Vancouver’s slow start to the season has had many speculate about the possibility that the team could move mainstays Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin but team president Trevor Linden poured cold water on that. Speaking with ESPN’s Craig Custance (Insider subscription required), Linden indicated that dealing the twins is not an option for the team:
“It’s not a consideration. These guys are too important to our organization, as people. Unless they walk in my door and say, ‘Hey trade us,’ that’s never going to happen.”
The Sedins have been with Vancouver since being drafted second and third overall back in 1999. The duo sit first and second in games played, assists, and points in franchise history (and are first and second in team scoring this season as well). Henrik has 980 points in 1,182 career games while Daniel checks in with 951 points in 1,159 contests.
However, the Canucks find themselves in a tough spot at the moment. While they would like to contend in the short-term, that seems unlikely to happen based on their roster and in a lot of those situations, teams will sell their veteran assets and rebuild, something that Vancouver has been hesitant to do recently.
Further presenting a challenge to the Canucks here on top of the fact that the Sedins have been the faces of the franchise for many years is their contract situation. Both players are making $7MM through 2017-18 and have full no-move clauses. They’ve also been a package deal in the past, meaning that if a team wants one of them, they’d have to trade for both. In the salary cap era where many teams have limited space, finding $14MM in payroll room would be a significant challenge for any team. Linden himself acknowledged that finances would make any potential trade quite difficult:
“I don’t know any team that can take $14 million, for starters. It’s pretty unrealistic.”
Could the Sedins at some point ask for a move in the hopes of taking one last run at a Stanley Cup? Anything’s a possibility but it doesn’t seem likely at this point which means that the twins can continue to pad their numbers atop the Canucks record books for the foreseeable future.
[Related: Canucks Depth Chart]
Trade them to Las Vegas.