Prospect System Ranking – 22nd (Previous Rank - 16th)
GM: Patrik Allvin Hired: January 2022
COACH: Rick Tocchet Hired: January 2023
Everything seemed to fall into place for the Vancouver Canucks in 2023-24, with success resonating throughout the organization. Several players hit career highs, Rick Tocchet earned the Jack Adams Award for Coach of the Year, and Patrik Allvin was a finalist for GM of the Year.
Most importantly for the future and a prospect system dwindled by years of poor asset management, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, our 19th-ranked prospect at McKeen’s, had a breakout season overseas. He collected an impressive list of accolades, including team MVP, Rookie of the Year, and World Juniors MVP, all while leading all U23 skaters in points (31) in the SHL. Now officially in North America, Lekkerimäki is likely to spend some time in Abbotsford, but isn’t far off from earning minutes in Vancouver.
Lekkerimäki will join a group of prospects on the cusp of NHL duty, including Aatu Räty (ranked 79th), Arshdeep Bains (ranked 208th), Linus Karlsson (ranked 293rd), and Elias Pettersson (no, not that one), who is set to embark on his first full season in North America.
Tom Willander, who comes in as our 46th-ranked prospect, will spend at least one more season at Boston University but is another intriguing youngster capable of carving out a top four role in the next few years. With Montreal’s Lane Hutson no longer in the picture at BU, the blueline is there for Willander to command in 2024-25.
The biggest jump of 2024-25 will likely come between the pipes. With both Vancouver’s regular netminders–Thatcher Demko and Casey DeSmith–suffering playoff injuries, Arturs Silovs (202nd) was thrust into the crease, despite having just five regular season starts to his name. He played exceptionally well, helping the Canucks come within one goal of reaching the Western Conference Finals. His performance earned him a two-year extension and a shot at becoming the team’s permanent backup.
The system is still a work in progress, and with no picks in the first or second rounds of the 2024 NHL Draft, there is still much ground to cover. However, it’s a step in the right direction under a new regime that appears to know what it’s doing.
Vancouver Canucks Top-15 Prospects
1. Jonathan Lekkerimaki
Lekkerimaki really started to heat up during the 2023 HockeyAllsvenskan playoffs, and once that began happening you could see that a switch had flipped for him. He hasn’t slowed down at all since then, and has firmly re-established himself as one of the most dynamic and dangerous prospects in the sport. It’s not often that a teenager leads an SHL team in both goals and points, but the young Canucks sharpshooter did that this season for Orebro, which just goes to show how good he truly was. He’s a high-end goal-scorer both with his one-timer, which he can let rip with expert power and precision, as well as his ability to burst past opposing defenders with speed before then deking the goalie out of his pads. The highlight-reel that he will accumulate by the end of his career will be quite a long one.
2. Tom Willander
Willander was a late riser up everyone's 2023 draft boards, and his seamless transition to living in North America and playing hockey in the NCAA are great indicators that he will be able to adapt to the NHL one day and make an impact there as well. He is already a dominant two-way player with Boston University, using his powerful and flawless skating ability to tilt the ice whenever he's out there. The value he brings is less about the sheer number of points he produces, and more so the ability to control the flow of the game around him and dictate its outcomes. It's very easy to project him as someone who will be able to play in a Top 4 role in the NHL and match up well against the most dangerous forwards the league has to offer.
3. Aatu Raty
Raty spent the entirety of his 2023-24 campaign with Abbotsford, and while he might be personally disappointed that he didn’t get to play any games for Vancouver, the argument could be made that all that consistency was important to stabilize his development, because there was a lot of moving around and mixed results for him over the past few seasons. The results were encouraging, with better production rates and him taking on a bigger role within his team. Next season will likely be a similar story, considering the competition among forwards in the organization right now, but if he truly plays himself up the depth chart, he’ll get rewarded for it. A two-way center with size and skill, he could be a very impactful NHLer one day if he continues to stick to the plan and takes things as they come to him.
4. Arturs Silovs
Silovs has turned out to be a very valuable find for the Canucks as a 6th-round draft selection. He hasn’t exactly knocked anyone’s socks off since he was picked, but he’s certainly proven himself to be a good supporting goalie at the very least, with the possibility of him still becoming something more one day. He lets his large frame do most of his work while he’s between the pipes, while also doing a good job of keeping his head clear and not riding the highs and the lows of the game situations in front of him. His surprise success for Vancouver in last year’s playoffs, stepping up in relief of the injured Thatcher Demko, all but cemented his right to play full-time in the NHL in 2024-25, which will be his biggest and most important challenge yet. What he does next could change the entire trajectory of his career.
5. Arshdeep Bains
What an incredible story Bains continues to write for himself. In the span of a few short years, he's gone from being an undrafted longshot, to earning a contract with his favourite childhood hockey team, to establishing himself as one of their very best prospects. His success also extends well outside of the Canucks organization, providing valuable representation for the Canadian Sikh community's growing love of the sport. He thinks the game at a very high level, which has been the primary source of his ability to keep making repeated gains in a multitude of areas and consistently year over year. It’s fair to say that he’s exceeded everyone’s expectations thus far into his career. A track record like his, along with how well-rounded his game already is, signals that he won't be confined to just a single NHL pathway and could earn different roles within a roster.
6. Linus Karlsson
Karlsson has quietly emerged within the Canucks system as quite a steady point producer. That was true of his time in the Swedish professional ranks and has carried over nicely to North America. He’s a little on the older side for a prospect, at 24 years of age now, but him leading Abbotsford in scoring at a point-per-game clip should not be undervalued. He’s a real jack-of-all-trades type of center, and that will either end up being a blessing or a curse for him as he tries to make Vancouver full-time, because he’ll be at the whim of the team’s roster construction and whether they need another guy like him, versus someone who fills a more specialized role. The good news is that there should be a small number of forward spots open next fall for someone promoted internally.
7. Kirill Kudryavtsev
The Greyhounds pulled off a major turnaround this past season compared to the last one, and Kudryavtsev played an essential role in how they did it as one of their most trusted defensemen. His game didn’t necessarily get an overhaul from one year to the next, but he fine-tuned his play, increasing both the efficiency and effectiveness of how he plays. Sometimes it’s about perfecting what you have, not looking for something else. He’s a mobile two-way defender who plays a heads-up brand of hockey and displays a lot of comfort when the puck is on his stick. Will he ever be a go-to powerplay specialist or penalty killer for the Canucks? Probably not. But he could still bring value to the team through an ability to reliably pick up retrievals, evade forecheck pressure, and turn the puck back up the ice quickly and accurately.
8. Elias Pettersson
All jokes aside about the Canucks having two players in the organization with the exact same name, this Elias Pettersson is a very solid young defenseman in his own right and is on a promising course to make it to the NHL one day. He’s very well equipped as a modern-day shutdown defenseman, with a good blend of reach, mobility, and poise with the puck. He also understands how to play physically and land big hits without getting himself into penalty trouble, though he will have to get his hands dirty a little more often once he starts playing in North America full-time. Him being a part of Abbotsford’s AHL playoff run this spring is a good introduction to that. Adding a more of an offensive element to his game would be nice as well, but it won’t be a necessity for him.
9. Sawyer Mynio
It's amazing what being surrounded by elite talent can do for a player, especially when they are good learners and know how to make the most out of the opportunity. Mynio is a textbook example of what that looks like. The spotlight rarely shone on him last year as a member of the WHL-champion Seattle Thunderbirds, with it understandably getting hogged instead by the team's surplus of stars, but Mynio was out there every game too, grinding and growing. The results of that work have been incredible to see, as he managed to improve every facet of his game, while also becoming the new face of the organization and one of its leaders on and off the ice as they look to usher in a new era. That kind of experience is hard to find and even harder to replicate.
10. Jett Woo
The hype about Woo has cooled off significantly since he was picked 37th overall in the 2018 NHL entry draft, and for a while it looked like it was going to freeze completely, but give him credit: he’s dug in, battled hard, and has made himself look like a legitimate NHL prospect again. He’s a stocky, physical blueliner who developed a reputation for delivering sturdy hits, and after a bit of a warming-up period in the AHL has started to look more like his old self. The offensive side of his game has fluctuated a lot from year to year, but this season was his best one yet as a pro, and he led all defensemen on his team in scoring. It looks like there won’t be any room for him on the big club at first, but if injuries occur on the blueline Woo could be first in line to get a look.
11. Max Sasson
Just how far has Sasson come in his development? To put it into perspective, in 2017 he was selected in the 19th round in the USHL draft. Three years later he was an assistant captain in the league. Three years after that he was scoring at a point-per-game pace in the NCAA. Now he's thriving in the AHL. Even if he never becomes more than a high-character glue guy, someone like that often finds a way to take their careers farther than others.
12. Cole McWard
It must have stung a little for McWard to play all but one game in the AHL last season, after going straight from the NCAA to the moribund Canucks at the end of 2022-23 and even scoring his first NHL goal. The organization might have hoped that he’d grab the bull by the horns down in Abbotsford and then force his way back up, but it hasn’t happened yet. Any look he gets now will need to be earned, not given.
13. Melvin Fernström
No player picked in the 2024 NHL draft had a stronger disconnect between their stats and their on-ice performance than Fernström. How he scored so much last year still remains something of a mystery, but a large part of it is his uncanny anticipation, knowing how to be in the right place at the right time. It will be fascinating to see if that continues to work for him, since he doesn’t drive much play off his own stick.
14. Anthony Romani
It’s a downright travesty that Romani had to miss almost all of North Bay’s big playoff run due to injury, because he was having one of the best Cinderella seasons in recent league history. Nobody expected him to more than double his goal and point totals from the prior year and challenge for the league scoring title. Was it all just a flash in the pan? Nobody knows for sure yet, but the Canucks picked Romani on the off chance that it wasn’t.
15. Josh Bloom
The jump from junior hockey to professional hockey isn’t always easy, and Bloom experienced that the hard way last season, struggling in both the AHL and the ECHL before going back to Saginaw as an overage player. On the bright side, he did get to win a Memorial Cup with the Spirit, so it’s not all bad. Prior flashes of offensive upside haven’t fully materialized, so focusing on his checking work might be a necessary shift.