Per Patrik Allvin's latest release, it surely looks like a way to manage the salary cap.
Vasily Podkolzin,
Noah Juulsen,
Aatu Raty and
Christian Wolanin were sent down to Abbotsford. The following annoucement than stated that Podkolzin, Juulsen and Wolanin would remain with the club, but instead of Raty the Canucks ended up calling Phil Di Giuseppe back to the big leagues.