Vancouver Canucks facing difficult decision ahead of Wednesday's Olympic roster freeze

We're officially in February and for the first time since 2014, the National Hockey League will be sending their players to the Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina, Italy, with several members of the Vancouver Canucks heading overseas later this week to represent their nations, including Elias Pettersson (Sweden) and Filip Hronek (Czechia).

With NHLers returning to the Winter Olympics, the league will be pausing from Friday, February 6th to Tuesday, February 24th, before resuming play the following day and during the break, there are limitations on roster moves which is leaving Patrik Allvin with some tough decisions to make.

Several details for the NHL's Olympic roster freeze were revealed last week by PuckPedia and it's going to directly affect the Vancouver Canucks and who they'll be able to send down to the American Hockey League for the break.

Players who are exempt from the NHL's waiver wire can be sent down to the American Hockey League unless they've played 16 of their team's last 20 games or if they've been on their team's roster for 80 days prior to Wednesday, January 21st.

According to Canucks News Summaries on X, the Vancouver Canucks are able to send Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Victor Mancini down to the American Hockey League's Abbotsford Canucks after 12 p.m. PT on Wednesday, while Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren, Tom Willander and Elias Pettersson (the defenseman) are ineligible to be sent down after the freeze goes into effect.

With the Vancouver Canucks set to take on the Golden Knights on Wednesday night after the NHL's Olympic roster freeze goes into effect, one potential scenario we could see, depending on the health of others on the team, is that Tom Willander could be sent down to the AHL on Tuesday or Wednesday morning and then after the game in Vegas, Lekkerimaki and Mancini make their way down to Abbotsford.

There's a lot of question that still need to be answered and at this moment, the Canucks management are likely trying to work things out on who to send down to Abbotsford to play during the Olympic break.

Seven of Abbotsford's eight games in February fall during the NHL's Olympic break, so it would give players like Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Tom Willander and Victor Mancini to get some meaningful minutes and to work on their game before the Canucks return to action on February 25th against the Winnipeg Jets.

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