As the Vancouver Canucks get set for their first preseason game this evening in Victoria, let’s recap what transpired over the last three days of training camp.
Everyone knows that the Vancouver Canucks have difficult and gruelling training camps under head coach Travis Green. On Thursday at the introductory press conferences at Rogers Arena, both management and the players alike were talking about how difficult of a training camp it was going to be the next day.
Day 1
As expected, day one of training camp saw a lot of bag skating. For those that don’t know, a bag skate is when the players are instructed to skate from one end of the ice to the other, over and over. Coach Green likes to get a gauge for how his players’ conditioning is and if they are indeed well equipped to go through an 82 game season.
New players such as J.T. Miller and Micheal Ferland are informed by their new teammates how difficult Green’s camps are, as returning players all understand how much of a grind the camps can be. Fans went into panic mode when they saw a video of Jake Virtanen doubled over at the bench and getting water during a bag skate.
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Chris Faber of Canucks Army, the one who filmed the video, said that he believed Virtanen to be the only player who needed to stop during the bag skate. That’s not a good look for Jake, someone who’s conditioning has been called into question in the past. I spoke to Jake on Thursday before the team departed for Vancouver Island, and he told me that he felt great and was looking forward to trying to take that next step and break the 20 goal mark for the first time in his career.
The day finished off with Virtanen saying, “it’s not like I was that far off from that” when talking about the goals Green set out for him. This was a story that everybody was keeping their eyes on heading into day two of camp.
Day 2
Day two of camp saw the Virtanen story mostly be put to rest, and instead was replaced by potential line pairings. Quinn Hughes was paired with veteran defenceman Chris Tanev for the majority of drills and scrimmages, and the two could serve as an effective pair for the Canucks.
I’m sure Green will get a look at Hughes with Tyler Myers and Jordie Benn at some point, but he took a good look at Tanev and Hughes as a potential defence pairing this weekend. Hughes picked up where he left off from last season, and dazzled fans in attendance with his skating abilities and shiftiness.
Another story from day two was monitoring Olli Juolevi’s knee. Juolevi is coming off an injury, and he was labouring a bit after the first day of training camp. On day two, Juolevi appeared to be just fine, but stumbled a few times when skating backwards and trying to perform a crossover.
Juolevi was put in the third group for what coach Green called “load management”. The main stories of day two were much more positive in nature than the ones we saw from day one of camp.
Day 3
Day three brought the highlight tape out. The team took part in scrimmages and there were a few moments that should excite Canucks fans. From seeing Micheal Ferland push Nikolay Goldobin away from Elias Pettersson after Goldobin jokingly initiated with Pettersson after the whistle, to seeing Pettersson pull off yet another insane Peter Forsberg-like dangle in shootout, day three was fun to follow.
STOP IT, @_EPettersson! 😳
— NBC Sports Hockey (@NBCSportsHockey) September 15, 2019
🎥: @Canucks pic.twitter.com/uoa6U67rA7
I mean, come on. That’s just dirty. Day three did exactly what it should do for Canucks fans, and that’s to get them pumped up for the season ahead. You won’t have to wait much longer, folks, as the Canucks play their first two games of their preseason tonight. The majority of the players who will be in the lineup for the game in Victoria should be main roster players.