Vancouver Canucks Announce the Departure of Three Players Today, Including Elias Pettersson (D)

Ahead of puck drop for Sunday's game against the Detroit Red Wings, the Vancouver Canucks announced the call-up of Victor Mancini from the AHL amid an injury to Quinn Hughes and Carson Soucy being made a healthy scratch.

On Monday morning, less than 24 hours after their overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings, the Vancouver Canucks announced that they've assigned defensemen Elias Pettersson and Victor Mancini, along with forward Linus Karlsson to the AHL.

Looking into these moves, there's a good chance that part of this is to help the Vancouver Canucks accrue more cap space to use at the NHL's trade deadline, as they've been doing all season long.

If Quinn Hughes and Carson Soucy are both in the Vancouver Canucks lineup tomorrow night, that would leave the club with one defensive scratch against the Colorado Avalanche, most likely Noah Juulsen.

However on forward is where things get tricky as after sending Linus Karlsson down to Abbotsford, the Vancouver Canucks not only have no extra forwards, they only have 11 now on their NHL roster.

It's safe to say that ahead of tomorrow's game against the Colorado Avalanche, Patrik Allvin will call at least one of Victor Mancini or Elias Pettersson back up to the NHL, along with a forward - likely Linus Karlsson, Aatu Raty or Jonathan Lekkerimaki.

Puck drop for tomorrow night's game against Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche is set for 7 pm PT at Rogers Arena and can be viewed in the Vancouver area on Sportsnet Pacific.

It'll be a good test for Rick Tocchet's group as the Colorado Avalanche are a team that they're chasing in the Western Conference Wild Card picture, with the Denver-based club currently seven points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks.