It makes sense that the Vancouver Canucks will make significant acquisitions at the NHL trade deadline.
This team has had an incredible first half of play, with a great deal of success. Currently, this is a winning roster with many players enjoying multiple career years at the same time. Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford will need to carefully consider any subtractions given the camaraderie and constant level of effort displayed by Vancouver’s current players.
As a result, many Canucks players are considered untouchables prior to the March 8 deadline.
But with the NHL’s merciless hard cap system, it’s hard to add players, especially big-name players, to your lineup without also deducting from it if you’re a team like the Canucks that has spent to the cap (or is exceeding it, with additional salary in long-term injured reserve). In the modern NHL, it’s all about money in and money out.
We thought it would be best to perform an inventory of Canucks players and trade assets based on a combination of analysis, reporting, and well-informed speculation — which we drop every year right before the NHL’s annual rumor mill — as Canucks management gets ready to go big-game hunting ahead of the deadline.
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Staying still unless Tyler Myers (m-NTC — UFA this summer, $6 million cap hit) has a blockbuster film.
Myers has assembled a very impressive comeback campaign.
His overall play has become much more polished, consistent, and physical, with far fewer loud mistakes. Myers’s five-on-five underlying profile has significantly improved from 2022–23, and he is making better positional reads defensively and wiser decisions on the break.
Most importantly, over the past few weeks, Myers has re-established himself as the Canucks’ third most frequently used defender at five-on-five. He’s a critical part of this team and Vancouver will look to keep him for the playoffs, which is the overwhelmingly likely scenario.
But the purpose of this tier is to show how close the Canucks are to the salary cap. They will therefore probably need to create cap space by making several high-profile roster cuts if they choose to add a player like Chris Tanev to improve their blue line and make a separate top-six forward acquisition. Although it’s extremely unlikely, Myers, a veteran defender with size and an expiring $6 million cap hit, might be a deal chip in an effort to make that kind of situation work.
Conor Garland (cap hit of $4.95 million, three years left)
This season, Vancouver’s strongest and most reliable forward trio has consisted of Garland as their main player.
Although Garland has occasionally gone through some brutal finishing luck over the year, his playmaking and play-driving ability has been standout. He’s poised to be a real X-factor heading into the postseason.
While the Canucks would surely be reluctant to mess with such an essential depth forward, it’s worth remembering that Garland had been on the trade block going into this season for years since new management took over. Though the reporting around his “preseason trade request” was overblown, both the team and player went into the season with an understanding they might work together to facilitate a move at some point.
Now, given the team’s success and Garland’s outsized contributions to it, the arithmetic has changed significantly. Garland wants to stay, his contributions are essential, the Canucks would be worse off without him and we don’t expect him to move.
That said, we can’t ignore the relatively recent history here in looking over Vancouver’s options to clear cap space at the deadline, particularly if the team decides to chase multiple big salaried upgrades up front and on the back end.
Nikita Zadorov (cap hit of $3.75 million, UFA this summer)
Overall, Zadorov has been a great player for the Canucks since being acquired from the Calgary Flames in early December, despite the fact that his role in the lineup was somewhat reduced the week before the All-Star break due to a blown assignment on a 3-1 goal in Vancouver’s overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues.
The hulking, left-handed blueliner has brought a needed physical edge to the Vancouver lineup, performed solidly as a defensive piece and added a sneaky puck-moving element from the back end that has given Vancouver’s breakout some additional push. He’s a really good player and will give the team a size advantage in just about every presumptive playoff matchup they could encounter. You’d expect the Canucks to be very reluctant to mess with that.
However, the focus of this section is on alternatives they might take into account if they had to push a huge blockbuster over the edge. When evaluating Zadorov, it’s important to keep in mind that the Canucks have a bit of an excess of left-handed defenders when Quinn Hughes, Carson Soucy, and Ian Cole are all healthy. Additionally, head coach Rick Tocchet has made it clear that he prefers to play defensemen on their strong side.
Additionally, Zadorov is a pending unrestricted free agent, and given their myriad of offseason priorities — beginning with Elias Pettersson and Filip Hronek — they may not be able to afford to retain Zadorov beyond this upcoming playoff run. Could that be a consideration for Canucks management if the option to add a right-handed blue-line upgrade presents itself before March 8?
It’s worth noting that it wouldn’t be entirely unheard of for a Rutherford-led team to acquire and also trade the same player in the same season. In the fall of 2018, Rutherford’s Pittsburgh Penguins acquired former Canucks forward Tanner Pearson before sending him to Vancouver just a few months later for Erik Gudbranson. It’s perhaps instructive to note as well that Gudbranson was then dealt again by the Penguins just eight months later.
Jonathan Lekkerimäki (ELC $950k cap hit with $475k in potential bonuses) and Tom Willander (unsigned)
The Canucks look poised for an aggressive deadline, but they won’t be desperate or reckless, especially with Rutherford recently signing a new extension.
The club won’t consider moving Lekkerimäki or Willander for a pure rental. Vancouver is pleased with both players’ development and sees them as a big part of its future.
The only scenario in which this would potentially change is if the Canucks end up making a blockbuster trade for a star player with term left on a team-friendly contract, like, for example, Philadelphia Flyers star Travis Konecny (who by all indications isn’t available).
Even if the Canucks are exceedingly aggressive, it would take an absolute whopper deal to be worth parting with either prospect. Lekkerimäki and Willander will very likely be Canucks prospects on the other side of this trade deadline.
