Why It's Time to Give Aatu Räty a Bigger Chance

There is something about Aatu Räty that makes me wonder if the Vancouver Canucks have been asking the wrong question. The easy question is: How many points is Räty going to score this season? The more interesting question is: What happens if the Canucks actually give him a chance to show what he can do?

Räty hasn’t yet looked like a model of production at the NHL level.

His NHL numbers don't exactly scream future offensive star. Räty had four goals and 14 points in 66 games last season. That's not much, and it would be easy to look at those numbers and decide that maybe this is simply the player he is. I'm not quite ready to do that.

Instead, I look at what happened when Räty played in the AHL. He scored 18 goals and 52 points in 72 games in 2023-24, then followed that with 17 goals and 40 points in only 43 games the next season. Those aren't superstar numbers, but they're pretty good numbers.

Then there is Finland. Räty scored 13 goals and 40 points in 41 games with Jukurit. He also had seven points in 10 games at the 2026 World Championship. So somewhere in there is a player who can produce offence.

Have the Canucks actually given Räty enough opportunity to show what he can do?

This is where I think Manny Malhotra has an interesting job ahead of him. If Räty is going to play 11 minutes a night on the fourth line, take a few defensive-zone faceoffs and spend most of his time trying not to make mistakes, then 20 points might be about what we should expect.

But that doesn't necessarily tell us what Räty can become. Maybe he isn't a 40-point NHL player. That's entirely possible. But maybe he is. The only way Vancouver will find out is by giving him some responsibility. Put him in the top nine for a stretch. Give him some power-play time. Let him make a few mistakes. Give him enough ice time that he can actually get into the rhythm of an NHL game.

Could Räty be part of the Canucks’ rebuild?

The Canucks don't need to know today whether Räty will be a star five years from now. They need to gather information. And sometimes the best way to gather that information is to stop protecting a young player from failure.

Räty is going to be an RFA after this season. That's another reason this year matters. If he gets 25 points, Vancouver has one kind of decision to make. If he gets 35 or 40 because he was finally given an opportunity, the conversation suddenly becomes very different.

My view is pretty simple. Don't decide what a young player is before you've given him a real chance to show you what he can be.

Maybe Räty turns out to be a fourth-line centre. But after what he's done in the AHL and internationally, I think the Canucks owe themselves—and Räty—a better experiment than that.