The Vancouver Canucks are heading back into prospect-showcase mode, and this time the Seattle Kraken are the opposition.
The club announced Friday afternoon that the two teams will play a back-to-back set at the Rogers Forum in Abbotsford on Saturday, September 12 at 4 PM and Sunday, September 13 at 1 PM.
The switch comes after the Young Stars Classic in Penticton, which had featured the Canucks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Winnipeg Jets in 11 of the last 15 seasons, was cancelled for the 2025-26 season. Last year’s prospect event took place in Seattle, where the Kraken won the opener and Vancouver answered with a win in the second game to split the mini-series.
The rosters haven’t been released yet, but the team says the Canucks will ice a competitve roster.
There will be some notable absences from Vancouver’s group. Two of the top-10 prospects in CanucksArmy’s summer rankings, #1 Caleb Malhotra and #8 Niklas Aaram-Olsen, are headed to the NCAA next season and won’t be part of the showcase.
Even so, the Canucks should still have a fresh wave of talent on display. Vancouver’s 24th- and 33rd-overall picks in the 2026 NHL Draft, Adam Novotný and Brooks Rogowski, are both expected to be in the mix and looking to leave an impression.
Lucian Bernat is the only other prospect from the 2026 draft class fans should expect to see in mid-September. He’s set to join the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack next season.
A few other names from that class are headed elsewhere next year: Yaroslav Bryzgalov and Connor Davis will be in the NCAA, while Dmitri Ivchenko will play in the MHL and Samuel Eriksson in the SHL for 2026-27.
Last year’s group gave a strong preview of what was coming. Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Braeden Cootes, Tom Willander, Elias Pettersson (D), and Kirill Kudryavtsev all went on to play NHL games last season. The roster also featured several players who later suited up professionally in Abbotsford, including Vilmer Alriksson, Nick Poisson, Riley Patterson, Josh Bloom, Ben Berard, Jackson Kunz, Cooper Walker, Joe Arntsen, Sawyer Mynio, and Aku Koskenvuo.
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