The Canucks’ star prospect continues to impress, but can he actually start the season in the NHL?
He obviously was aware of the buzz around the Canucks’ 2022 first round pick, had read all the development staff’s reports — he just hadn’t seen the player that much. He was curious about how close Lekkerimaki was with his details.
But it’s clear that now that he has, he sees what the buzz was about.
Through the first two games of pre-season, Lekkerimaki has done a lot of little things away from the puck very well, Tocchet said this week.
“I think a lot of people are looking for the shot, they’re looking for the passing play, his instincts. And he has it. But there was a play down low (Tuesday). It was a breakout play. He was the low forward, and he was in a great position: he made a great play in the pocket,” Tocchet said. “I look at that stuff because those are the plays that win and lose your games.”
Tocchet said he looked at assistant coach Adam Foote after the play and they nodded.
Smart plays like that have Lekkerimaki on the edge of the NHL.
This is a player who the Canucks really believe will be a big time player in the NHL. The question is, how soon?
Could he really start the season on the NHL roster?
In the long run, Lekkerimaki’s talent will push him past players like those two, but if there’s no obvious hole for him to fill higher up the lineup, why push your roster’s walls out before you have to?
What’s almost certainly more important for Lekkerimaki is for him to find confidence in North American pro hockey.
The rink is smaller, the defenders are a little bigger, even in the AHL. He needs to master getting inside on defenders.
He also hasn’t scored a goal yet in North America. For a scorer, you want to see him thriving above all else.
He got five games in last spring in the AHL and now has two NHL exhibition games under his belt.
As Tocchet said, the player has showed well in his overall game.
Roster-building
The cap thing
But there’s also a cap issue: Joshua and Demko both carry non-negligible cap hits and to build a roster with healthy scratches around the two of them — neither is expected to be ready for the start of the season — is a challenge.
There isn’t enough cap space to start the year with three healthy scratches if both Demko and Joshua are even on regular injured reserve.
The Canucks may have to use the cap relief provisions of long-term injured reserve if they don’t want to send either Di Giuseppe or Aman to waivers at the start of the season. If you put a player on LTIR, they have to stay there for 10 games and 24 days.
The Canucks have said they don’t want to use LTIR this year, they’d rather bank money under the cap for use later in the season, but if you’re looking to avoid waiving anyone, even before considering Lekkerimaki having a role on the team, you’ll have to start the year with Poolman on LTIR.
Doing so would open up about $1.8 million in cap flexibility, so you could call up Lekkerimaki, whose cap hit is far lower.
The math will only start to change again once Joshua is ready to return — a roster spot will have to be opened up to put him in the lineup. And once Demko is healthy as well, and the Canucks only have two goalies in the NHL, then you can bring Poolman back off LTIR and start accruing space again.