VANCOUVER — Vancouver Canucks president Jim Rutherford stated at the end of last season that he wanted to upgrade the team’s depth at centre.

Facing one of the hottest teams in the NHL in the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night, Vancouver deployed David Kampf, Aatu Raty, Max Sasson and Drew O’Connor down the middle.

Top centre Elias Pettersson left warmup and was scratched with an upper-body injury from what would have been his 500th career NHL game.

Kampf played just his ninth game in a Vancouver uniform, and on the team’s top line with Brock Boeser and Conor Garland, three weeks after the Toronto Maple Leafs terminated Kampf’s contract.

Raty and Sasson were both part of the Abbotsford Canucks’ run to the AHL’s Calder Cup last spring. O’Connor plays primarily as a winger.

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