With opening night only a day away, the Canucks made their final training camp cuts Friday, trimming the roster down to the league maximum 23.

It was simple, really: they just gave the Chicago Wolves their team back.

The Canucks had borrowed 9 members of their AHL affiliate for training camp, not so much to actually give them a shot to make the team, but so they’d have enough guys to stage a scrimmage on Wednesday and Thursday night in anticipation for the real action on Saturday. Friday morning, they sent home 8 of them: Peter “Laser Eyes” Andersson, Darren Archibald, Joe “Debbie Downer” Cannata, Kevin Connauton, Andrew “Escaped mental patient” Gordon, Derek Joslin, Anton Rodin, and Bill Sweatt.

Of course, there was a few notable absences among this group. Jordan Schroeder and Zack Kassian didn’t catch the private jet home.

Schroeder was a surprise. A night after doing what some thought to be the impossible — turning Mason Raymond into an unstoppable scoring machine — it appeared as though Schroeder had done the truly impossible by convincing Alain Vigneault that the Canucks should ice a raw rookie over a trusted veteran in the top-six. Did he make the team?

Like that one movie about racing, the cuts are coming fast and furious. What was that movie again? Oh yeah, Cars.

It was just announced that forward Mark Mancari and defenceman Ryan Parent were waived today. Both will need to clear waivers in order to report to the Chicago Wolves. While neither cut was unexpected given their performance during the preseason, both players have the potential to play in the NHL and they have to be disappointed.

The Canucks made another round of cuts this afternoon, sending Mike Duco, Eddie Lack, Yann Sauve, and Jordan Schroeder to Chicago, Nicklas Jensen to his junior club in Oshawa, and releasing Todd Fedoruk and Anders Eriksson outright. While there is still one final round of trimming to go, as a number of players that will need to clear waivers remain with the team (Mancari, Parent and/or Sulzer), today’s cuts were, in effect, the final round, giving us a fairly clear indication as to who will be in the lineup on opening night.

As we have been throughout this process, PITB is here to break down the moves.

The Canucks closed out a cut-heavy Sunday night by losing four more members of the training camp roster, assigning Matt Climie and Antoine Roussel to the Wolves, and reassigning both Owen Nolan and Niko Dimitrakos from their tryout contracts. Once again, PITB is here to break down the moves, although if these four need any explanation, it’s possible you won’t even comprehend the one I provide.

In what’s turning out to be a very busy day, the Canucks have pared another five guys from the training camp roster. Along with the already-discussed cuts of Kevin Connauton and Steve Begin, Steven Anthony, Darren Archibald, Sebastian Erixon, Yann Sauve and Bill Sweatt have all been assigned to Chicago. What did these guys do wrong?

Not much, really. All have plenty of raw talent and — with the exception of Steven Anthony — could potentially be callups for the Canucks this year. But on a team this deep, it was going to take truly terrific performances to give the Canucks’ coaching staff pause, and at this point, none of these guys had it in them.

The Canucks have trimmed the training cam roster yet again this morning, reassigning defenceman Kevin Connauton to the Chicago Wolves and releasing forward Steve Begin outright. As usual, PITB is here to break down the cuts, and as usual, these ones are pretty easy to explain.

The Canucks trimmed their training camp roster by 11 players today, and as usual, PITB is here to break down every cut. Here’s a detailed look at the factors that led to Frank Corrado, Adam Polasek, Stefan Schneider, Matt Clackson, Nathan Longpre, and Manny Legace getting bounced from the training camp roster.

The Canucks trimmed their training camp roster by 11 players today, and as usual, PITB is here to break down every cut. Here’s a detailed look at the factors that led to Kellan Tochkin, Anton Rodin, Alex Friesen, Prab Rai, and Taylor Ellington getting cut from the training camp roster.

Despite Alain Vigneault’s claims that the next round of cuts wouldn’t come until Friday, the Canucks made two minor reductions today, sending 2011 third round draft pick Alexandre Grenier back to the QMJHL and releasing prospect camp invitee Karel St. Laurent to their AHL affiliate Chicago Wolves. Followers of Grenier on Twitter saw this coming, as he tweeted this morning that he was on his way back to the Halifax Mooseheads.

As always, PITB is here for the explanation. Since we’re not too far into training camp and the preseason just yet, the explanations are not too difficult. Grenier is clearly not ready for the NHL yet and there’s just no room for Karel St. Laurent in Vancouver.

Another minor roster trim this morning, as the Canucks have announced that 18-year-old goaltender David Honzik, their 3rd pick in the 2011 draft, has been reassigned to the Victoriaville Tigres. As usual, when a player is cut, PITB makes effort to explain the decision, and, just like yesterday’s cuts of Sawyer Hannay and Marc Anthony Zanetti, this one’s a no-brainer: Honzik isn’t ready for pro hockey.

On the eve of tomorrow’s split squad games with the Calgary Flames, the Canucks have trimmed their preseason roster by two, sending defensemen Sawyer Hannay back to Halifax and releasing Marc Anthony Zanetti outright. Any time this happens, we at PITB will do our best to explain why these players were cut, and it’s pretty easy this early into training camp. Neither was good enough.