Canucks Have Their Draft Capital Locked In. The Injury List Is Another Matter.

Adam Novotny is signed, Isaac Belliveau is in Abbotsford, and the organizational paperwork of a lost season is mostly filed. That part is clean. The part that isn't: five players still unavailable as training camp approaches, including Thatcher Demko on injured reserve and Evander Kane listed as out. For a team that went 25–57 last year and leaned on its goaltender to keep games close when almost nothing else was working, Demko's timeline matters more than any of the signings.

The Novotny deal — three years, entry-level — was covered here Tuesday, so no need to retread it. Belliveau landing with Abbotsford on a one-year AHL contract is the quieter move, the kind of depth filing that happens every August and mostly goes unnoticed until someone gets hurt in October and you need a body. Given that Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Filip Chytil, and Derek Forbort are also currently unavailable, the Canucks are not exactly flush with margin for error.

The September 29 opener in Edmonton is six weeks out. My read is that the next two weeks are almost entirely about the injury list — specifically whether Demko is tracking toward available, and whether any of the other four show signs of clearing before camp opens. The draft capital is locked in. The roster is not.