VANCOUVER -- The Vancouver Canucks returned centre Cody Hodgson to the Brampton Battalion of the Ontario Hockey League on Tuesday, putting on ice the former first-round draft pick's hopes of starting the season with the NHL club.
There were high hopes that Hodgson, the Canadian Hockey League's top player last year, would earn a spot with the Canucks.
However, the 19-year-old from Markham, Ont. suffered a bulging disc during summer training, an injury which kept him out of any contact drills for the first part of training camp. Once healthy, Hodgson failed to impress with his play.
Canucks GM Mike Gillis was blunt in his assessment when he spoke with Vancouver's Team 1040 Sports Radio.
"If he stays here, he takes up a roster spot and if we really think we're a competitive team, we need guys that are ready to compete at this level," Gillis said. "And you don't get through the season without injuries and we can't afford to have guys that can't compete and help us win. It's that simple."
Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault was equally candid in his evaluation of Hodgson.
"He just wasn't ready. We really believe that this young man has a tremendous amount of upside but at the end of the day he didn't show any signs that he was ready to play at this level," said Vigneault. "This is the National Hockey League. It's the best league in the world and before camp started, we said to our group of players that the players that deserve to be here and play themselves on this team are going to be here, and we feel that the players that we have kept around are deserving of that."
The Canucks picked Hodgson with the 10th overall selection in the 2008 draft. He is too young to play in the American Hockey League until the season is over for his junior team.
Hodgson had 92 points (43 goals, 49 assists) in 53 regular season games with Brampton last year. He added 31 points in the playoffs as Brampton advanced to the OHL final.
When his junior season was over, Hodgson joined the Manitoba Moose, Vancouver's AHL farm team, and had four points (2-2) as Manitoba lost in the Calder Cup final.
Hodgson also was part of the Canadian team that won the gold medal at the world junior championship. He led the tournament with 16 points (5-11) in six games.
Gillis was quick to point out that the organization was not unhappy with Hodgson but that he needed work in certain areas of his game.
"We're not disappointed at all in Cody. He's a great young guy and we know that he'll work very hard at overcoming the deficiencies that he has," Gillis told Team 1040. "For him to be an effective player in this league he has to be in a top-six offensive role and to do that, there's some things he needs to work on.
"Conditioning is the basis of it, and then we need to work with him on some stride issues and some strength issues. But he's a young guy," said Gillis. "He's 19 years old and I think when we get those things addressed, I think he's going to be quick enough to play in this league and I think he's going to be a top player."
Vigneault acknowledged that Hodgson was somewhat distraught that he hadn't made the team, but the bench boss was optimistic about the future for Hodgson.
"Like any player when you tell them that they didn't make the team, obviously he was disappointed," Vigneault said. "After analyzing it and talking about it, we felt that the best thing for him was to go back to junior for his team and we're going to have a plan for him as far as his development and we're confident that we're going to have a better player next year."