PENTICTON - The Vancouver Canucks are heading into their first pre-season game with barely any runway, and that’s exactly why the early days of camp have been so sharp.
With only two practices before Saturday’s opener in Seattle and just two pre-season games allowed per player under the new CBA, there isn’t much time to ease into anything. Manny Malhotra needs his group moving fast, competing hard and picking up his details on the fly.
That urgency showed up Friday in a spirited drill between Max Sasson and Linus Karlsson, two players who know each other well enough to make the battle personal in the best possible way.
“Before the practice we talked about it,” Sasson grinned. “I like going against him. That’s definitely his best attribute: probably in my opinion one of the best in the world at those one-on-one battles in the corner.
“His stick is extremely strong. When you think you got a step, he’ll take it, and when he takes it, it’s extremely hard with his big body,” Sasson explained.
“I think he uses his IQ to kind of manoeuvre around. He’s incredible at it.
He’s always been incredible at it.”
The Canucks aren’t seeing the old-school training camp fights that used to be common around the NHL. The closest recent flashes in Vancouver came when Conor Garland got into minor scrapes, first with Dakota Joshua in 2023 and then with Filip Hronek in 2024. True toe-to-toe fights, though, have been rare for a long time.
What Malhotra is getting instead is competition, and plenty of it.
Sasson said the work over the past two-plus weeks in captain’s skates has helped the team arrive in better physical shape, even if the structure and systems are only now starting to take hold under the new coach. The details of defending, breaking out the puck and forechecking are still coming together, but the conditioning base is already there.
“I think at this time, without the grind of the season weighing down on you I always feel great,” the veteran winger said. “Even after like pre-season, I always feel awesome.
Even after four hard practices, you feel so good because you don’t have that half a season that has built up of tiredness from playing so many games. I think it’s important to push ourselves at this point of the year, just to get ready for the season.”
For the Canucks, that’s the assignment right now: get the legs under them, sharpen the habits, and make every rep count before the games start arriving in a hurry.
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