Räty slot in as a centre for Tuesday’s game against the Anaheim Ducks and Thursday’s game against the Los Angeles Kings. The Canucks rolled without an extra forward for those games so as to accrue more daily cap space (by having that extra forward in the AHL, instead).
A couple of days later, on Friday, November 8, the Canucks traded Daniel Sprong to the Seattle Kraken for future considerations. This left two open forward spots on the roster, and they were filled on Saturday, November 9, by the recalls of Bains and Nils Åman, who had previously been placed on and cleared waivers the week prior.
Now, Bains actually did not suit up for Saturday’s game against the Oilers. This was a bit strange, as having him up and in the pressbox does cost the Canucks a small amount of daily cap accrual. What this tells us, without the Canucks having announced it as such, is that Bains was probably recalled to provide coverage for a forward nursing an injury, who may have been a game-time decision. (Perhaps JT Miller? That’s just speculation on our part.)
In any case, with two days off between home games, both Åman and Bains were promptly sent back down to Abbotsford on Sunday morning. Goaltender Arturs Silovs joined them in that re-assignment.
A team cannot have an active roster without two healthy goalies, and so with Silovs down, goaltender Ty Young was leapfrogged up from Kalamazoo of the ECHL to spend a day on the NHL roster to take his place.
For those keeping track at home, our quick math says this one day in the NHL earned Young about $4,036 (his base NHL salary of $775,000 divided by a 192-day schedule), which is a big increase on his usual daily pay of about $390 ($75,000/192).
It was easy to figure out the purpose of this switcheroo. Silovs has only made four appearances this season, and they haven’t exactly gone well. He went down to Abbotsford to play and did, starting for the Abbotsford Canucks on Sunday against Bakersfield and making 27 saves for the 4-2 victory.
But recalled at the same time as Young was Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and that one’s a little harder to figure out.
The general reason is easy enough. Lekkerimäki is being recalled to fill in for Brock Boeser during the latter’s absence with an upper-body injury brought on by a Tanner Jeannot cheapshot. Indeed, Lekkerimäki went straight to Boeser’s spot on JT Miller’s right wing for Sunday’s practice sessions.
But with the Canucks not playing until Tuesday, there is a question of why Lekkerimäki’s recall wasn’t held off on until then. With the Canucks already having sent down Åman and Bains, they could have saved Lekkerimäki’s recall for later and banked a couple extra days worth of accrual by not having his contract on the books.
Roster size was not an issue. It’s true that Lekkerimäki is now just the 12th healthy forward on the Canucks’ active roster, what with Dakota Joshua still on the injured reserve (IR). But a team needs just 18 healthy skaters of any variety to constitute a legal roster. And so with the eight defenders on the roster right now (Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Carson Soucy, Tyler Myers, Vincent Desharnais, Derek Forbort [injured, but not yet placed on IR], Erik Brännström, and Noah Juulsen) and the 10 non-waiver-exempt forwards (Elias Pettersson, Miller, Boeser [not yet on IR, either], Jake DeBrusk, Conor Garland, Danton Heinen, Teddy Blueger, Pius Suter, Kiefer Sherwood, and Nils Höglander), the Canucks already have a legal roster – even if we all know a couple of those players aren’t actually game-ready.
As far as we can tell, the Canucks could have not just held off on recalling Lekkerimäki until Tuesday, they could have also sent Räty down to Abbotsford on Sunday alongside Åman, Bains, and Silovs, and in doing, so they could have accrued more cap space on both Sunday and Monday.
But they did not. Instead, they kept Räty up and recalled Lekkerimäki, which raises an obvious question of why. And the answer must be found on the ice, as in what happened on the ice on Sunday already. With apologies to Allen Iverson, we’re talking about practice.
With Lekkerimäki having been in Abbotsford since training camp, the impetus to get him as many reps as possible on Miller’s wing in practice before suiting up for his first NHL game is obvious enough. It’s true that he could have been recalled on Tuesday, but then he’d be going into Tuesday night’s game with just a game-day skate under his belt, and that’s not ideal. This way definitely gives Lekkerimäki a better shot at a successful debut.
Meanwhile, Räty is currently the team’s fourth-line centre. He’s played in that spot the last couple of games and practiced there again on Sunday. For him, being there for these two off days is as simple as his currently being seen as a genuine and somewhat fixed part of the team. He remains the team’s only right-handed faceoff option, and that’s proving more and more valuable as the season wears on. Having him on the ice at practice right now is a lot more integral than say, Bains, who would be skating as an extra in line rushes.
Combine those above factors with the fact that, with Boeser off the ice, Räty and Lekkerimäki were needed just to have four full forward lines to rotate through drills, and it’s clear that practice was the reason why the two of them spent Sunday and Monday in Vancouver instead of Abbotsford.
(And while we’re on the subject, let’s go ahead and predict that one of Bains or Åman will be recalled to join them ahead of Tuesday’s game for that aforementioned reason of potential injury coverage.)
It’s true that these choices cost the Canucks a few thousand in possible cap accrual. However, saving spending space for the Trade Deadline is only one factor to be considered in the management of a hockey team. Here, having those players available to work directly with the coaching staff and their NHL teammates was clearly more important than a couple of bucks.
