Canucks News & Rumours: Tolopilo and Cootes Have Something to Prove

The Vancouver Canucks opened the preseason Saturday night with a 4-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken, and there’s little reason to get too worked up about the score. In preseason hockey, young players try to make an impression, veterans get their legs under them, and coaches try combinations they may never use once the real games begin. A loss is a loss, but in September, the more interesting question is usually who did something that made the coaching staff take notice.

A couple of players gave the Canucks something to think about.

Nikita Tolopilo Has an Opportunity Sitting Right in Front of Him

Nikita Tolopilo probably didn’t have the preseason opener he wanted. He stopped 26 of 30 shots in the 4-2 loss, allowing two goals in the first period and two more in the third. But Tolopilo has the chance to show he’s ready for a bigger role.

Thatcher Demko isn’t expected to be a full participant in training camp as he works his way back from a hip issue. That means Kevin Lankinen could start the season as Vancouver’s No. 1 goalie, with someone else taking the backup job. Tolopilo is one of the obvious candidates, but Chris Driedger is also in the mix after signing a professional tryout.

That’s a pretty important opportunity for Tolopilo. He appeared in 21 games for Vancouver last season and went 6-11-2 with a 3.61 goals-against average and an .881 save percentage. Those numbers won’t win him the job by themselves. But one preseason game won’t decide it either.

Tolopilo needs to show he’s becoming more reliable. There will be nights when the defence in front of him isn’t great. There will be stretches when he faces a lot of shots. That’s the life of a backup goalie, especially on a team that is still figuring out exactly what it wants to be.

Saturday wasn’t a disaster. It just wasn’t the kind of performance that closes the door on the competition. Maybe that’s the most important part. The job is there.

Braeden Cootes Is Giving the Canucks Something to Think About

If one Canucks forward made it hard to ignore Saturday night, it was Braeden Cootes. The 19-year-old scored a goal and added a primary assist on Arshdeep Bains‘ goal. He played 18:56, second among Vancouver forwards, and finished with two shots. More importantly, he seemed to improve as the game went on.

Cootes didn’t spend the night looking like a kid who was simply happy to be in an NHL lineup. He showed some of the two-way game that made him such an interesting prospect during his junior career. He had a few shifts where he started to look comfortable, and once he did, he became one of Vancouver’s more noticeable forwards.

Of course, one preseason game doesn’t earn a player an opening-night roster spot. But Cootes won’t win the job in one night. He simply needs to keep making the coaching staff wonder whether it would be a mistake to send him somewhere else.

The Canucks have young players who need time, but they also need players who can eventually make the team better. Cootes has a chance to show he’s moving from the prospect category into the conversation for an NHL job. Saturday was his good first step.

What’s Next for the Canucks?

The next few preseason games will tell us much more about Tolopilo and Cootes than Saturday’s game did. Tolopilo needs to show that he can handle NHL shooters consistently, particularly with Demko’s situation creating a little uncertainty around the crease.

Cootes gets to keep doing the most useful thing a young player can do at this time of year: play well enough that the coaches have to think about him. That’s his preseason in a nutshell.

The Canucks lost their preseason opener, but that’s not the part worth carrying forward. The more interesting story is that a couple of players have already been given a chance, making the next decision a little harder. For a rebuilding team trying to figure out what it has, those are problems a coach doesn’t mind.