3 questions facing the Canucks heading into a pivotal two week offseason stretch

With a maximum of two games remaining in the 2024-2025 NHL season, we are inching our way to the crunch time for the Vancouver Canucks.

General Manager and President of Hockey Operations Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford have their work cut out for them. How do they go about fixing the team back to the contending status they reached just one season ago?

Well, there are still a few questions they need to answer before heading into this pivotal offseason.

Who will they go out and trade for?

We likely won’t know the answer to this until the trade officially breaks. However, there have already been rumours about management having interest in Minnesota Wild forward centreman Marco Rossi. But other than that, there haven’t been a lot of names linked to Vancouver.

So, we won’t try and speculate on who the under the radar player is the Canucks could be targeting, but rather turn our attention to what types of players they will be bringing in.

The Canucks’ biggest need is down the middle of the ice. As is, the Canucks were already weak at centre, but with Pius Suter likely heading to market on July 1, that glaring need is only intesified. So we certainly aren’t making any ground-breaking proclamations there.

However, the Canucks shouldn’t just be stopping at one trade. With the way the roster is constructed, the team will have just one forward under contract who has a season with 55 or more points. In fact, Garland’s career-high of 52 is the highest total outside of Elias Pettersson.

Looking at the roster right now, it’s probably safe to pencil Nils Höglander into the top-six, especially with how he and Elias Pettersson played down the stretch of the season. Other than those two, Jake DeBrusk is the only other forward you would confidently peg as a top-six player. You could easily throw Conor Garland up there, but to be a competitive team, you’d likely want Garland in a third-line role with Dakota Joshua and Filip Chytil.

Of those three players, you have guys who all bring different things to the top six. DeBrusk is a good net-front presence with a decent shot. Höglander is great on the forecheck and along the boards, showing the ability to be a good facilitator. And when Pettersson is on, he can drive play like the best of them, showing off a lethal release that threatens to score on every shot.

So what you’re truly lacking are a second play driver and a true sniper. Which, again, shouldn’t come as a surprise. But that might be tough to make work given the type of market we’re expected to see come July 1. They’re likely to find their success through the trade route. But now, a summer that was believed to be just centred around finding a 2C, add a top-six sniper to the mix now as well.

But what’s it going to cost?

This is what might hurt Canucks fans. In his exit meetings, Rutherford made it clear they would do the necessary moves to try and improve the team, but that it would come at an expensive cost:

“It’ll be expensive, but it’ll also be very expensive not to get one. So we’re going to be open to do whatever it takes and probably on the trade market to get that player. It depends what level the player is at.”

By reading this, it seems Rutherford was preparing Canucks fans for the trades they’re going to make this offseason, mentioning that this regime has held onto their young roster players to this point. Which kind of sounded like he was preparing the fans that they might part ways with one or multiple young players.

They’ve got a few good, young defencemen who could be attractive to other teams. Blueliners Victor Mancini and Tom Willander come to mind as candidates for that. Mancini has had a strong postseason run in Abbotsford, playing as the team’s top defenceman. Willander has the first-round draft capital and is a much easier asset to trade now that he’s signed his entry-level contract.

Up front, the cupboards are much more bare. The only forward with significant trade value would be Jonathan Lekkerimäki. But at this point, his playoff run in Abbotsford has had to have tanked his trade value a little bit, right? To not get in over fringe AHL players is not a great look and only further highlights the Canucks need for a top-six scorer.

At the end of the Canucks season, fans had Lekkerimäki sharpied in Vancouver’s top-six. But now? We aren’t so sure.

But they have another avenue where they could be trading from a position of strength.

With how Arturs Silovs is doing down in Abbotsford during their Calder Cup Final run, Donnie & Dhali’s Rick Dhaliwal mentioned that he’s starting to turn heads in the NHL. He would require waivers next season if he was sent down after training camp, so the Canucks would probably lose him for nothing if they don’t move on from one of their three goalies. Of course, unless they roster three goalies, which never happens in today’s game.

So, if you deem that Silovs is ready to graduate to the NHL, good asset management would lead us to believe they need to move off one of their netminders.

It’s probably safe to assume that after inking a new contract, Kevin Lankinen won’t be going anywhere. So that leaves either Silovs or Thatcher Demko.

Demko is an interesting name because it’s truly hard to gauge what his trade value is. When he’s healthy, he’s proven to be one of the best puck-stoppers in the league. However, asking for a full season of health from the 29-year-old looks to be hard to come by. So he would be a true lottery ticket for whatever team is acquiring him. But there is no shortage of suitors who are in need of a netminder and would be willing to take a shot on a player with such high ceilings.

Silovs on the other hand, while he’s shown flashes of brilliance at the NHL level last year and is continuing that in the Calder Cup Final, he probably holds less trade value, given the difference in sample size. He also comes in at an $850,000 cap hit, compared to Demko’s $5 million.

Now, both will need a new contract after next season, but Silovs will likely come at nearly half of Demko’s current deal. Those savings would help the Canucks be more aggressive in free agency to help the forward group.

How much more work will the Canucks have left in free agency?

Speaking of free agency, we don’t project Allvin and Rutherford to be too busy during free agency. In the same Rutherford media availability, Rutherford talked about getting their work done beforehand and seeing what’s left for free agency.

So, why should we not believe them?

If you take a look at how the roster is currently constructed, the Canucks look to be pretty set in two of the three positions. We spoke about the goaltending, but even their defence corps is the strongest it’s ever been. Quinn Hughes, Filip Hronek, Marcus Pettersson, Tyler Myers, and Derek Forbort are the NHL vets, with Elias Pettersson (D), Mancini, and Willander likely all teetering on the line of the NHL and AHL. While Kirill Kudryavtsev, Sawyer Mynio and Cole McWard as other young defensive assets in the pipeline.

Therefore, outside of a few depth additions on the blueline, the Canucks aren’t likely to be too active on the free agent market.

Even the forward crop, unless it’s a big name that they couldn’t land in a trade, they’re likely to be quiet as well.

Heading into free agency, the Canucks have $12,156,667 in cap space. That isn’t a lot for what we navigated were the Canucks’ biggest needs. Let’s just say they trade for Rossi. Reports indicate that he wants a $7 million AAV for seven years. That leaves the Canucks just over $5 million for a top six sniper – $10 million if they trade Demko and his salary as well.

This isn’t a ton of money to work with, nor is it a deep free agent market for what the Canucks desire. Unless one of Nikolaj Ehlers, Matt Duchene, Mikael Granlund or Brad Marchand has Vancouver high on their list, they’ll again have to go through the trade route to get their work done – as Rutherford teased.

We’ll see how this regime manages what projects to be a massive offseason. While we’re expecting much of their work to get done around the draft. It should also say something that both Allvin and Rutherford did not go to the NHL Draft Combine in Buffalo. Why forego an opportunity to chat trades with other GMs around the league for one of the last times before the first decentralized draft, or meet with a potential prospect you might use with your 15th overall pick?

Seems as though they aren’t planning to pick there at that selection, and might have already worked out a deal and just can’t announce it because it involves a player on Abbotsford. Expect the Canucks to get busy, and sooner rather than later. The NHL draft is just over a week away, on Friday, June 27.