Slowly but surely, the Vancouver Canucks are regaining more and more of their injured players. Quinn Hughes and Conor Garland rejoined the team last week, while Teddy Blueger, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and Victor Mancini all joined the team for a skate on Saturday — albeit in non-contact jerseys.
On the other hand, heading down Highway 1, the injury situation couldn’t come at a worse time for the Abbotsford Canucks. Not only are they missing a multitude of players due to call-ups to Vancouver, they’re also playing without many of their key players due to injuries.
Here’s how the injury situation is shaking out in Abbotsford.
As of their Saturday night matchup against former AHL Canuck Tristen Nielsen and the Colorado Eagles, Abbotsford has seven players missing from their lineup due to injuries — three of whom are forwards. Center Cooper Walker dressed for the team’s season-opener against the Henderson Silver Knights on October 10, but has yet to return to the lineup and has been listed as injured. As well, Chase Stillman has been out since the end of October, while Jujhar Khaira missed this weekend’s back-to-back.
On defence, Abbotsford is still without Jett Woo (upper-body) and Guillaume Brisebois (lower-body), who have yet to dress for the team this season. Both defencemen were ruled out for a chunk of time during the Canucks’ training camp and are expected to remain out for a little while longer. Victor Mancini (upper-body) also remains out due to injury, though the defenceman is currently with Vancouver.
The Canucks’ organizational goaltending issues have been one of the leading conversation points this weekend with Thatcher Demko missing time for maintenance, resulting in Jiří Patera receiving the call-up to Vancouver on Friday under emergency conditions. Injury issues in Abbotsford only made this worse, however, as starter Nikita Tolopilo has been absent since exiting the team’s banner-raising game due to injury. The same night as Patera’s call-up, Ty Young exited Abbotsford’s match with an ailment, resulting in the team calling up both Aku Koskenvuo and Jonathan Lemieux from the Kalamazoo Wings of the ECHL.
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