Chytil on IR, Meriläinen In. Vancouver Opens in Edmonton Short-Handed.

Filip Chytil is on injured reserve with a shoulder injury after a preseason collision with referee Riley Brace sent him into the boards Thursday night. It was a fluke, the kind that doesn't care about timing — and the timing here is about as bad as it gets, with the opener in Edmonton three days away.

The same day Chytil went down, the Canucks claimed 24-year-old goaltender Leevi Meriläinen off waivers from Ottawa, which added a layer of noise to what was already a complicated Thursday. Meriläinen is a goaltender, not a forward — he doesn't fill the hole Chytil leaves — but the two moves together paint a picture of a team still patching in the final days before the puck drops. I wrote yesterday about the crease situation; the forward depth is now its own conversation.

The problem isn't new. Last season's collapse was built, in part, on the same structural fragility: when the bottom of the lineup couldn't contribute, there was nothing to fall back on. The Gallagher acquisition was supposed to address exactly that. Now Gallagher needs to address it a man short, against an Oilers team that will not be gentle about Vancouver's depth in the first week of the season.

Three days to sort it out. Ryan Johnson and the staff will have to decide who fills that forward spot in Edmonton. The answer probably comes from within — and whoever it is will be walking into Rogers Place with the whole offseason's worth of optimism riding on their first shift.