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The Canucks have won two of six games, both of them 1-0, the first one in 3-on-3 overtime. Pretty toothless, so far.

“I think we’re looking for individual performances,” GM Jim Benning admitted. “You know, San Jose had a pretty veteran lineup (Tuesday) and our guys held their own. They stuck up for one another and battled back and got the momentum back in the game. And those are the things we’re looking at, especially from our young players, trying to show what they can do.”

So, throw out the results?

“Well, no, I’d like to win every game. I know we haven’t scored a lot in the pre-season, but I think we were the second highest-scoring team in the West last year, and we have 10 of our top 12 scorers back — losing Bonino but adding Sutter — so once we get our full lineup together, I feel confident we’ll be able to score.”

What they suspect up to now is that defenceman Ben Hutton and forwards Jared McCann and Jake Virtanen and Brendan Gaunce may have what it takes. What they can take to the bank is less certain.

“Any time, even back when I was in Dallas, you go to training camp and you always think, ‘Is there one (rookie) here who’s going to make it?’ You don’t know who it is, but really you’re hoping for it,” Gulutzan said.

“We’re down to the nitty-gritty now, because we’re balancing the fact that we need to get our lineup in for the last, especially the last game. There’s lot of guys that have played themselves into a position to play another game, so now decisions get real tough. There’s lots of discussion going on right now in our coaches’ office with the GM.”