PENTICTON – The Vancouver Canucks are giving fans what they want to see on the opening night of the 2018 Young Stars tournament in Penticton. The club is loading up its top line for the first of two games against the Winnipeg Jets placing uber-prospect Elias Pettersson at centre between fellow Swede Jonathan Dahlen on left wing and former Kelowna Rockets sniper Kole Lind on the right side.

“The mindset there is that we’ve had two guys (Pettersson and Dahlen) who’ve had a past experience with each other, so we wanted to play them there,” said Trent Cull, the head coach of the Utica Comets and the man who’ll be running the Canucks bench tonight. “Lind has had a really good summer. It’s a good line, I think, but I’m excited about the other lines, too. It’s exciting.”

In addition to the top trio, the Canucks will start the game with Adam Gaudette between Petrus Palmu and Zack MacEwen while Tanner MacMaster will centre a third line between Jonah Gadjovich and Lukas Jasek.

On defence, Olli Juolevi is slated to skate with second-year blueliner Jalen Chatfield while Guillaume Brisbois is paired with Penticton native Jagger Dirk, the oldest player on the Canucks Young Stars roster. Dirk is 25 and a former Western Hockey Leaguer who is coming off a four-year Canadian college career at St. Francis Xavier.

It appears Isaac Nurse, Owen Hardy and Kaleb Bulych will be the healthy scratches for tonight’s tournament opener.

Pettersson can’t avoid the questions about his weight here in Penticton. He seemed flustered at one point when peppered with repeated queries about the actual number he weighed in at. Listed at just 161 pounds on the official Young Stars roster, the fifth overall pick in the 2017 National Hockey League draft appears meatier than that. The organization says he’s added 10 pounds to his 6’2” frame over the summer and Pettersson doesn’t believe his weight will be an issue or a hindrance when he hits the ice tonight at the South Okanagan Events Centre. He knows he’ll be under the spotlight to perform, but says he’s excited about the opportunity and believes pressure brings out the best in his game.

“I like challenges,” he said. “When there’s a lot of pressure on me, I get more focused and I want to show I can play good.”

Jonah Gadjovich has declared himself fully healthy after a wrist injury limited him to just 42 games in Owen Sound last season. The big winger, who as part of Canada’s gold medal winning team at last year’s World Juniors, attended the Canucks summer development camp in July at Rogers Arena and took part in on-ice drills. However, on the advice of the club’s medical staff Gadjovich did not suit up for the Summer Showcase game at the risk of further aggravating the nagging injury. He says the wrist is no longer an issue and he’s looking forward to competing in game action tonight.

“I am a hundred percent,” he declared. “It was definitely a tough decision not to participate in that summer game. But it means I can be a hundred percent here so it was definitely worth it.”

Michael DiPietro is decked out in full Canuck colours here in Penticton – mask, gloves and pads. But he says he won’t be wearing the equipment in Windsor this season whenever he is returned to junior hockey. The netminder says he’ll wear his Canuck gear at main camp in Whistler next weekend and then put it on the shelf until he turns professional. He said it was a great experience to have a hand in the design process calling it like Christmas Day when the gear arrived.