More Canucks camp cuts: Collin Delia put on waivers, Danny Dekeyser’s tryout ends

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The Canucks are starting to cut away the fat off their roster.

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Tuesday morning, they put depth goalie Collin Delia on waivers, a move to make him eligible to be reassigned to the Abbotsford Canucks, where he’ll be one of three goalies to start the season.

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Arturs Silovs and Michael DiPietro have assigned to AHL Abbotsford, but neither goalie needs to clear waivers to be reassigned to the AHL. That leaves Spencer Martin and Thatcher Demko as the Canucks’ goalies to start the season.

Delia could get claimed by another NHL team, but with most teams at full health and Delia’s long status as a mostly-AHL goalie, it seems unlikely that will happen.

Also put on waivers Tuesday are John Stevens, Noah Juulsen, Brady Keeper and Guillaume Brisebois.

The Canucks also announced Tuesday that Danny De Keyser, who was in camp on a tryout, has been cut. The veteran defenceman had been hoping to win a contract with the Canucks and revive his career, but didn’t show enough and so it seems certain Jack Rathbone will start the year in the NHL.

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Rathbone and De Keyser are both left-shot defencemen and with Travis Dermott‘s status uncertain after sustaining a head injury last week, Rathbone, who has played well in pre-season, looks set to start the season in the NHL for the second year in a row.

Assigned to the AHL along with Silovs and DiPietro are Arshdeep Bains, Wyatt Kalynuk, Danila Klimovich and Will Lockwood.

The Canucks’ trimming of their NHL roster is now in earnest. Monday afternoon they reassigned six players to the AHL training camp — Vincent Arseneau, Marc Gatcomb, Chase Wouters, Matt Alfaro, Michael Regush and Jett Woo — as they  continue to work toward their opening night NHL lineup.

And Monday’s moves came on the heels of three players reassigned Sunday: Alex Kannok Leipert, Quinn Schmiemann and Carson Focht.

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These were all easy cuts, players who will be regulars for the AHL Canucks but are far down the NHL Canucks’ depth chart.

There are still some interesting decisions to come later this week. The Canucks play two more times before the NHL regular season starts: Wednesday in Abbotsford vs. the Edmonton Oilers, then Friday at Rogers Arena vs. the Arizona Coyotes.

Traditionally, you dress close to your full lineup in the final pre-season game, so Wednesday’s game is likely the last chance for any players on the bubble, like Phil Di Giuseppe, Linus Karlsson, Christian Wolanin, and Nils Åman to make their case.

Of course, the injury statuses of Dermott (suspected head injury), Ilya Mikheyev (knee) and Brock Boeser (hand) will play a part, too. Boeser is expected to start the season on injured reserve and it seems likely Mikheyev will too, since he hasn’t skated since being injured in the first game of pre-season nine days ago.

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Dermott’s status is also very unclear, as he hasn’t skated since taking some sort of head knock last week.

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