UPDATE (1:15pm PST): AV said in his press conference that Ebbett will be called up from Chicago, in order to fill in for the injured Ryan Kesler.

The Canucks have decided to shake up the line-up this morning, putting forward Aaron Volpatti on waivers. If he clears successfully, he will likely head back down to the Chicago Wolves, our AHL affiliate.

At first, this seemed like a strange move. With Andrew Ebbett being sent down last week, and Manny Malhotra being placed on IR, sending Volpatti down leaves us with exactly 12 forwards on the Canucks roster at the moment. Sure, that's enough to play a game or two, but if someone gets hurt (or gets put in AV's doghouse) we suddenly don't have enough players. In comes TSN's Bob McKenzie, with a good explanation of the situation:

That makes a lot more sense. Steve Pinizzotto has been plagued with injuries for the last couple years. First, he missed the 2011-2012 season with shoulder surgery, then he had a groin injury this past November and missed the Canucks 2013 "training camp". However, Bob McKenzie just tweeted again while I was typing, saying the following:

Well, there goes that idea of throwing Pinizzotto right into the Canucks lineup. Makes more sense for him to play a bit with the Wolves first.

Back to the Volpatti saga for a moment. It does make sense that Aaron would get a lot more icetime in Chicago than what he's getting in Vancouver on the bottom lines. However, there's lots of talk on Twitter about how good a waiver claim he would be for another team (I'm seeing lots of Oilers talk). No matter what happens, with Volpatti and Pinizzotto both likely heading down to Chicago, where will our 13th forward come from?

The Vancouver Sun reports that Mike Gillis won't be calling up any other players today. The Canucks don't play until Saturday, so there's plenty of time for him to get things figured out. VS figures that Ebbett is the most likely call-up, having 4 points in 3 games for the Wolves since being sent down the other week.