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Vancouver Canucks reveal lines and defence pairs ahead of opening night

Trevor Beggs
Trevor Beggs
|
Oct 7 2025, 8:34 pm
Vancouver Canucks reveal lines and defence pairs ahead of opening night
Bob Frid/Imagn Images

The Vancouver Canucks roster is set, and we have a pretty good idea of how the opening night will look.

The Canucks’ lines and defence pairs remained nearly the same for the second straight practice, with one minor tweak due to the return of Derek Forbort.

Here is how the Canucks lined up on Tuesday.

Forward lines

Jake DeBrusk – Elias Pettersson – Brock Boeser
Arshdeep Bains – Filip Chytil – Conor Garland
Evander Kane – Braeden Cootes – Jonathan Lekkerimäki
Drew O’Connor – Aatu Räty – Kiefer Sherwood
Linus Karlsson

Defence pairs

Quinn Hughes – Filip Hronek
Marcus Pettersson – Tyler Myers
Derek Forbort – Elias Pettersson
Victor Mancini

Teddy Blueger was absent from practice after suffering an injury in the Canucks’ final preseason game against the Edmonton Oilers. General manager Patrik Allvin confirmed he will miss about a week.

Linus Karlsson was the extra forward at practice on Tuesday, while Victor Mancini skated as the extra defenceman. After not making the 23-man roster on Monday, Mancini was recalled because defenceman Pierre-Olivier Joseph is out with an injury.

The big story up front is that the Canucks have officially confirmed that 18-year-old Braeden Cootes will be in the opening-night lineup.

“It means a lot,” Cootes told the media on Tuesday. “It’s obviously a huge honour… I’ve still got to be playing well and taking it day by day. But step one is here and I’m playing, so that’s a huge accomplishment, and I’m really proud of it.”

arshdeep bains canucks

Arshdeep Bains is currently skating on the Canucks’ second line. (Bob Frid/Imagn Images)

One of the other big surprises is that Arshdeep Bains is slated to start the season on the second line, alongside Filip Chytil and Conor Garland.

“His game has matured,” assistant coach Scott Young said at practice on Sunday. “He’s shown a lot of jam. He’s doing things on the walls, he’s controlling pucks, making smarter plays, less high-risk plays, which is something he wanted to address from his past. He certainly has the skill and the smarts up there.”

Bains has played 21 career games, and a handful of those were up in the top six, alongside J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser.

“He can play up and down your lineup and contribute,” Young said. “Going back to the run that those guys had in Abbotsford, he learned a lot and he’s taken a big step.”

Special teams set

The Canucks’ power play was just average last season, much like the Canucks themselves.

Will things be different in 2025-26?

At practice on Tuesday, the Canucks unveiled power-play and penalty-kill units that look a little bit different compared to last season.

Even though Conor Garland is healthy, it’s Evander Kane who continues to play on the top unit alongside Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, Brock Boeser, and Jake DeBrusk.

Although Kane has been a power-play regular at times throughout his career, he’s never been a prolific point producer with the man advantage. He’s only hit double-digits in power play points twice in his 16-year NHL career.

Rookies Cootes and Jonathan Lekkerimäki both skated on the second power-play unit. They’ll be looking to continue their preseason success over the regular season, after Cootes set up Lekkerimäki for a power-play goal during the Canucks game against the Oilers last Friday.

The Canucks’ penalty kill will look drastically different compared to last season, at least on opening night.

Their top penalty killing forward, Pius Suter, is no longer with the team, and Blueger won’t be available for the opener.

Here’s how they lined up at practice on Tuesday.

Foote mentioned during training camp that he believed Pettersson, Boeser, and Garland could be penalty killers.

While that could still happen, they didn’t practice that way on Tuesday. All three of those forwards did see time on the penalty kill throughout the preseason, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see them there once the games begin for real.

“Someone else is going to have to go and get a bigger role there,” Foote said when asked about the impact of Blueger’s absence on the kill. Coaches have been doing a good job with the extra video, the extra walk-throughs, to give confidence to the next player that may have to be there.”

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