Canucks Jamie Oleksiak Heads Into The 2026-27 Season Focused On Leading By Example
Jamie Oleksiak signed a two-year contract with the Vancouver Canucks during the 2026 off-season.
Video Transcript
Well, I mean, with Toronto, I think the big question mark is who's going to play with Austin Matthews.
It seems as if they are going to want to maintain some continuity in their top six, which means Matthew Nye is probably playing with John Tavares and William Nylander.
That would give Matthews two new linemates, one of them being Gavin McKenna, which I think makes a lot of sense because he's a playmaker and essentially he's a Mitch Marner type on the left wing, hopefully not the way that Mitch Marner plays in the playoffs.
And Jack Roslovic gets an opportunity to be that top line right winger and Matthews and Roslovic know each other.
If that doesn't work, then I think there'll be some mixing and matching there.
With the team that I cover for the Hockey News, Buffalo, with Tuck leaving, it's a question of who's going to move up into the top line unit with Tage Thompson.
It could be Jack Quinn moving into the top six.
It could be Yuri Kulich moving up on the top line and Thompson moving to the wing.
There's a lot of, again, mixing and matching and moving things around.
And Buffalo, you know, I've quoted that stat before.
They're minus 44 goals going into the, from last season to this season.
And it's a question of whether they can make up those goals and who will make up those goals.
Eric, any teams, any positions in particular that you're watching as camps get started here in the next couple weeks that you think are going to be some intriguing battles to watch?
Yeah, I'm going to look at West and I'm going to look in Minnesota.
Their goaltending situation there is going to be pretty interesting to follow, I think, throughout training camp and throughout the season, really.
I mean, if you look to last year, Philip Gustafson, he started the bulk of the regular season games.
I think he had 50 and it was Walstead had 35.
But that was just mostly because it was Walstead's rookie year and they didn't really want to throw him into the fire.
And also they're paying Gustafson $6.8 million a year.
So he is what you would consider to be the starting goaltender just based on cap hit there.
But, you know, Walstead in the playoffs, though, he took over.
He had played 10 of their 12 games and was pretty much their go-to guy throughout the entire postseason.
And you look at the offseason now, Gustafson had hip surgery.
It's unclear how good he's going to be.
I mean, you look at a team that's trying to figure out a way to sign Quinn Hughes, getting rid of a $6.8 million cap hit is a pretty tantalizing proposition.
So that's going to be something interesting to follow.
And this is a contract year as well for Walstead.
So all eyes are going to be on him.
