VANCOUVER – Unlike the Los Angeles Kings, the Vancouver Canucks don’t know when their missing player will return.
One day after the National Hockey League suspended Tanner Jeannot for three games for his headshot on Canucks star Brock Boeser, Vancouver general manager Patrik Allvin told reporters Saturday morning that there is no timeline for the return of the team’s leading goal-scorer.
Boeser appeared to suffer a concussion when he was hit high and late by Jeannot in the first period of the Canucks’ 4-2 road win against the Kings on Thursday. Boeser had passed the puck to a teammate a second before Jeannot blindsided him in the neutral zone with a shoulder to the chin.
“I don't have an updated timeline,” Allvin said. “He's getting evaluated with an upper-body injury.”
With the injury to their best winger, and the giveaway Friday of Daniel Sprong to the Seattle Kraken, the Canucks have recalled forwards Arshdeep Bains and Nils Aman from the American Hockey League to play in Saturday night’s marquee showdown against Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers.
Vancouver winger Dakota Joshua, who underwent surgery for testicular cancer in early September, may be ready to return on Tuesday against the Calgary Flames, Allvin said.
A 40-goal scorer last season who is in the final year of his contract, Boeser scored six times in the first 11 games this season before he was injured.
In his absence, Canucks coach Rick Tocchet is remaking his top two lines for tonight’s game.
Winger Nils Hoglander moves into the top six and will play with Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk, who returns to Pettersson’s wing on a three-game goal-scoring streak after spending most of the season’s first month alongside top centre J.T. Miller.
Miller skated Saturday morning between Pius Suter and Conor Garland, the wingers who had been partnering with Pettersson.
The Danton Heinen-Teddy Blueger-Kiefer Sherwood third line is unchanged, and the new fourth line has Aatu Raty between Aman and Bains. These last three players are all products of the Canucks’ player-development department, and key reasons why Sprong, 27, was traded Friday to Seattle for future considerations.
“We said all along that we want to create internal competitions, and the coaching staff felt that we had players fit the style of how Rick wanted to play more in-house,” Allvin explained. “I believe that Daniel deserved a chance higher up in the lineup and it didn't work out. So when this came up, I thought it was a good opportunity for Daniel to move on. We're thankful and wish him all the best.”
Bounced around -- and out of -- the Canucks lineup, Sprong had one goal and two assists in nine games after signing a one-year, $975,000 free-agent contract to play in Vancouver.
Allvin said elite Canucks prospect Jonathan Lekkerimaki, who has five goals in seven games as an AHL rookie, would have been a candidate to be called up to the NHL but has tweaked an injury.
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