On Saturday, the Canucks put in their most lacklustre effort of the season, losing to the Edmonton Oilers in less than 8 minutes. It was a demoralizing loss and, with the trade deadline just a couple days away, many Canucks fans are eager to see Mike Gillis shake things up by making a big move.

On Sunday, the Canucks called up Nicklas Jensen and Bill Sweatt from the Chicago Wolves and sent down Zack Kassian and Andrew Gordon.

It would be a mistake to connect these two days together by anything more than chronology. Fans and media alike were quick to call this a desperation move, but the roster movement doesn’t seem to be sparked by the loss in Edmonton. Instead, it looks like this roster move was caused by something that happened before the game even started.

The Vancouver Canucks have made the first splash in the 2013 pool of college free agents, beating out other Western Conference suitors like the Ducks, Red Wings and Coyotes to sign massive centre Kellan Lain from Lake Superior State University.

Again, that’s Kellan Lain, not to be confused with Kellan Lutz, the actor who played Emmett Cullen in the Twilight movies. Lain is a hockey player. Lutz is an actor. Remember that for now and for always.

But Lain does have some similarities with Lutz’s vampiric alter ego Emmett Cullen. No, he doesn’t sparkle in the sunlight, but he is a big, intimidating figure, at 6’6′, 222 lbs. Plus, while he’s not a vampire, he’s clearly damned in some way. What do you get when you add the 2 + 2 + 2 that make up Lain’s weight? 6, which means his personal stats are three sixes in a row. Is it just a coincidence that Lain’s height and weight are a thinly-veiled number of the beast? Perhaps. But perhaps not.

According to Swedish website Aftonbladet, the Vancouver Canucks have signed their 4th round draft pick from 2011, Ludwig Blomstrand, to a 3-year entry-level contract. The 20-year-old will reportedly be flying to Vancouver either today or Saturday and will likely report to the Chicago Wolves.

Like Nicklas Jensen, Blomstrand’s season in Sweden is done, as his club, Almtuna, failed to make the playoffs in the Allsvenskan. At 6’2″ and 218 lbs, Blomstrand has the size for North American hockey and the defensive ability to get in Alain Vigneault’s good books. He also has an awesome name, which immediately puts him in my good books.

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?

When the lockout ended, the Canucks immediately called up five players from the Chicago Wolves: Andrew Ebbett, Zack Kassian, Chris Tanev, Jordan Schroeder, and Kevin Connauton. That combination certainly makes sense. Four of the five are likely to start the season with the Canucks and Connauton has a chance to make the team out of camp as well.

The move left a large number of Canucks prospects on the Wolves, but it was assumed that with an abbreviated training camp, the team didn’t want to call up prospects when they had such a short time to give them a long look. Instead, it turns out the Canucks were just biding their time. Alain Vigneault announced today that he expects to call up 6 or 7 more players after the Wolves have completed their two-game series against the Abbotsford Heat this weekend.

The timing does make sense: after all, with the Wolves playing in Abbotsford Friday and Saturday, it’s a quick drive down Highway 1 to report to Canucks training camp on Sunday, which is when camp is assumed to be starting. As long as the Port Mann Bridge doesn’t become sentient and try to kill them along the way (which has been happening), it shouldn’t be much of a hassle. The Wolves don’t play again until Wednesday, so these new call-ups will have three days to impress at camp without having to miss a game.

So who might the Canucks call up from the Wolves? Here are the 7 that I think are most likely to make the trip.

Back in December, Sudbury Wolf defender and Canucks’ 5th round draft pick Frank Corrado very nearly made Team Canada. Or, at least, that’s what it looked like. Corrado, something of a surprise invite, was also a surprise standout at the World Junior camp, scoring twice in exhibition while showing his strong defensive play and physicality. People tracking the camp liked what they saw. Corrado looked poised to steal one of the few spots up for grabs on Team Canada’s blueline.

But it seemed that Steve Spott, head coach of Canada’s World Junior squad as well as the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers, saw things differently. Corrado was the first cut of camp — one final surprise for the Canuck prospect. I guess Spott didn’t like Corrado’s game quite as much as the rest of us.

Or maybe Spott just didn’t want to risk Corrado getting hurt before he could help the Kitchener Rangers down the OHL’s playoff stretch. On Tuesday, Corrado was part of a six-player trade that sees him go from Sudbury to Kitchener, where he’ll be playing for Steve Spott after all.

You would be forgiven if you had forgotten Darren Archibald. It’s been two years since the Canucks signed the power forward prospect as a free agent out of the OHL and he had completely disappeared from the spotlight. Archibald didn’t even merit a mention on Hockey’s Future’s list of the Canucks’ 20 best prospects, while he barely snuck in at #19 on Canucks’ Army’s similar list.

Archibald needed a strong 2012-13 for the simple reason that his contract expires after this season. For him, the NHL lockout could not have come at a worse time, as it crowded the Chicago Wolves’ roster, sending him once again to the Kalamazoo Wings of the ECHL.

Now, however, Archibald is back with the Wolves and has found his scoring touch at the AHL level. In just 11 games, Archibald has 6 goals, tying him for third on the team. It’s exactly the kind of hot streak he needed to get the Canucks’ attention and prove that he’s worth the investment of a contract extension.

Not long ago, Frank Corrado would have been a long shot to even get invited to Team Canada’s World Junior selection camp, let alone be in the running for a spot on the squad. A stellar season, as well as a fine showing for Team OHL versus Russia in the Subway Super Series, earned him the invite. After that, he let his play do the talking, scoring twice in exhibition while exhibiting his usual strong defence and physicality.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to earn a spot on a very deep blueline for Canada, as he was the first player cut on Thursday.

Patrick McNally was the Canucks first pick in the 2010 draft, taken in the 4th round because Vancouver traded the three prior picks away for — brace yourselves — Keith Ballard, Steve Bernier, and Andrew Alberts.

McNally was a highly-touted prospect but he dropped to the fourth round because most teams were put off by plans to go to yucky ol’ Harvard. A degree from Harvard may impress, but they aren’t known for churning out NHL ready prospects.

The Canucks, on the other hand, love them some college players and snapped him up at 115th overall, fully comfortable with McNally playing for the Crimson and living the life of a Harvard athlete, which includes developing as a player, furthering himself intellectually, and having an idea for a social networking site stolen by a vengeful tech prodigy.

Unfortunately, McNally doesn’t play for the Crimson anymore. The offensive defenceman was one of four students kicked off the team’s 2012-13 roster for what appears to be his involvement in an academic scandal.

Hungry like the Wolves is an ongoing feature on Pass it to Bulis during the lockout, wherein we keep an eye on the Canucks prospects and property currently playing for the Wolves as it’s the closest thing we’re going to get to Canucks hockey for quite some time.

A few weeks ago, I suggested that Canucks prospect Frank Corrado’s strong performance for the OHL in the Subway Super Series would likely earn him an invitation to Team Canada’s selection camp for the World Junior Championship. A little while after I made that suggestion, I reconsidered: Canada has a particularly strong group of defencemen available for the under-20 tournament, particularly with the ongoing NHL lockout.

Several defencemen had the potential to crack an NHL roster, with Ryan Murray and Dougie Hamilton the two most likely. Morgan Rielly, Ryan Murphy, Scott Harrington, and Xavier Ouellet also had an outside shot of sticking with their NHL teams out of training camp, making them unavailable for the World Junior Championship. With the lockout looking ever more likely to continue through December and into January, all of those players are now available to Team Canada.

That means that Frank Corrado, the Canucks only prospect even being considered for a World Junior team, was and is a long shot to make Team Canada. Heck, he was a long shot to even get invited to camp, despite my overconfident declaration in Mid-November.

But apparently my powers of prognostication are in peak form, as Corrado was one of twelve defencemen named to Team Canada’s selection camp Monday morning.

Coming out of the 2011 NHL entry draft, much of the attention of Canucks fans was directed at the team’s first round pick, Danish winger Nicklas Jensen, and for good reason. Jensen has given every indication that he has all the tools necessary to play in the NHL.

Other picks from that draft caught people’s attention for one reason or another: Alexandre Grenier was a surprise pick in the third round, who didn’t break out until his overage season in Junior. David Honzik was the only goalie drafted by the Canucks in 2011 and seemed to only have one great playoff run to his credit. Joseph Labate was a finalist for the Mr. Hockey Award in Minnesota and his size at 6’4″ certainly caught people’s attention. Even the Canucks’ sixth round selection, Pathrik Westerholm, drew fan’s focus, as one of a pair of Swedish twins.

Flying under the radar a bit, then, was Frank “Frankie” Corrado, a 5’11″ defenceman with a modicum of offensive upside who the Canucks picked in the fifth round. Since the draft, however, Corrado has gone from a late-round project to one of the best defenceman in the OHL, starring for the league in the Subway Super Series against Russia.

When Canucks prospect Alexandre Grenier signed with EC Red Bull Salzberg of the Austrian League back in late May, the Canucks were supportive of the 3rd round pick’s decision, citing the opportunity to play against grown men in Europe as a major benefit.

For Grenier, a late bloomer, the only way he’ll ever earn a full-time NHL job is if he learns to complement his skillset with his 6’5″, 200-pound frame. The trap a lot of larger prospects fall into is they come to view their size as an ability rather than a complementary asset — especially in leagues where their size makes them outliers. Then, when they get to the NHL where everyone’s huge (and Zdeno Chara exists so, really, no one is), they struggle. Grenier is less likely to fall into this trap in Austria where the men are bigger, albeit perhaps not as skilled.

But playing against grown men also has its drawbacks. They hit harder, for instance, a lesson Grenier learned the hard way last Friday.

It is time for the final instalment of our 5-part Development Camp Invitees posts. Part one of the defencemen was posted earlier today. Here are the final four invitees, including an intriguing prospect whose season was cut short by a brutal injury, a behemoth with a great name, and the brother of an NHLer.

The Canucks have cast a wide net in their summer development camp, inviting an astonishing number of undrafted and unsigned players to attend. While the camp is now over, that doesn’t mean that the Canucks relationship with these invitees is likewise over.

Several of the invitees, at least the ones that won’t be heading to college in the fall, are likely to also attend prospect training camp, with an opportunity to make it to main camp and earn a contract. As for the players that are heading to college, they now have a (hopefully) positive experience with the Canucks that may influence who they sign with once they’re done with the NCAA.

I have already introduced you to the goaltenders and the (many) forwards. Now it is time for the defencemen, highlighted by size, size, and more size. Also, a former Oilers’ draft pick with promising offensive upside.

It may be Free Agent Frenzy, but the Canucks’ 2012 prospect development camp is still in full swing. The prospects have gone dragon boating, learned proper nutrition with a cooking class, and, of course, hit the ice for plenty of drills. Yesterday, we looked at 5 of the 11 invitee forwards at the camp. Here are the remaining 6, highlighted by a pair of goalscorers from the NCAA and the WHL.

The Canucks prospect development camp is in full swing and Canucks.com has plenty of coverage, including photo galleries, Frankie Corrado’s blog, and reports from Derek Jory. But they’re mainly focussed on the prospects at camp that are already in the Canucks system, and for good reason. But I want to know about everyone else: the undrafted and unsigned players. The invitees.

There are almost as many invitee forwards at this year’s camp as there were total invitees last year. Are the Canucks casting a wider net and hoping that out of the quantity will come quality? Are any of these undrafted and unsigned prospects future Canucks?

Longtime Bulies will know that my favourite part of prospect camps is looking into the unsigned and undrafted invitees and seeing where they came from. The prospects that are already in the Canucks system are, to a certain extent, known quantities. Thanks to extensive draft coverage in the media, interviews and features on Canucks.com, and the frenetic googling of thousands of fans, we know a decent amount about each of them.

There is a mystery, however, surrounding camp invitees that makes them extremely interesting to me. While NHL scouting is excellent, plenty of players have made it to the NHL without being drafted, with Alex Burrows being a well-known example to Canucks fans. Maybe, just maybe, one of these invitees slipped through the cracks and is a diamond in the rough, just waiting to be shaped into a beautiful jewel.

Yesterday, NHL hopefuls from around the world (aka. North America and Sweden) arrived in Vancouver to take part in the Canucks’ annual prospect development camp. A total of 35 prospects are expected to attend the camp that runs from today, June 28th, until July 1st. As in previous years, the camp will include dragon boating at False Creek and a race up the Grouse Grind.

Thomas Drance is in Pittsburgh covering the NHL entry draft for Pass it to Bulis. We told him that if he doesn’t get us at least one sexy scoop, he will be whipped when he returns, so he’s doing it journal-style, touching on a bunch of topics really quickly in the hopes that something he files will appease our irrational demands and spare him a flogging.

After making a safe pick in the first round with International Scouting Services top-ranked centre Brendan Gaunce, the Canucks went off the board with their second round pick, taking 20-year-old winger Alexandre Mallet from the Rimouski Océanic. Mallet wasn’t on anyone’s draft rankings because of his age and he had already passed through the draft twice.

The Canucks didn’t pick again until the fifth round and took 19-year-old defenceman Ben Hutton, who had passed through the draft once already and was ranked 200th among North American skaters by Central Scouting. Then, in the sixth round, they picked another 19-year-old, BCHL centre Wesley Myron, who was also in his second year of eligibility. Finally, in the seventh round, they picked one more 19-year-old, Matthew Beattie, who was actually ranked 108th among North American skaters by Central Scouting.

Picking older players in the draft is frequently frowned upon, as they usually passed through the draft for a reason, but such players might also be ready to contribute in the NHL sooner than a 17 or 18-year-old. The Canucks have picked several older players under Gillis, including Alexandre Grenier, Henrik Tommernes, and Alex Friesen. While there is plenty of risk in picking players who haven’t stood out until they are older than much of their competition, there is also the potential for finding a market inefficiency, as other teams tend to overlook such players.

Thomas Drance is in Pittsburgh covering the NHL entry draft for Pass it to Bulis. We told him that if he doesn’t get us at least one sexy scoop, he will be whipped when he returns, so he’s doing it journal-style, touching on a bunch of topics really quickly in the hopes that something he files will appease our irrational demands and spare him a flogging.

With the 26th overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft, the Vancouver Canucks selected Belleville Bulls centre Brendan Gaunce, leading to a frenzy of googling, as Canucks fans tried to decide for themselves whether Mike Gillis should have a statue built in his honour or whether he should be fired. In a kiln.

The answer, of course, is somewhere in between, though preferably further away from the kiln option. Gaunce was a safe pick, a power forward type who was high on nearly every scout’s pre-draft rankings, but it’s impossible to say whether he’ll be a future Hall-of-Famer or an ECHL-bound bust or somewhere in-between. What we can do is try to figure out just who Brendan Gaunce is and why he was picked in the first round by the Canucks.

Crazy as it may seem, the 2012 NHL Draft is just one week away. On June 22nd in Pittsburgh, the league’s GMs will gather at the Consol Energy Center and attempt to shape the future of their franchises. For teams at the bottom of the standings, the excitement level is high, as names like Nail Yakupov, Mikhail Grigorenko, and Ryan Murray have been on everyone’s lips for months now.

For a team like the Canucks, it’s a little bit harder to get excited, as they won’t be picking until 26th overall in the first round, where the names and faces are little less familiar to the average hockey fan. In order to combat that insouciance, I want to introduce you to a few of the prospects that are expected to be available for the 26th pick by looking at the various rankings and mock drafts that have been produced by those in the know.

While the internet has been awash in Roberto Luongo trade rumours, the only real Canucks news has come from their prospect pool. Mike Gillis signed one prospect, saw another head to Europe, and declined to offer a contract to two more. So what are these moves and what do they say about the Canucks’ prospect pool?