Both the Vancouver and Abbotsford Canucks have been dealt a bad injury hand. Does the teams' current records reflect on the players who were called up?
October was a bleak month for both the Vancouver and Abbotsford Canucks. Vancouver is currently missing eight players from their lineup, while Abbotsford is missing key players like Nikita Tolopilo, Jett Woo, and Guillaume Briseboid and have not won a game since Max Sasson was recalled. The downhill slide for each team can be looked at a couple of ways — as a reflection of the organization’s depth, an unfortunate circumstance caused by unlucky injuries, or a testament to the players that have moved back and forth throughout the season. Let’s examine things positively and look at the plus-side of Vancouver’s call-ups from this year.
By the time the 2025–26 pre-season came around, the Canucks had committed to their plans for the year — trust in their organizational depth rather than make a splash and acquire a big name. The departure of players like Pius Suter, Dakota Joshua, and J.T. Miller throughout the year meant that Vancouver would be looking to players like Calder Cup champions Arshdeep Bains, Linus Karlsson, and Sasson to fill the gaps in the lineup. When given the spots in the roster best suited for them near the start of the year, they flourished. But somewhere along the way, the Canucks lost eight different players due to injury and were forced to put players in roles that they probably weren’t ready for at the NHL level.
One of the bigger talking points at the start of the Canucks’ season was the play of the Sasson, Bains, and Karlsson line — known as the Abbotsford line, kid line, or even the Calder Cup line. These three were a force in the AHL playoffs last year and were reunited on October 16 against the Dallas Stars in Vancouver’s fourth game of the regular season. These three kicked things off with a bang, putting up a team-high 92.31% corsi-for and generating four 5-on-5 scoring chances in 6:06 5-on-5 minutes.
Vancouver only had two full games to see the skills of their players from Abbotsford before injuries took out three different players — Filip Chytil, Teddy Blueger, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki. These injuries are particularlty notable because of the impact their absence has on the players from Abbotsford. With Chytil and Blueger still out of the lineup, Vancouver’s center depth has been at its worst — so much so that the team needed to acquire Lukas Reichel to help fill the gaps. As a result, players such as Sasson and Aatu Räty have been tasked with bigger responsibilities, distracting from the things best suited for their roles.
The fact that the Calder Cup line has cooled since their first two games may make it seem like they’re not ready for full-time NHL roles, but realistically, even the best players on the team are being impacted by the injury slide. The injury impact has created a trickle-down effect — players who aren’t used to certain roles are being pushed into them at a much higher capacity than what’s most ideal for a developing player. In turn, the added focus on rounding out other parts of the game takes away from the parts of the game that these players have historically been better at.
Another player who has been tasked with extra responsibilities as a result of Vancouver’s injury issues is Tom Willander, who was slated to play in Abbotsford for the bulk of the season but ended up making his NHL debut on Tuesday. The defenceman has shown off his smooth skating and solid play at the NHL level, and while he will still need to work on other factors of the game, he has impressed in the limited amount of time he has spent with Vancouver. He’s played solidly enough to surpass defenceman Pierre-Olivier Joseph in minutes played throughout the past couple of games.
The short answer is that while injuries may not have given these players the benefit of the doubt, yes, Vancouver’s call-ups have played well when called upon. While some players flourish in their new roles — Sawyer Mynio has looked reliable on Abbotsford’s power play, for example — at the end of the day, it’s way too early to make final judgments, especially given the Canucks’ current injury circumstances. The players that the Canucks have brought up from Abbotsford have played solidly and will likely continue to do so if sent back down — there’s no mistaking that. But at the end of the day, the injury woes on both sides of the organization have been an overwhelming amount for the teams to deal with.
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