Vancouver Canucks Say Goodbye to Top Prospect Jonathan Lekkerimaki in Sudden Announcement

Over the weekend, the Vancouver Canucks announced the call-up of Max Sasson in time for their game against the Anaheim Ducks due to injury issues to their NHL roster.

The next day, Rick Tocchet's group hosted the Vegas Golden Knights for the second half of a back-to-back and got some big news with the return of Nils Hoglander from injury and the odd man out for that game ended up being 2022 first-round pick Jonathan Lekkerimaki.

On Tuesday morning, the Vancouver Canucks announced on social media that General Manager Patrik Allvin has sent forward Jonathan Lekkerimaki to the American Hockey League's Abbotsford Canucks.

The decision to assign Jonathan Lekkerimaki is absolutely the right call given the situation Vancouver is in right now and with the Abbotsford Canucks making a push for the AHL's Pacific Division title.

Having Jonathan Lekkerimaki, who's in his first season of professional hockey in North America, sit in the press box in the NHL isn't going to help his development whatsoever, so allowing him to go down to the minors, play top-six minutes with Abbotsford and be apart of their playoff run will help him immensely heading into 2025-26.

There's no question that Lekkerimaki will be given ample opportunity this fall to make the Vancouver Canucks out of training camp and he can boost those odds by having a strong showing in the Calder Cup Playoffs.

In 24 games this season in Vancouver, Lekkerimaki has six points (three goals, three assists) and 28 points (19 goals, nine assists) in 32 games with Abbotsford.

The Tullinge, Sweden native will look to help Abbotsford extend their winning streak to 14 games on Friday night as they host the Calgary Wranglers at 7 pm PT.