Sammy Blais had three hits on one shift during a pre-season outing Wednesday in Abbotsford, but an inability to maintain pace and pursuit was a problem
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Sammy Blais had his training-camp moments, but just not enough of them.
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The veteran left winger accepted a professional tryout (PTO) from the Vancouver Canucks, but faced long odds to stick as a fourth-line grinder. Blais, 28, did have three hits on one shift during a pre-season outing on Wednesday in Abbotsford, but an inability to maintain pace and pursuit was pointed out by head coach Rick Tocchet.
And fitness simply can’t be an issue with any player on a club where ramping up the attack is a priority this season for the defending Pacific Division champions.
Moving the meter in a chippy pre-season opener against the Seattle Kraken at Rogers Arena on Sept. 24 should have played to Blais’ strengths as a 6-foot-2, 206 pound, sixth-round pick of the St. Louis Blues in 2014. He logged 53 gams with the Blues last season and 257 in his career.
However, when the Canucks prevailed 3-1 against the Kraken, the post-game talk was about Aatu Raty’s presence and rookie Vilmer Alriksson’s pugnacious. Blais was a footnote.
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After a quiet first period, Blais started strong in the second. He finished an offensive-zone check on hulking Jamie Oleksiak in the cornerboards and then blocked Oleksiak’s point shot before carrying the puck through the neutral zone and making sure it got deep. Was that enough? Probably not.
Blais came here on a recommendation from former Blues coach Craig Berube, a close confidant of Tocchet. If anything, PTO invites usually help to push established or promising roster players. That didn’t happen.
“Sammy is a real interesting guy,” Tocchet said following the pre-season opener. “I really want him to fight for a position and he’s got to elevate his fitness so he can be a little faster every shift. But we’re going to give him a chance. We need him to be that heavy, forechecking guy.”
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At Abbotsford, Blais played his second pre-season game in as many nights and threw two heavy cornerboards hits and one along the endboards during an opening-period shift. Fatigue was expected to be a factor, and to his credit, the winger did what had been asked to be a forechecker who gets noticed for the right reasons.
The Canucks did enough to top the Calgary Flames 4-3 in overtime, but Blais didn’t do enough often enough in three games.
bkuzma@postmedia.com
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