Is the Canucks’ 2025-26 lineup actually already set?

Article content

The Vancouver Canucks may be in danger of overpromising and underdelivering.

Article content

After strong talk heading into the 2025 off-season that they were going to find themselves another centre to add to the mix, the kind of forward who could be the team’s second-line centre, are we looking at a reality where what we see now is what we will get in seven weeks’ time, when the 2025-26 NHL season begins?

Article content

Article content

It’s seeming more and more likely, given what NHL sources are saying and what we can see with our own eyes: making trades is proving very, very hard. And of the players remaining in free agency, there’s little appetite from the Canucks’ brass to sign anyone, including Jack Roslovic. Roslovic, who had a solid season with Carolina but who remains unsigned by anyone, is understood by Postmedia to not be on the Canucks’ radar, something that was also reported earlier this week by the Athletic.

Article content

Article content

Canucks management spoke bravely after the 2024-25 season about what they knew they needed to find this summer: they knew they needed to shore up their forward lines.

“It’ll be expensive, but it will also be very expensive not to get one,” president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford declared at the team’s season-closing press conference in April. “Whatever it takes,” he vowed.

But those efforts have proven fruitless so far. Indeed, the Canucks’ acquisition list is rather paltry at the moment, with only the additions of Evander Kane and P-O Joseph to note. (And, yes, the return of Brock Boeser, but until the eve of free agency the intention was clearly to add someone to replace Boeser.)

And so we look at a team that on paper isn’t much different from the one that stumbled to the finish line last spring.

Article content

The defence corps is certainly more solid than it was a year ago. The addition of Marcus Pettersson is a large part of this shoring-up, but so is the emergence of Elias Junior Pettersson.

That is important, as is the recovery of Thatcher Demko’s game.

But the fact remains that as currently constructed, the Canucks’ forward group is going to lean heavily on two less-than-proven commodities in Filip Chytil and Aatu Raty.

Both young centres have strong backstories, but now need to deliver full-time at the NHL level.

Chytil, for a start, showed very well after joining the Canucks in the J.T. Miller trade. He’s a strong puck carrier and a fantastic skater. He brings a speed element the Canucks didn’t have before. But you, reader, know well his concussion history. He had a bad one in New York and then suffered one last spring, though the team said they came to believe his longer-term absence was more about whiplash than concussion.

Article content

Either way, he’s a big question mark for durability. Obviously you hope he can be healthy enough to be an every-night player, but hope, as so many have noted before, is not a plan. And you can understand why the Canucks themselves were looking for an alternative: leave no doubt, by declaring their desire to find a second-line centre, the Canucks were making it clear that while they liked Chytil potential, they wanted someone better.

At the time, we pondered names like Matt Barzal, Jared McCann, Marco Rossi and Pavel Zacha. More recently it’s been about Mason McTavish, and, yes, Roslovic.

But Roslovic is not of interest to the Canucks. McTavish, of course, is, but he’s on just about everyone’s radar.

And behind all this sits Raty, who did finish the season well and had a strong season in the AHL. He seems likely to be pencilled in as the team’s third-line centre. At least to start.

Obviously, something could yet change. Another team could suddenly need a young player that the Canucks have been willing to part with and in exchange have the kind of centre that the Canucks are after — but that also seems like asking for a miracle.

You’re probably best not holding your breath.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

Article content