Akil Thomas

Jack Thompson is on IR.

Akil Thomas is on IR.

Mackenzie McEachern is on IR.

Wow, that's seven players on injured reserve alone, plus Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is listed as out.

And so I think, honestly, even though it hasn't worked itself out yet, I think that we are a better team.

I mean, than we were heading into last season, right? I don't, I mean, you know, losing, you know, Akil Thomas hurts, you know, Bortolo hurts, McGing hurts, right? But like, I just feel so much better about this roster heading into this season than I did heading into last season, which obviously is very easy to say in hindsight.

But I'm what I'm kind of looking at are the other teams.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Akil Thomas also in that boat, but injured right now.

I didn't get to see him at training camp.

But yeah, both those guys signed on July 1st.

Anyway, let's go to training camp, Dave.

Um, couple guys, Demko, Lucian Bernat, and Akil Thomas, I think they, they skated by themselves before either of the groups came out.

We saw that, uh, a little bit last year, the injured guys, I believe it was Chase Waters and, uh, Ty Mueller kind of skate before everybody.

Um, so-

Like, how are you gonna find consistently, uh, consistency? How are you gonna develop if your situation keeps changing? It's hard to do that, right? So in saying that, if he does not completely knock the d- wheels off, knock the doors down, and make the NHL roster, then he's gonna start in the AHL, and he's gonna be given a long leash to be able to do so.

And then who knows? Maybe after like 50 games, 60 games, they're like, "Okay, this guy's got 30 goal, thir- 30 to 40 goals.

Now we can bring him up." That's why I think if there's an injury or something, that's where you see a Trey Fix Wolanski, a Akil Thomas, a Matthew Steinberg, that they're gonna get the call-up rather than some of the young guys like him and Coutts.

Um, so I think there's actually a chan- like a pretty good chance that we'll see one of those, one of those other tweeners that we, uh, that we saw the Canucks bring in this off-season over a guy like Coutts or, or Lekkerimäki to start.

Uh, 31 goals with Hartford last year in the AHL.

They signed him to a two-way deal, him and Akil Thomas.

They signed him, tho- those two guys, in free agency.

Uh, five foot seven.

He was out early, and J. Pat got video of him here just going through some light paces.

He was on the ice with Akil Thomas.

Thomas is a centerman that came over from the Kings organization.

And of course, uh, the Vancouver Canucks with, uh, r- um, promoting Ryan Johnson from Abbotsford GM, uh, had to go about replacing Ryan Johnson as Abbotsford GM.

And they hired Richard Seeley from the LA Kings organization, who has a good book on Akil Thomas.

He's been nicked, and so he's not starting with the main groups, either.

He's played NHL games.

Uh, who knows? So, um, ultimately you've got veterans.

So got some veteran defensemen.

They signed Akil Thomas, Paul Cotter.

That's it.

So, you know, they did things.