Canucks Button Up Novotny Deal, Add AHL Depth While Injury List Stays Long

Adam Novotny is signed. The 24th-overall pick in this year's draft put his name on a three-year entry-level contract Tuesday, the standard procedural close to a draft class that Vancouver needed to go well. The organization has been deliberate about building through the draft this offseason, and getting Novotny locked in before camp is the kind of quiet administrative win that matters more when the NHL roster has questions attached to it.

Those questions are significant. Five players remain unavailable heading into the fall — Thatcher Demko, Evander Kane, Filip Chytil, Derek Forbort, and Jonathan Lekkerimaki — and Demko's situation is the one that shapes everything else. Goaltending was a recurring problem last season, and the Canucks open 2026–27 on September 29 in Edmonton. That's not a lot of runway for a team that finished 25–57.

The Abbotsford affiliate also added Isaac Belliveau on a one-year AHL deal, which is depth-chart maintenance more than anything else. Still, after a season where the bottom of the roster was exposed night after night, having warm bodies with professional experience in the system is not nothing.

The draft capital is secured, the AHL depth is incrementally better, and the injury list hasn't moved. That's where things stand with seven weeks until Edmonton.