When teams find themselves in the throes of a rebuild, there often isn’t a desire to spend toward the upper end of the salary cap. With little to no hope of playoff revenue and the challenges associated with filling the home arena up to watch a group that isn’t playoff-bound, it’s understandable that there would be a desire to try to keep costs down.
It appears that’s where the Canucks find themselves at the moment. After rebuilding their coaching staff with what’s believed to be well-below-market-value contracts to limit spending, the team is also trying to do the same on the player front. Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston reports that ownership is hoping to trim around $20MM off its payroll bill compared to a season ago.
It should be noted that they’re more than halfway to that point at the moment. Between some salary drops on their existing contracts (such as Jake DeBrusk and Filip Hronek) and the departures of some key veterans, Johnston notes that they’re down around $12MM from the end of last season. That’s a strong start toward meeting that payroll objective but finding the other $8MM to shave will be trickier.
As things stand, there are only two Vancouver players who have a salary that high for the upcoming season. One is embattled center Elias Pettersson who continues to be part of trade speculation while the other is winger Brock Boeser. New GM Ryan Johnson has indicated that they’re not looking to just clear money if they move Pettersson although presumably, they’d take back less money than what they sent out in a trade if they do wind up moving him.
Boeser wouldn’t necessarily be an easy player to trade either. On top of having full no-trade protection, he carries a $7.25MM AAV through the 2031-32 season and has only reached the 60-point mark once in his 10-year NHL career. He has been more of a 20-goal, 50-point player over the last couple of years and that type of production isn’t a great return on that price tag. DeBrusk has also been subject to trade speculation but with five years at $5.5MM for an AAV left on his deal coming off a season in which he scored four even-strength goals, cutting his money off the books entirely won’t be easy.
This isn’t a situation where all the savings have to be in place now, either. Speculatively, some veterans on expiring contracts (including Brendan Gallagher, Drew O’Connor, Filip Chytil, and recent signings Paul Cotter and Luke Schenn) will probably be moved before the March 5th trade deadline. Moving some of those players will yield some cost savings, though certainly not enough to make up the remaining $8MM that they’re hoping to trim. But it will help.
It will be interesting to see if this goal of a $20MM payroll cut is a guideline or a hard target to meet as that could influence how aggressive Johnson looks to clear salary in the coming weeks and months. Meanwhile, they will still be cap-compliant to the spending floor if they do as they’re more than $9MM above the $76.9MM floor, per PuckPedia. There’s room for them to further trim their payroll spending. Just how fast they’ll wind up doing so remains to be seen.
Drew O’Connor would be a good, low payroll, 3rd line winger acquisition for most teams, I think. He seems to have improved quite bit after being traded to Vancouver
Petterson for Shane Wright. Seattle should roll the dice on a bounce-back because it doesn’t look like they’ll get a star otherwise.
And Seattle’s collection of middle 6 forwards grows
…and how much is Vancouver retaining for six years?
I dunno. Maybe nothing if they toss in some assets
I think they’re trying to collect assets, not move them out.
Depends on how much money they want to cut. But they’d get Wright back in this scenario
Hmm, there’s the Canadiens version of rebuild right there to copy – taking on other teams financial mistakes or problems for picks & prospects. Canucks however put out the Harry the guy w/ a snake tattooed on his face “Everything must go!” Now who’s got the leverage? Anaheim’s in a pickle but according to this report, Vancouver is not a fit. What I do know is, mgmt fought & resisted true rebuilds over past 10 years because of the disingenuous argument “fans won’t support a rebuild”; in fact, done right, the pain could be significantly less as Montreal, Anaheim & San Jose showed. But by cutting to the bone, hiring only bargain basement staff who if turn out will exit for real $, & extending the rebuild window by not garnering as many picks as possible (yeah they did it this year, but Calgary & St Louis – who just started the plan six months ago – are way ahead in that department) it’s Vancouver’s self-fulfilling prophecy…
The sooner Francesco Aquilini sells the Canucks the sooner they might have a chance of being a winner. Until then… *crickets*
And it goes beyond just the hockey team. That dirtbag has child abuse, employee abuse, and tax evasion accusations, and is a snowflake that revokes press passes to journalists who hurt his fee-fees aka his ego.
Worst owner in sports that not enough people talk about.
“Fought and resisted true rebuilds over the last 10 years…”
Wasn’t it just three years ago the Canucks won the Pacific, had the Jack Adams and Norris Trophy winners, the Vezina runner-up, a 100+ point center and another coming off a 100+ point season? Is that when they should have been diving into a “true rebuild”. They had all the pieces to be a contender. The problem wasn’t that they refused to rebuild. The problem is they had it all and pissed it away.