Vasily Podkolzin, Sheldon Dries, Akito Hirose among 20 players cut from Canucks training camp

All 20 players cut on Monday have been assigned to Abbotsford, although five of them will have to clear waivers first. Jett Woo, Matt Irwin, Sheldon Dries, Jack Rathbone, and Zach Sawchenko will all be made available to the NHL’s 31 other teams before they can report to the AHL.

Additionally, Chase Wouters, Quinn Schmiemann, and John Stevens had all been attending Canucks camp on professional tryout contracts while on AHL deals. They’ve been released from their PTOs to report to Abbotsford.

In addition to Podkolzin, the Canucks assigned the following 11 waiver-exempt players on NHL contracts directly to the AHL:

• Danila Klimovich
• Aatu Räty
• Max Sasson
• Linus Karlsson
• Arshdeep Bains
• Tristen Nielsen
• Josh Bloom
• Aidan McDonough
• Akito Hirose
• Filip Johansson
• Nikita Tolopilo

With these cuts, the Canucks now have 25 players remaining in their training camp:

Forwards (13): Anthony Beauvillier, Teddy Blueger, Brock Boeser, Phil Di Giuseppe, Conor Garland, Nils Höglander, Dakota Joshua, Andrei Kuzmenko, Ilya Mikheyev, J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, Jack Studnicka, Pius Suter.

Defencemen (9): Guillaume Brisebois, Ian Cole, Filip Hronek, Quinn Hughes, Noah Juulsen, Cole McWard, Tyler Myers, Carson Soucy, Christian Wolanin.

Goaltenders (3): Thatcher Demko, Casey DeSmith, Arturs Silovs.

Overall, it was an underwhelming training camp and preseason for the 22-year-old Podkolzin. Right from day one of camp, Podkolzin was given a golden opportunity to play alongside JT Miller and Brock Boeser, but just hasn’t looked comfortable this preseason.

Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet has spoken at length about how much he likes Podkolzin and admires his work ethic.

Earlier this week, we wrote about how playing in the AHL under the watchful eye of Jeremy Colliton and the rest of the coaching staff might be the best thing for Podkolzin to start this season, and it appears the Canucks felt the same way. You can read that piece by clicking here.