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Vancouver Canucks at Seattle Kraken

Sat Sep 196:00 PM PTSeattle, WA
By JR·2 min read
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Seattle KrakenSEA
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TLDR: Vancouver and Seattle open their preseason slates against each other Saturday, and both rosters look a little different than the ones that closed out last spring.

Saturday's exhibition opener at Climate Pledge Arena is Manny Malhotra's first look at his group away from Penticton, where the Canucks have been running camp since Thursday. Vancouver hired Malhotra as the 23rd head coach in franchise history back on June 1, promoting him after he won a Calder Cup behind Abbotsford's bench, and he's brought a noticeably higher tempo to camp so far, with players calling the atmosphere under him a refreshing change.

The bigger question in net still doesn't have an answer. General manager Ryan Johnson said this week that Thatcher Demko, who hasn't skated with the team since the informal summer sessions, won't be a full participant in camp as he works through a hip issue, and the club hasn't put a timeline on when that changes. Whoever starts in goal Saturday, it won't be a statement about where the depth chart stands in October.

Seattle, meanwhile, is working with less runway than usual. The NHL trimmed the preseason from six games to four across the league to make room for two extra regular-season dates, so the Kraken have gone from 21 days between the start of camp and their opener down to 14. That compresses every roster battle — Shane Wright's push for a bigger role, the Firkus-Nyman question on the wing — into a shorter window, and Saturday is one of only four dress rehearsals they get.

Vancouver Canucks
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  • OutMackenzie MacEachern (LW)09/17
  • OutThatcher Demko (G) — General manager Ryan Johnson said Wednesday that Demko (hip) won't be a full participant in training camp, Canucks play-by-play announcer Brendan Batchelor reports.09/16
Seattle Kraken
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report

There's a direct thread between these two camps beyond the schedule. Jamie Oleksiak, a fixture on Seattle's blue line for five seasons, signed with Vancouver on the first day of free agency, telling reporters he wanted to stay out west. He was the Kraken's only real departure on defense this offseason, which the team has otherwise kept mostly intact, but it's one more new face for Vancouver's room to sort out alongside a new coach and a No. 1 goalie situation up in the air.

Neither club has played a competitive game since last spring, when Vancouver closed the season on a 3-2 stretch capped by a 1-6 loss in Edmonton and Seattle limped out on three straight losses, including a 3-5 defeat at home to Los Angeles. None of that carries any weight into an exhibition tilt in September, but it's the last real form either fan base has to go on before new lineups, a new coach and a compressed camp reset the picture in the games that actually count.

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