Canucks Training Camp Battle 2025-2026: Who wins the ‘battle’ for 2C?

Perhaps the real second-line centres were the friends we made along the way?

The Vancouver Canucks entered the 2025 offseason with a new 2C as the number one item on their shopping list. And barring a last-minute, out-of-left-field trade, it seems they’ll also exit the 2025 offseason with a new 2C as the number one item on their shopping list.

Although the Canucks added no new centres to the organization at all this summer – save for those they selected in the Entry Draft, who will need a few years before they reach the roster – that doesn’t mean they’re entirely bereft at the 2C position. Someone is going to have to play that role, and the battle for who starts there will occur in Training Camp 2025.

From our perspective, it’s essentially a two-horse race between Filip Chytil and Aatu Räty. First, we’ll break down the upcoming battle between the two of them. Then, we’ll contradict ourselves slightly and explain why it may not be a ‘battle’ at all.

Chytil enters the season as the presumptive 2C, or at least as the centre ranked second on the depth chart behind Elias Pettersson. On that front, he possesses several distinct advantages over Räty.

The Czech forward is the older of the two, set to turn 26 during camp, while Räty hits age 23 a month into the season. He’s got 393 career NHL games to Räty’s 48, and, really, the experience gap is actually larger than that due to all the time Chytil has missed with injury. If we’re talking NHL seasons, Chytil has appeared in eight to Räty’s three.

Between the two, it was Chytil who was drafted higher, at 21st overall in 2017, compared to Räty’s 52nd overall in 2021. That said, if we’re talking about pre-draft hype in general, we must note that Räty spent much of his youth being talked about in phenom terms, only to slip heavily in his draft year and wind up in the second round.

In terms of established scoring, it’s no surprise that Chytil has a serious leg up. He’s scored as many as 22 goals and 45 points in a season, back in 2022-23, and has always seemed to have the potential for more.

On the topic of production, however, we begin to be able to turn the ‘argument’ back in Räty’s favour. Last season, Räty went on his longest run of NHL play to date, and he put up fairly decent numbers, too, with seven goals and 11 points in 33 games. Isolate just Räty’s last call-up, which started on March 24, 2025, and you’ll find him finishing the year with five goals and seven points in his final 12 games.

It’s a small sample size, to be sure, but it is a higher pace of scoring than Chytil has hit at really any point in his own career. If what Räty did during the final months of the 2024-25 season is in any way sustainable, maybe there’s an argument to be made for greater potency potential.

Oddly enough, the two’s goals-per-game rate for 2024-25 ended up being very similar, with Chytil edging Räty out 0.23 to 0.21. Chytil’s point-per-game rate of 0.46, of course, beat Räty handily.

If we eliminate Chytil’s time in New York, however, we find that their Vancouver-only rates have Räty with the higher goal-per-game rate (0.21 to 0.13) and Chytil with a narrower lead on points-per-game (0.40 to 0.33).

Going minute-by-minute, Räty’s numbers start to stand out, however. He had a 1.77 points-per-60 rate in 2024-25, good for the fourth-highest on the team. Chytil, meanwhile, who was loaded up with ice-time following his acquisition and before his injury, languished in 27th place with a 0.61 points-per-60 average, placing him one spot below Carson Soucy on the list.

And then you probably know where the ‘goals-per-60’ side of this is headed. Räty led the entire Canucks roster with 1.24 goals-per-60, ahead of Pius Suter with 1.05. Among those who played at least 20 NHL games this year, Räty’s goals-per-60 ranked 13th overall in the entire league. Chytil’s own goals-per-60 of 0.61 wasn’t half-bad, either, for the record, and ranked seventh on the Canucks, just barely trailing top goal-scorer Jake DeBrusk and his 0.62.

Chytil is probably the safer call to produce more in 2025-26, given his experience. But Räty showed enough flashes last year to say there’s a real possibility that he leapfrogs Chytil, if given enough opportunity to do so.

Now’s a good time to talk about stylistic differences, because they are considerable. The largest gap between the two is definitely in skating ability, where Chytil is among the best-skating members of the forwards corps, while Räty is among the worst.

According to NHL Edge, Chytil was in the 90th percentile for both top skating speed and speed bursts exceeding 20 mph. Räty was below the 50th percentile in every skating measure.

Specifically, Canucks fans probably noticed that Chytil isn’t just great at skating, but he’s great at skating with the puck, which makes him a genuine play-driver. It’s something the Canucks don’t really have at all down the middle right now, aside from Chytil – at least until Pettersson is back to his old self. The book on Räty, on the other hand, has always portrayed his skating as his greatest shortcoming. There’s a big disparity here.

But Räty has some positive qualities working out in his favour. He’s got that famous ambidextrous faceoff ability, on top of being perhaps the best faceoff-taker in the organization in general. Räty has a 56.7% win-rate on the dot in his career, compared to Chytil’s 41.7%. That alone should ensure that, whether he’s the official 2C or not, Räty is on the ice for crucial moments in tight games all the same.

Though it’s something he’s added to his game only recently, Räty is also definitely the more physical and physically involved of the two. Both skaters stand at 6’2”, and Chytil has 20 pounds on Räty as of their last weigh-in. But Räty is sturdier and more durable. If anything, the Canucks want Chytil to avoid unnecessary physicality, given his concussion history, which further encourages Räty to embrace that side of the game.

Räty is undoubtedly the better and more consistent shooter of the two. When it comes to playmaking, they each bring something a little different to the table. Chytil is the kind of playmaker who can create space for his teammates with his speed and then distribute the puck. Räty is more cerebral in his approach, which has earned him accolades for running the power play down in Abbotsford. Perhaps that’s a reason to pencil Räty in, if not as outright 2C, then at least as the main pivot on the PP2 unit.

Really, though, their stylistic differences lead us neatly enough into the part of the article where we suggest there may not be much of a training camp ‘battle’ to be had between Chytil and Räty, after all.

It’s already been all-but-determined that the Canucks will have to take more of a top-nine approach to their forwards than a top-six approach in 2025-26 as they attempt to produce more by committee. That means they’ll need three centres for those three scoring lines, and those three centres are basically locked in as being Pettersson, Chytil, and Räty in some order.

Pettersson will get first choice of wingers. Or, more accurately, the team will put the wingers with Pettersson who best suit him and his oh-so-necessary bounceback.

The rest are left for Chytil and Räty. And given how different they are as centres, it’s maybe less a game of building a ‘second line’ and a ‘third line,’ and more about lining up the centres and wingers that will work best together.

For a shooting centre like Räty, one imagines that the playmaking Conor Garland could be a great fit.

Meanwhile, if one’s looking for a high-volume shooter to make use of the space Chytil creates, look no further than Evander Kane, who serves the bonus purpose of watching Chytil’s back from the Jason Dickinsons of the world.

Maybe it’s Nils Höglander, going into the corners and digging out pucks for Räty, who stays mostly in the middle of the zone to compensate for his speed shortcomings. Maybe it’s the speed of Kiefer Sherwood keeping up with Chytil from the wing.

The configurations are endless, and they’ll surely be shuffled throughout both camp and the regular season itself. The point we’re getting at here, however, is that it might be less about one of Chytil or Räty ‘winning’ the ‘battle’ for 2C at Training Camp, and more about the coaching staff using the opportunity to build the best three forward lines they can around their three top centres, and then who really cares how those lines are labeled?

Pettersson’s line will receive the most opportunities, but will also have to carry a higher defensive load than in previous seasons. Chytil’s line will probably play more than Räty’s, given his proven ability to handle more minutes and miles, but then maybe it’s Räty’s line coming out for those vital late faceoffs.

It’s an ambiguous conclusion, to be sure, but then this is a Vancouver forward corps that is built on ambiguity. If the Canucks are going to succeed in their bid to return to the playoffs in 2026, their forwards will need to be greater than the sum of their parts, and both Chytil and Räty will have to be key components in that – or, at least, until GM Patrik Allvin pulls the trigger on another option.

Then again, if both Chytil and Räty enjoy success early on in 2025-26, maybe Allvin won’t have to…