Predicting the final cuts from Canucks Camp 2026

After one of the longer and most eventful offseasons in franchise history, Training Camp 2026 is finally upon us, and the Vancouver Canucks have finally started the 2026-27 season in earnest.

Camp opened up in Penticton this week with a full 57 players slated to attend. Prior to opening night on September 29, that list will be whittled down to just 23 players on the active roster. The rest will be cut (or, perhaps, placed on IR). Usually, the cuts come in waves, with the final round of cuts generally being just a handful of players.

But who will that last handful of cuts be? Today, we attempt to predict that. (And, if that phrasing is a little too negative for anyone, feel free to imagine that this article was instead titled “Who will almost make the team in Canucks Camp 2027?”)

Adam Novotny

Plenty of ink has already been spilled about Novotny and how much he’s already impressed at Canucks Camp. Last year, Braeden Cootes impressed, too – though, if we’re being honest, not quite as much as Novotny is now – and was rewarded with a three-game regular season cameo before being returned to the WHL.

Novotny’s situation is slightly different, if only because the Canucks’ potential roster is already loaded up with wingers. With that in mind, we’d predict that Novotny gets his ‘cameo’ in the form of an extended look through the entire preseason schedule before being reassigned to the OHL at the end of camp. He’ll be back next year with a better shot to genuinely crack the roster. 

Ty Mueller/Ilya Safonov

If the Canucks convert Filip Chytil to the wing, that almost automatically slots Aatu Räty in as the 3C. From there, Mueller and Safonov are neck-and-neck to claim the 4C position. Cootes is a contender here, too, but we’ll have more on him a bit later. The team has also lined Max Sasson back up at centre early in camp, but he’s obviously played the wing previously.

That leads us to believe Mueller and Safonov will battle it out for the job until the end of camp, with one getting the gig and the other being one of the last cuts down to Abbotsford. Neither requires waivers.

Of course, if Chytil stays at centre, that could reasonably bump Räty down to 4C and put both Mueller and Safonov among the last cuts.

Kirill Kudryavtsev

It really seems to be down to Kudryavtsev and Victor Mancini for the seventh D slot to open the season. There’s a lot to be said about Kudryavtsev’s versatility, and especially his ability to play either side, and that will buy him a long look. That said, Mancini is older, plays the right side naturally, and brings a physical element that Kudryavtsev does not.

We also think the Canucks’ opening roster will likely have 14 forwards and seven D, instead of 13 forwards and eight D. With that, one of Kudryavtsev or Mancini is lined up as the final cut. For now, we’d predict it’s Kudryavtsev, though at that point he instantly becomes the team’s first defensive recall, and will surely spend a decent amount of time in Vancouver this season all the same.

Matthew Stienburg

Every year, one of the ‘AHL signings’ performs unexpectedly well at camp and either makes the team or almost makes the team. We all remember the Phil di Giuseppes and MacKenzie MacEacherns of past years.

Initially, we would have predicted that it be Akil Thomas this year, but he’s dealing with a lingering injury. So, instead, it’s the hard-hitting Matthew Stienburg, who plays with the sort of reckless abandon that could draw plenty of positive attention from the coaching staff and negative attention from the opposition in preseason. Stienburg has a few more traditional ‘fourth line’ elements to his game than do some of the others slated to skate as extra forwards this year.

Sawyer Mynio

Initially, we would have predicted that RD Jack Thompson would get an extended run in camp after finishing the year with 13 points in 14 games for Abbotsford after being acquired from San Jose. But then Thompson took a puck to the face and will now miss at least a good portion of Training Camp.

So instead, we see a long look at Mynio. He became one of Abbotsford’s most important defenders as an AHL rookie last season and, like Kudryavtsev, brings a lot of versatility to his game. In fact, Mynio is already lining up on both the left and right side in camp. He’d be in tough to beat either Kudryavtsev or Mancini for a spot, but Mynio is probably auditioning for a recall later in the season and pushing himself a little higher up the depth chart. This is a player who has already made a bit of a habit of exceeding expectations.

Not…

Last year, Cootes was such a late cut that he didn’t get reassigned until three games into the regular season. This year, we’re not so sure about that. With the possibility and likelihood of assigning the 19-year-old to Abbotsford for the season, there seems to be a good chance that Cootes will be part of one of the earlier rounds of cuts this year, so as to get him down there and started already. Having Cootes participate in at least a little bit of AHL camp, so that he can get situated as, ideally, their 1C for the duration of this year, seems like a worthy goal.

Usually, a goalie gets cut fairly late in camp, as well. But with Thatcher Demko’s status still up in the air, the situation has changed a bit. Both Kevin Lankinen and Nikita Tolopilo are probably sticking around for the time being. Previously, it was thought that Tolopilo might be waived, though there was some debate as to whether this would come late or early in an attempt to ‘sneak’ him through. Now, if any goalie is a last cut, it’s probably Chris Driedger on his PTO.