In a new report from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the insider shares that the Vancouver Canucks have begun listening to offers on ’veteran players’. Friedman indicated that this includes players who are pending unrestricted free agents, as well as a handful with two or more years left on their contracts.
Friedman’s report states that the Canucks have zero interest in a full-scale rebuild, although they are considering a retooling effort to become a younger team. Instead of theorizing on a few names that could get moved, Friedman only noted the two that Vancouver has no interest in parting with: Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek.
If the Canucks enter the deadline season as sellers, they haven’t made it particularly easy on themselves. 10 out of the 23 players on the active roster have sizeable trade protection on their contracts, while two more (Conor Garland & Thatcher Demko) will be getting no-movement clauses next season as a part of their recent extensions.
Arguably, the most tradeable asset the team has is winger Kiefer Sherwood. Signed to a modest $1.5MM salary this season before becoming an unrestricted free agent, Sherwood has styled himself as an ideal playoff performer. Over the last two years with Vancouver, Sherwood has scored 31 goals and 56 points in 101 games, averaging 15:32 of ice time per game, while also delivering a whopping 560 hits.
Similar to Sherwood, Evander Kane, who’s in his first year with the club, could also have interest from contending teams. The former fourth-overall pick recently went to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals with the Edmonton Oilers, scoring 10 goals and 20 points in 41 games, delivering 159 hits. Unlike Sherwood, Kane is earning a higher salary of $5.125MM for the remainder of the season and can block trades to up to 16 different teams.
Assuming Vancouver doesn’t attempt to move anyone with a no-movement clause and hold to their desire to retain Hughes and Hronek, there aren’t many veterans with multiple years left on their contracts to move. In fact, bottom-six forward Drew O’Connor is one of the few to fit this criteria who the Canucks could conceivably receive positive value for on the trade market.
It’s the cost of doing business, but there’s no questioning that the duo of Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford have put themselves in a bind, at least for the 2025-26 campaign, with the amount of no-movement clauses they have handed out over the years. Vancouver has a few pieces they could trade away for younger talent, though it doesn’t seem like enough to move the needle in any meaningful fashion.
What a cluster this team is. I’m glad Pittsburgh got the good Rutherford because these results are bad. On here a couple years ago when they were winning, I said this team would have a let down the next year. I got blasted for it. Now this team is a dumpster fire. Guess it was worse than even I thought.
Six mildly connected sentences, all to subtly pat yourself on the back? Would’ve been more efficient to just call your cat over to you and have her rub up against you.
It seems like two thoughts with a small connection in the middle. I got it.
Also the cat thing was funny.
Call it what you want but this team sucks and no one wanted to believe me.
Poor Vancouver. They deserve better than JR
“a retooling effort to become a younger team.” This confuses me – not as a general concept but looking at their roster they don’t strike me as an old team. Among the forwards those 30 or above are Kane (34), Blueger (31), Sherwood (30), Kampf (30) and MacEachern (31). You won’t get arguments from me on dumping Kane but that’s not an old group and they literally brought a number of those guys in this year / month. Same on D with only Myers (35) and Forbort (33) over 30. Doing some googling it looks like they’re around 24/32 for the youngest teams in the league. This management group just seems to lack any clear direction.
@Jaxteller — The Hockey-Reference page shows them as 20th oldest, or 13th youngest. The difference between the youngest (Habs) and the Canucks is a whopping 2.4 years. They need to get better, but like most teams, it could happen with more meaningful practice time, which hasn’t been available, thanks to the compressed schedule.
If Kiefer Sherwood is the best trade-chip they can dangle, that is a bad sign! VAN has a ton of middling veterans signed to chunky deals that I don’t picture many teams taking on without sweeteners.
Well, it’s Black Week isn’t it? Everything must go!
@Gunny76 — I think I saw an ad on their site — “5% off ALL veterans! Hurry in, quantities are limited!” 😄
The confusing thing isn’t trying to get younger, It’s that the only players anyone would want are the ones it says they won’t trade so the point of the article is what exactly? Nobody wants Kane and his baggage and as for the rest it’s waiver material. Gee Vancouver wants to trade all their trash for draft picks, What team doesn’t exactly? News at 11.
Yeah. Hey, folks, Boston will give you Korpisalo, Jeannot and Peake for a first, a second and a third rounder!
… so why is the phone not ringing off the hook?
@Nha Trang — I think they received a message like this: “I’m sorry, the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. If you feel this message is in error, please call G. Bettman at NHL HQ.”
They haven’t made a good move (trade, FA signing, coaching change) in long while. Is there any reason to believe that the same people would suddenly wise up and make a bunch of smart decisions? I can’t see any.
If these guys are incapable, they need to be replaced. If that can’t be done at this point, the best decision is to do nothing and collect a high draft pick at the end of the season. That would protect the assets that they still have.
Panic moves by incompetent decision makers would lose those assets.
Garland, M-Pettey, Sherwood… this is your generic rug emporium’s annual Going Out of Business sale. Now tell me that it’s still the ‘Do Anything to Get Quinn to Stay, Pretty Please’ project…