Canucks News & Rumours: Räty, Bains, Cootes & Lankinen

The Vancouver Canucks lost 4-1 to the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night, but preseason scores are usually worth about as much as the paper they’re printed on. This one was especially strange because Calgary dressed something close to an opening-night lineup, while Vancouver sent out a group mostly made up of players still trying to earn their way onto the roster.

That actually made the game more interesting. When one team is clearly better on paper, the question becomes less about who wins and more about who keeps competing when things aren’t going particularly well. A couple of Canucks did exactly that, and they may have made the roster decisions a little more interesting.

Aatu Räty Is Making This Roster Decision Interesting

Aatu Räty didn’t score a goal or pick up a point against Calgary, but he might have been Vancouver’s best skater. That’s the kind of performance that gets noticed when you’re trying to win a job.

Räty won 15 of 20 faceoffs, took a team-high five shot attempts and was effective on the penalty kill. More importantly, the underlying numbers showed just how much better Vancouver looked when he was on the ice. At even strength, Calgary had a 12-10 edge in shot attempts when Räty was on the ice. When he was on the bench, that number became 55-12 in favour of the Flames. The high-danger numbers were even more striking. With Räty on the ice, Vancouver had a 4-0 advantage in high-danger attempts; without him, Calgary had a 13-3 edge.

Now, it’s preseason, and nobody should build a Hall of Fame case on one game. Still, Räty is doing the little things that make a coach comfortable. Faceoffs, penalty killing, protecting the middle of the ice and competing when the other team has most of the puck — those aren’t bad ways to make an impression.

Arshdeep Bains Looks Like He Belongs

Arshdeep Bains made a different kind of impression. He wasn’t simply surviving the game. He looked like an NHL player in a lineup that was largely made up of AHL and junior players. Bains won puck battles along the boards, found ways to get to the net and generally looked comfortable playing against Calgary’s stronger lineup. He also scored Vancouver’s only goal, finishing a nice sequence started by Braeden Cootes. Cootes created the play with a clever rush and pass, and Bains did the rest, snapping the puck off the far post and in.

Bains is putting together the kind of preseason that makes the 13th-forward conversation rather interesting. He’s not trying to overwhelm anybody with spectacular plays. He’s just consistently doing useful hockey things. Sometimes that’s exactly what a fourth-line player needs to do.

Cootes is another player worth watching. There were flashes of something special, including the play that created Bains’ goal. Still, Calgary controlled the shot attempts 20-4 when Cootes was on the ice at even strength. At 19, there’s no rush. The talent is obvious; the seasoning might not be quite there yet.

What’s Next for the Canucks?

The interesting part now is watching which players continue to separate themselves as the preseason winds down. Räty has given Vancouver another reason to think about its centre depth, while Bains continues to make a compelling argument that he can handle NHL duty.

And then there’s Kevin Lankinen, who deserves credit for keeping this game respectable for as long as he did. He stopped the first 19 shots he faced while Vancouver was being badly outplayed. That’s not a bad way for a goaltender to make sure people remember his night.

The final score wasn’t pretty, but that’s not really the story here. The Canucks faced a much stronger lineup that night. What matters is that Räty and Bains gave the coaching staff something positive to chew on. With roster decisions getting closer, those are exactly the kinds of performances that can make a preseason game worth watching.