Breaking down the battle for the bottom-end of the Canucks’ 2025-26 blueline

If the offseason were a hockey game, we’d be deep into the third period by now. As late August approaches, we find ourselves less than a month away from the opening of Vancouver Canucks Training Camp 2025 in Penticton, set to start on September 18, 2025.

In fact, while there’s no Penticton Young Stars Classic to cheer on this year, the Canucks’ prospects will face off against the Seattle Kraken prospects in just three weeks. Real, genuine hockey action is on the way.

Which means it’s time to make that gradual shift away from talking about the Canucks’ roster on paper, and towards discussing what it might look like when it actually hits the ice. And before we worry about how the Canucks are going to stack up against the various other 31 NHL clubs, we’ve got to worry about how they’re going to stack up against one another.

It’s time to start talking about some Training Camp battles to come.

Like a good championship team, we’ll build from the back end out.

There’s not much to talk about when it comes to crease conflicts. Thatcher Demko will be the 1A, Kevin Lankinen will be the 1B, and it’s down to Nikita Tolopilo, Jiri Patera, and Ty Young to duke it out for the honour of being the first recall.

The top four of the blueline is about as settled as it’s been in recent memory, too, with Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Marcus Pettersson, and Tyler Myers all set to take on the most minutes this year, and probably in that exact order, too.

But go any further down the depth chart, and we start running into question marks. And question marks going into camps means battles at said camps.

It’s fairly well-established that the fifth and sixth members of Vancouver’s defensive depth chart are the younger Elias Pettersson and the re-signed Derek Forbort. They both, however, shoot left, which has led to one of them typically being pencilled in outside of the lineup – usually Forbort.

The right side of the bottom pairing has most often been ascribed to whichever of Tom Willander or Victor Mancini looks most ready in camp. Take the eight names we’ve mentioned thus far – Hughes, Hronek, Pettersson, Myers, Pettersson again, Forbort, Willander, and Mancini – and that’s the top eight of the Canucks’ depth chart.

But that’s not necessarily the eight who will be on the team’s opening night roster. In fact, it’d be against the odds. Whichever of Willander or Mancini makes the team, the front office will not want the other wasting away in the press box. At least one of them should be assigned to Abbotsford for future development. And that opens up a battle for the 8D position at the very least – and maybe even the 7D, too, depending on how things shake out.

Let’s stick with our most common scenario: the top-four sticks as is, Elias Pettersson and Forbort share that left side of the bottom pairing, and one of Willander or Mancini takes the right side, with the other re-assigned.

Who, then, slots in as 8D?

Again, it won’t be the loser of the Willander/Mancini battle. There’s just no reason for them to sit out games when they don’t have to. The same principle applies almost equally to the 21-year-old Kirill Kudryavtsev. If we’re talking NHL-readiness, then as someone who just played an important role on a Calder Cup-winning team, Kudryavtsev might actually outrank Willander and Mancini at this exact point in time. Although he can play the right side, he shoots left, which puts him behind Pettersson and Forbort, and he’s also far too young to be sitting out games when he could be developing in the minors.

If there’s a player destined to be temporarily leapfrogged by players lower than him on the organizational depth chart this year, it’s Kudryavtsev. He should get NHL games in when injury coverage is required, but otherwise, he’ll be sticking with Abbotsford. In other words, he’s not their 8D.

The most likely candidate here is someone we’ve written about recently, the freshly signed and newly arrived Pierre-Oliver Joseph.

Joseph has a lot going for him. He’s familiar to the front office, he’s got an above-average skating ability, and he’s very recently flashed an ability to play on either side, despite shooting left. He’s got 194 NHL games under his belt, but has yet to fully ‘make it’ in the big leagues.

In some ways, he’s a perfect 8D, which is probably the role the team had in mind when it signed him.

But if Joseph slots in as the 8D, it would result in the roster having five left-shooting D and only three right-shooting. That’s not really a problem most nights, and it’s far less of a problem because all three of E. Pettersson, Forbort, and Joseph played on the right side last year. But it’s perhaps something that could cause some issues in the long run.

If the team wants to avoid another LD on 8D, they’ve really only got one option, and that’s Jett Woo.

There’s an element of default here. Woo is the only other RD under contract with the Canucks right now, aside from Hronek, Myers, Willander, and Mancini. But his handedness is not the only reason he might be in the running for an NHL job.

Woo has also been continually growing his game over the past couple of seasons, despite being increasingly written off due to his age. At 25, he played on the top pairing for Abbotsford for a lot of their Calder Cup run, and he still possesses that rare edge of truly dangerous physicality that makes him a unique asset.

If there’s a one-on-one battle to be had for 8D this year, it’s between Joseph and Woo.

There is a scenario in which both make it. That would involve both Willander and Mancini performing in camp in a way that makes the team decide they both need further seasoning in the minors. If that comes to pass, then the Canucks are left with just two actual RDs on the roster in Hronek and Myers, and then they’re all but guaranteed to give Woo a spot.

Chances are best that under that scenario, it’d be the two LDs, Forbort and E. Pettersson, on the bottom pairing most nights, and Joseph and Woo waiting in the wings as 7D and 8D. It’s not all that unlikely, either, as we know that the organization wants Pettersson playing as much as possible, and they did sign Forbort to a raise.

Beyond the names we’ve discussed already, a few more deserve mention. The technically-longest-tenured Canuck, Guillaume Brisebois, is still around. He was one of just two defenders, along with Mancini, to play in every one of Abbotsford’s 24 playoff games. He’s always in the running in Training Camp, even if just on seniority alone.

Jimmy Schuldt is a new, 30-year-old AHL depth signing. Last season, he played eight games for the San Jose Sharks, his first NHL games since playing one for Vegas back in 2018-19. He’s probably not a serious candidate here and was likely signed for the express purpose of bringing a consistent presence to Abbotsford, but he gets a mention all the same.

Past this crew, the only other defender currently under contract by the Canucks is Sawyer Mynio. After four WHL seasons, he’s expected to turn pro and join Abbotsford for 2025-26 – but as a rookie professional, don’t expect him to be called up except as a last resort.

And that’s it. The Canucks only have 14 defenders under contract right now. With that in mind, we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them hand out another depth contract, or perhaps a PTO, in the final weeks of the offseason.

That would obviously change matters, at least slightly. For now, though, the battle for the bottom end of the Vancouver blueline would seem to come down to Joseph versus Woo – unless, of course, the answer is ‘both.’