Pius Suter and Conor Garland are both injured, but it was Akito Hirose’s status that presented a potential wrench in the works for the Canucks’ opening-day plans.
Hirose appeared later on in Friday’s Canucks skate at Rogers Arena, in a regular practice jersey, a good sign that he was on the road to recovery. But his full clearance didn’t seem imminent.
Anyway, he’s now out of the picture, making it much more likely the Canucks will be able to avoid going into long-term injured reserve to open the season, which has been their long-stated preference.
Suter suffered an upper-body injury on Tuesday and was away from practice until Saturday, when he took the ice in a non-contact jersey. With the Canucks’ season opener on Wednesday and the NHL’s opening-day roster deadline at 2 p.m. Monday, that was a very good sign.
In the outside chance both Suter and Garland aren’t ready to start the season, the Canucks could still avoid using LTIR and instead play Wednesday’s game a skater short, which would allow for the emergency recall of either Raty or Bains for Friday’s game and the recalled player wouldn’t carry a cap hit until Suter or Garland was ready to return.