VANCOUVER — Unless their teams are especially young or especially bad or both, National Hockey League coaches rarely get to simply pick the 23 players they’d like to start a season.
Salary-cap space is too scarce, assets — players — too valuable to squander. Salaries, waiver status and injuries are always factors in opening-night roster construction.
In a perfect world, and with the imperfect list of injuries on the Vancouver Canucks, head coach Rick Tocchet would probably love to have all three of Nils Aman, Arshdeep Bains and Aatu Raty available for his Game 1 lineup on Wednesday.
Why wouldn’t he?
Aman, 24, is a speedy, penalty-killing centre with smarts and the wingspan of a 747, and in whom the Canucks have already invested two years of development time — much of it at the NHL level.
Bains, 23, was the organization’s best minor-league player last season and is building out a complete game from a foundation of offence that allowed the winger from Metro Vancouver to lead the Western Hockey League in scoring in 2021-22.
And Raty, 21, one of the Canucks’ most-prized prospects, has merely been the top good-news story of Vancouver’s pre-season, forcing Tocchet to consider the robust centre for the opener against the Calgary Flames next week.
With injuries, these three players are all among the best 23 healthy Canucks.
But unless Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin and president Jim Rutherford waiver in their sensible determination to avoid Long-Term Injured Reserve in setting their initial roster, the team may only be able to carry 21 players for opening night — and the one extra skater almost certainly would be an experienced depth defenceman.
So, instead of three young forwards, Tocchet may get only one to start the season. Or two.
Aman requires waivers to be sent to the American Hockey League. Raty and Bains do not. Maybe that’s the first tie-breaker. But it has been a fascinating “competition” all along, reaching its peak Friday night when Tocchet dressed all three candidates for the Canucks’ final pre-season game against the Edmonton Oilers.
Vancouver won 4-1. Bains finished a pretty passing play for a power-play goal and assisted on another at even strength. Under pressure, Aman had his best game of the pre-season, helping set up Quinn Hughes’ first-period goal after nearly scoring himself, and contributed 1:26 of unblemished penalty-killing time against what will again be a formidable Oilers power play. Raty lost coverage on Evan Bouchard’s four-on-four goal for Edmonton, but the Canuck’s quietest night of the pre-season doesn’t negate all the good things he has done since dominating at the Penticton prospects tournament three weeks ago.
These three players have been pushing each other.
“I’ve lived it even as a player,” Tocchet said post-game. “They’re your teammates and you always want to do great with your teammates. But you’re pushing yourself because you want to be ‘that’ guy. All three guys were pushing each other.
“Bainsy coming up with that big goal for us, I mean, he can do those sorts of things. We can’t overlook that stuff. We’ll clean up the game-management part, but he’s got that knack (to score). And Ams is obviously a really good penalty killer. And Rats, you know, we’ll work with him and whether he sticks or not, we’ll see. But I think he’s a guy that we’re looking for — that centre that’s got a stiffness to him (and) can win draws.”
Teams set their opening-night rosters on Monday.
“This is why this is the best league in the world,” Aman said. “You always have to be better and better every day. And you always have competition in your own team. That’s why we are a good team; we have a lot of depth and a lot of good players. So I’m just trying to play hard and be better every day.”
DRESS REHEARSAL
Conor Garland was an unexpected lineup scratch after “tweaking” something during Friday morning’s skate, but Tocchet said the playmaking winger could have played against the Oilers and should be fine to start the season.
Injuries aside, it was an NHL-looking lineup the Canucks rolled out against an equally top-flight Oilers lineup.
Most of what we saw Friday night will still be in place when Vancouver opens its regular season.
Forward Lines
Danton Heinen-J.T. Miller-Brock Boeser
Jake DeBrusk-Elias Pettersson-Daniel Sprong
Nils Hoglander-Aatu Raty-Kiefer Sherwood
Nils Aman-Teddy Blueger-Arshdeep Bains
Defence Pairings
Quinn Hughes-Filip Hronek
Carson Soucy-Tyler Myers
Derek Forbort-Vincent Desharnais
Goalies
Kevin Lankinen
SILOVS YOU, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH
The giant pre-camp storyline about starting goalie Thatcher Demko’s ongoing and indefinite absence due to a knee injury had the potential of putting the Canucks’ crease in crisis.
But from the camp scrimmage and through three pre-season games, backup Arturs Silovs looked sharp and capable of filling in for Demko. And the signing two weeks ago of free agent veteran goalie Kevin Lankinen, who looked good in both of his pre-season starts, has also been comforting to the Canucks.
“You go in from last year, his playoff. . . we know him,” Tocchet said of Silovs. “So my comfort level going into training camp, I knew he was a good goalie, so I wasn’t panicking about that. Obviously, Demmer going down for a bit, getting Lankinen was huge by (management). That’s a hell of a move to get him. So now you feel really good about the two goalies until Demmer comes back.”
Silovs stopped 28 of 29 Oiler shots on Friday and again showed off his explosive lateral movement in making a handful of tough stops.
RUST AWAY
The final game of the Canucks’ pre-season was the first exhibition game for top centre J.T. Miller and just the second (and first in nine days) for Vancouver captain Quinn Hughes. Each exhibited rust early on with flubbed passes in their own zone leading to turnovers in dangerous areas.
Hughes’ shot, however, was mid-season calibre as the Norris Trophy winner who scored 17 times last year — and told Sportsnet he thinks he should score more — blistered a slapper past Oiler goalie Stuart Skinner’s glove for Vancouver’s first goal at 10:11 of the opening period.
Third-line Canucks centre Teddy Blueger, whose training camp prep was delayed by undisclosed off-season surgery, also played his first pre-season game in the last chance to do so.
Indicative of how much things have changed in a generation, Tocchet recalled for reporters on Friday morning that he once played “nine or 10” pre-season games ahead of his fourth season for Mike Keenan and the Philadelphia Flyers.
Raty and fellow centre-prospect Max Sasson were the only Canucks to get in as many as five pre-season games over the last two weeks.
Practice time over the next four days is going to be critical, but both special teams looked good against the Oilers. The power play, which this season should include a legitimately-dangerous second unit, finished 1-for-3 and the penalty kill was 4-for-4.
