Canucks prospects: One last shot for Lekkerimaki, EP2 Abbotsford bound

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It’s the latest edition of the prospects tracker, where we tally up the efforts of the Vancouver Canucks’ highest profile prospects:

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The goals have dried up — and so too have his team’s playoff chances.

Jonathan Lekkerimaki went without scoring in SHL play this past week. And when the Canucks’ top prospect doesn’t find the back of the net, his team doesn’t win.

Orebro HK lost three crucial games in recent days — including a 3-1 loss to the worst team in the league on Saturday — to sink below the playoff bar by a point with one game left in the regular season.

Lekkerimaki, 19, registered an assist on Orebro’s lone goal in Saturday’s loss, after being shut out by Skelleftea 6-0 on Thursday and losing 3-2 to HV71 on Tuesday.

What it means is Orebro needs to beat sixth-seeded Linkoping on Tuesday, and hope that Rogle beats Modo, who hold the 10th and final playoff spot.

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In short, their post-season fate is no longer in their own hands.

The late-season collapse — Orebro has lost four straight games — can’t be put on Lekkerimaki’s shoulders. Just named the team’s MVP, it was the sharpshooting winger whose stretch of nine goals in eight games, including several game winners, kept his low-scoring team afloat.

There’s a reason why the league is making mixtapes of the 2022 first-rounder’s latest, greatest, goal-of-the-year candidate.

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Lekkerimaki, with 19 goals this season, has ascended to star status in Sweden — though Tuesday may be the last competitive game the Huddinge product plays in his home country in a while.

Lekkerimaki is expected to join the Canucks’ organization when his season is done. It remains unclear, however, if he will play for Team Sweden at the 2024 IIHF World Championship, which begins on May 10 and will be hosted by Czechia.

But if Orebro crashes out on Tuesday, do the Canucks really want Lekkerimaki to sit around in Sweden for two months?

If the 5-foot-11, 176-pound right-shot winger joins the Abbotsford Canucks, there’d still be several weeks left for Lekkerimaki to acclimatize himself before the Calder Cup playoffs start.

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And the way he’s played this season, it could be a win-win situation for both prospect and organization.

The early word, coming from CHEK-TV’s Rick Dhaliwal, is that Lekkerimaki will stick around in Sweden until he finds out if he makes the World Championship squad.

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Lekkerimaki’s 19 goals have him tied for fifth overall in the SHL. He also has 11 assists and a plus-5 rating in 45 games this season.

Elias Pettersson

His season is officially over in Sweden.

Now we wait for his arrival in Abbotsford.

Hard-hitting defensive prospect Elias Pettersson played his final game for Vasteras on Friday, a 4-0 loss, their fifth in the final six games of a sorry season in Sweden’s second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan.

The vibes are certainly going to be better for the 20-year-old in the Fraser Valley, though he’ll be joining a crowded defensive corps when he arrives later this week.

The Canucks’ blue-line is nearly at full strength, with veteran Chris Wolanin the only notable injury, so Pettersson will be competing on the left side with the likes of Matt Irwin, Nick Cicek, Akito Hirose and the returning Guillaume Brisebois.

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We’ll see how the organization’s blue-line depth really stacks up with Pettersson suiting up in Abbotsford.

Pettersson, a 2022 third-round pick, had a standout World Junior Championship tournament a few months ago and the truculent 6-foot-4, 209-pound D-man held his own for a bottom-feeding team this season, going a minus-1 with three goals and 11 assists in 34 games.

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Tom Willander

One team that’s definitely playoff-bound is Tom Willander’s No. 2-ranked Boston University, who will begin their Hockey East title defence Saturday against a yet-to-be-known opponent.

What Canucks fans do know is Willander, the 2023 11th-overall pick, has had a solid freshman season for the Terriers, one he finished up on Saturday with two primary assists in a 6-1 win over Vermont.

Willander, a smooth-skating 6-foot-1, 179-pound right-shot D-man, notched one of his assists by taking the puck to the net and showing determination by knocking a loose puck over to a teammate to give BU a 5-1 lead late in the third period.

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Willander’s first regular season in North America ends with the Stockholm product going a plus-24 in 32 games, good for 10th overall in the entire NCAA.

Willander also had four goals and 17 assists playing largely second-pairing minutes. His ability to skate the puck out of trouble and transition up the ice are his greatest strengths. Willander is also strong positionally and his head coach Jay Pandolfo has liked the responsible game he’s brought to the elite NCAA program.

All 11 Hockey East teams make the first round of the playoffs, to be played on Wednesday. The Terriers will play the winner of one-of-three opening round games in the quarterfinal round on Saturday. Top-ranked Boston College and No. 9 Main also have first-round byes.

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Willander is expected to play one more year of NCAA hockey before joining the Canucks’ organization as their top defensive prospect.

Sawyer Mynio

The Seattle Thunderbirds needed someone to step up on Friday with their playoff lives on the line.

Canucks 2023 third-rounder Sawyer Mynio was their man.

Mynio, 18, scored two goals and added an assist from the blue-line as the Thunderbirds prevailed 5-4 against Spokane, who hold the eighth and final playoff spot in the WHL’s Western Conference.

Mynio, a 6-foot-1, 181-pound left-shot D-man, scored his first goal late in the first period to tie the game at two, then scored again on a late second-period power play blast from the point.

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“It was a big win tonight,” Mynio said post-game. “Coming against a team who’s making a push for the playoffs as well, like us. Feels like Game Seven out there and probably will be, tomorrow again. Just trying to help the team and do whatever we can to win these last few games.”

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The Thunderbirds ended up losing Saturday’s rematch in Spokane 5-1, essentially killing their playoff hopes. The Chiefs are now 12 points up on Seattle with six games left in the season.

Mynio, however, has had an admirable post-draft campaign, tallying 49 points (14G, 35A) in 57 games while going a minus-9 for a team that’s given up 71 more goals than it’s scored this season.

Arturs Silovs

It hasn’t been a great season for Abbotsford’s presumptive No. 1 netminder.

Saturday’s 6-0 shutout of the Silver Knights in Nevada should go a long way for the likable Latvian.

Arturs Silovs stopped all 27 shots against Henderson, earning the 22-year-old first-star honours in his first game since letting in a slap shot from centre ice last Sunday in a demoralizing 2-1 loss against the Ontario Reign.

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Silovs was actually really good against the Reign, stopping 33 of 35 shots, but the nature of the game winner left observers wondering how Silovs would respond.

They got their answer.

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Meanwhile, recent Vancouver call-up Arshdeep Bains scored a goal and assisted on two others in the win, while big winger Aidan McDonough (2019, Rd. 7) scored twice.

McDonough’s goals looked a lot like the dozens he scored at Northeastern during his productive NCAA career, with the 6-foot-2, 201-pound left-shot forward unloading his heavy shot from the right faceoff circle.

The pair of goals for the Massachusetts product brings his season total to seven goals in 42 games.

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Forward Danila Klimovich, however, was scratched again by head coach Jeremy Colliton, leading to questions about the future of talented prospect with the organization that drafted him in the second round in 2021. The 21-year-old was supposed to take a big step this season after scoring 17 times in 62 games last season. Instead, questions about his ability to be a team player have limited Klimovich to 24 games this season, in which he’s only scored twice.

As for Silovs, he’s had some good moments this season, but the overall body of work (33 GP, 2.74 GAA, .909 SV%) hasn’t been up to last season’s standard (44 GP, 2.44 GAA, .907 SV%).

Silovs may get called up to Vancouver this week with No. 1 goaltender Thatcher Demko potentially injured. Silovs played five games in Vancouver last season, where he went 3-2 with a 2.75 GAA and a .908 save percentage.

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Abbotsford’s other goaltender, towering Belarusian Nikita Tolopilo, has a similar stat line to Silovs (24 GP, 2.83 GAA, .907 SV%) so the starter’s job for the playoffs is up for grabs.

Abbotsford is 29-21-4-2 and in seventh-place in the ultra-tight Pacific Division. Four teams, from fourth place to seventh, all have 64 points, although Abbotsford has played two more games. Seven teams out of 10 teams in the division make the post-season. Abbotsford is 10 points clear of Henderson with 16 games left in the season.

Elsewhere: Vilmer Alriksson, the 6-foot-6 forward prospect playing for Guelph of the OHL, scored his 14th goal of the season on Wednesday in a 5-4 win over the London Knights.

The 21-year-old scored just the kind of goal the Canucks are looking for from the big winger, with Alriksson (2023, Rd. 4) blocking a shot in his own zone, then using his big frame to fend off a defender before muscling his way to the slot and finishing in tight.

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The goal gives Alriksson, playing his first season of North American hockey, his 30th point on the campaign in 60 games.

The Canucks want Alriksson to develop a power forward-type game after being a finesse-type player in the Swedish juniors last season.

mraptis@postmedia.com

twitter.com/mike_raptis

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