Braeden Cootes didn’t look like a player easing into development camp. He looked like he was trying to take it over.
That was the impression he left Thursday at Rogers Forum in Abbotsford, where the Vancouver Canucks wrapped up their end-of-summer scrimmages. Among the three first-round picks in attendance, Cootes and Adam Novotný stood out from the start, and both gave the crowd plenty to notice in the three-on-three action.
Cootes, the Canucks’ 2025 first-round pick, was the most noticeable player on the ice. He scored in all four games he played, finished with one goal in each, and could have piled up a few more if a few bounces had gone differently. He was quick, direct and confident with the puck, and he clearly caught the attention of development coach Mikael Samuelsson.
“He’s impressive,” Samuelsson told the media following the scrimmages. “He looks like he’s on a mission to go somewhere else than staying at the development camp, that’s for sure.
You guys see what I see, too. He plays high pace, very skilled and he wants to be a difference maker out here.
It’s fun to see. He’s been like that the whole week.
Standing first in lines, even it it’s only skating drills, he wants a little more. He wants to have the puck around him.
He likes to be out there.”
Novotný, the club’s second first-rounder at 24th overall in last week’s draft, also made his presence felt. He scored twice in Thursday’s scrimmages and used his vision to create a tap-in goal for Aiden Celebrini. Samuelsson pointed to the way Novotný carried himself as much as anything else.
“First of all, his awareness and his skating ability looks really strong with a good posture,” Samuelsson explained. “He’s skating around there with a smile on.
And you can’t forget about that. Some guys get tight, but he seems to enjoy it, he seems to love what he does and that’s a good start.”
There was a solid crowd on hand for the session, with about 1,500 fans watching the prospects compete. The scrimmages ended with a shootout, and afterward all of the prospects tossed pucks to the fans.
Caleb Malhotra, taken third overall, had his moments too. He scored on a breakaway in his first scrimmage and added another goal later in the afternoon. And in net, Andrei Medvedev, last year’s second-round pick, was the strongest of the three goaltenders on the ice.
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