Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Raymond to play first game since breaking back, but for real this time

Mason Raymond

On Thursday, PHT reported that Canucks winger Mason Raymond would rejoin the Vancouver lineup to face Nashville, his first action since breaking his back in the Stanley Cup final.

The report was right -- Raymond was supposed to rejoin the team. The execution, though, was lacking.

The Canucks missed the deadline to file paperwork re-activating Raymond, meaning Aaron Volpatti drew in against the Predators (and in a weird twist, it would be Volpatti’s last game. Vancouver announced Friday he’d be out for the year with a torn labrum in his shoulder.)

“It was an oversight,” Canuck assistant general manager Laurence Gilman told the Vancouver Sun. “We thought the paperwork had been filed but it hadn’t, and by the time we realized it it was five minutes too late. We’re not happy about it. But at the end of the day, it’s a mistake that forces one player to wait another couple of days to play his first game in five months. There have been a lot worse mistakes in this league.”

Head coach Alain Vigneault said Raymond was “real disappointed” with the situation but, in another weird twist, the snafu could end up working in Raymond’s favor. Rather than debut against the Predators, he’ll open his campaign against the Flames, a team he’s had great success against in the past. He had 3G-4A-7PTS in six games last season, including a hat-trick in a 7-2 win last December.