Canucks: Juolevi, Rathbone, others looking into hockey overseas

The Vancouver Canucks will need a handful of prospects to help fill out their roster for next season, but certain players might jump ship to play overseas.

With the long-lasting effects of COVID-19 still lingering over the NHL, the Vancouver Canucks have a few big-name prospects that are currently looking into playing next season overseas.

The American Hockey League was shutdown when COVID-19 struck and it appears there is no timeline for its return. With that in mind, many “on the bubble” players and prospects are curious as to what the different leagues overseas have to offer.

With a flat-cap situation and little money to spend on free agents this offseason, a few bigger-name players in the Canucks organization will be leaned on heavily to fill out the roster when the time comes. But for now, the 2020 Playoffs are still underway and a fresh new NHL season likely won’t get going until late December or January.

With no NHL hockey to be played for several months and no timetable on a return of the AHL, of course, hundreds of players are trying to see if joining up with another league would make sense for the benefit to further their development of skills.

The last time this happened was during the NHL lockout of 2012. Many big-name NHLers jumped ship and kept their skills razor sharp in various different leagues while waiting for hockey to resume in North America. At the time, Dale Weise was the only Canuck to actually do so.

Loans can be complicated and you don’t often see it going from west to east. Some leagues want term, not just week-to-week rentals. Take the SHL for example. According to The Province, Daniel and Henrik Sedin wanted to play hockey in Sweden under Modo GM Markus Naslund, but in order for that to happen the NHL had to lock out the entire season. As we know, that never happened and the twins never signed Swedish deals. The NHL and NHLPA came to terms and eventually resumed for 48 regular-season games.

But that’s where it gets complicated for certain Canucks prospects this year. According to Rick Dhaliwal of TSN, guys like Olli Juolevi, Jack Rathbone, and Kole Lind are considering the SHL as an option to keep playing hockey. And can you blame them? These guys are “on the bubble” players who, if they don’t make the jump to the NHL, might not see a competitive ice surface with no AHL season in view.

This will make for a very interesting offseason. Players want to play hockey, and if they can’t be guaranteed to do that here in Canada or the US, they have every right to try and do what they love elsewhere. Players have trained and worked too hard for them to take a step back from hockey and see their skills diminish.

The Canucks will want to keep a close eye on this situation in order to make sure they have all the right pieces in place for when the 2020-21 season gets underway. For some players though, this could be the proper move if the AHL does not return next year.