The do not play their National Hockey League season-opener until Wednesday, but already it feels like they’re on a winning streak. It says something about how encouraging the regular-season preparation has been that when general manager Patrik Allvin told reporters on Monday that there remains no timeline for the return from injury of star goalie Thatcher Demko, the news was neither surprising nor a drag against the heightened expectations the organization has for itself. Since training camp started a little more than three weeks ago, the Canucks have quelled their crisis in net, smoothly integrated seven new NHL players signed in free agency, saw most of their top prospects push impressively for a lineup spot and, on Monday, declared a full 23-player roster that for the first time in the Allvin-Jim Rutherford era has some wiggle room under the salary cap.
“What I do like is the internal drive here in the organization,” Allvin said Monday in a press conference after setting the Canucks’ roster. “You know, the front office, the coaching staff, the players who always want to push each other. .
. we want to get better, and I think that’s a healthy sign in an organization.” So is the roster Allvin believes is capable of challenging for a Stanley Cup, but comes in $479,000 under the $88-million salary cap while fully accounting for Demko and winger Dakota Joshua, who is recovering from testicular cancer.
Sunday’s trade of permanently-injured defenceman Tucker Poolm.
