The Vancouver Canucks' prospects will be back in action Sunday afternoon in Penticton, facing the Winnipeg Jets' prospects at the 2024 Young Stars Classic.
The Canucks put on a clinic in their first game of the tournament, with the first line of Arshdeep Bains, Aatu Räty, and Jonathan Lekkerimäki dominating puck possession against a younger, greener Edmonton Oilers side. The Jets, however, will have a little bit more experience in their lineup, along with some top prospects like first-round picks Colby Barlow, Brad Lambert, and Brayden Yager.
With that in mind, the Jets should provide a tougher test for the Canucks' prospects and it will be interesting to see how young prospects like Lekkerimäki, Elias Pettersson, and Kirill Kudryavtsev will respond.
For those not in Penticton, the game will once again be streamed on the Canucks website. The game starts at 2:00 pm PDT.
Vancouver Canucks projected lines
The Canucks changed up their forward lines and defence pairings a little after Friday's game, with drafted defencemen Sawyer Mynio and Basile Sansonnens drawing into the lineup at Saturday's practice and Anthony Romani getting bumped up to the second line with Max Sasson and Riley Patterson.
Those lines changed by the time of the Canucks' warmup, however, as invitee Joe Arntsen and drafted defenceman Parker Alcos were the third pairing instead of Sansonnens and Akito Hirose:
Ty Young will be the starting goaltender after a strong season with the Prince George Cougars in the WHL. It's up in the air whether he'll return to the Cougars for his over-age season but, given the potential logjam in net with the Abbotsford Canucks in the AHL, it seems likely that he will.
Mynio is coming off a very good draft+1 season in the WHL and could be one to watch in this game. He'll play with college free agent signing Christian Felton, who had the Canucks' second goal on Friday.
Max Sasson had the game-winning goal against the Oilers on Friday with an assist to Hirose, though Vilmer Alriksson also played a key role in the goal by tying up the pinching defenceman to create the 2-on-1.
Winnipeg Jets projected lines
The Jets are expected to start 6'3" Domenic DiVincentiis in net after Thomas Milic earned them the win on Friday against the Calgary Flames. The Jets got scoring from multiple lines in that 4-3 overtime win, with Nikita Chibrikov, Connor Levis, Jacob Julien, and Dmitry Kuzmin recording the goals.
Here are the Jets' projected lines, courtesy of team reporter Jamie Thomas:
Kevin He - Brad Lambert - Ben King
Colby Barlow - Brayden Yager - Nikita Chibrikov
Markus Loponen - Jacob Julien - Luke Mistelbacher
Carson Golder - Kieran Walton - Mark Liwiski
Dmitry Kuzmin - Elias Salomonsson
Ben Zloty - Dawson Barteaux
Dylan Anhorn - Hunter Mayo
Domenic DiVincentiis
Thomas Milic
Young Stars Classic schedule
Here's the complete schedule of games for the weekend:
Friday, September 13
Game 1: Calgary vs Winnipeg at 4:00pm PT
Game 2: Vancouver vs Edmonton at 7:30pm PT
Saturday, September 14
Exhibition: Penticton Vees vs Salmon Arm at 3:00pm PT
Game 3: Calgary vs Edmonton at 7:30pm PT
Sunday, September 15
Game 4: Vancouver vs Winnipeg at 2:00pm PT
Monday, September 16
Game 5: Winnipeg vs Edmonton at 11:00am PT
Game 6: Calgary vs Vancouver at 2:30pm PT
