Vancouver Canucks first-round pick from this past draft, Braeden Cootes, has impressed many throughout the organization during training camp and preseason. His smarts, hockey sense, and confidence have been on full display, and he even scored his first preseason goal last night against the Seattle Kraken. Many believe he is NHL-ready right now, but if he makes the Canucks main roster right out of camp, that will be a big mistake for both the Canucks as an organization and him as a developing young player.
Cootes Needs More Time
Cootes will definitely be a great NHL player at some point in his career. I do not doubt that he will become an impactful player at this level. But now is not his time to be on an NHL roster; that time will come, perhaps next season or the season after that. I believe Cootes has a very high ceiling; he could be on Vancouver’s second line in a season or two. He has all of the tools.
If he were to make the Canucks roster right now, he would most likely be slotted in at the third-line centre position, since there is a logjam down the middle with Elias Pettersson and Filip Chytil. This isn’t a bad spot to be in, but he’d be better suited in the Western Hockey League (WHL).
If you send him back to the Seattle Thunderbirds, he can work more on his game amongst his peers and come back next season and impress the Canucks staff even more with what he has learned in the WHL. But keeping him on the roster as the third-line centre pigeonholes him to a spot that is needed, but a spot that keeps him lower down in the lineup and does not let him show off his great skills and abilities that made him the 15th overall pick. Let him go back to the Thunderbirds and tear up the WHL and potentially the World Juniors, and he can come back next training camp and show what he has learned.
Canucks Have Better Options
There are better options for the Canucks right now at the third-line centre position other than Cootes. There are players within the organization who are older and more experienced than Cootes who may fit that role better right now. Someone like Ty Mueller, who had a great season with the Abbotsford Canucks in 2024-25 and was a big part of their run to the Calder Cup with 12 points in 24 playoff games. He even got into two games with Vancouver near the end of last season. To me, he is a much better option than Cootes because the third-line centre role is perfect for Mueller, as that has become his specialty.
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Mueller isn’t the only player who could fill in that role above Cootes. Max Sasson also comes to mind as someone who could flourish in a third-line role. His quickness and ability to move the puck are needed commodities for the third line. He also has more experience under his belt than Cootes, since he is 25 years old and came off a good season in 2024-25, where he split time between Abbotsford and Vancouver. Having him in that slot makes a lot more sense to me than Cootes.
Giving other players the chance to play in this role will give Cootes more time to develop amongst his peers in the WHL and improve further. He has a great future ahead of him in the NHL, but his time is not here yet. There is nothing wrong with sending him back to Seattle and letting other, more experienced players take that spot for this season. Then next season, Cootes can come into camp and hopefully take a bigger role on the team than was originally expected of him and become one of Vancouver’s top players.
