It’s been 54 days since the Vancouver Canucks’ season ended. Technically, that means by the end of this week, we’ll be two months deep on the Canucks’ 2025 offseason. And, so far, it’s been a slow one.
Since the 2024/25 campaign wrapped up, the Canucks signed Tom Willander to an entry-level contract, signed a new prospect in Anri Ravinskis, and extended Derek Forbort on a one-year deal. And…that’s it.
It’s understandable if fans are feeling a little antsy. What was promised to be a summer of change has hit mid-June without being much of a summer of anything. Now, we’re just two weeks away from the 2025 Entry Draft, and three weeks away from the start of the Free Agent Frenzy.
That’s a fairly narrow window in which the Canucks will hope to do the majority of their business.
But is that any reason to worry? That they’ll be rushed, or that they’ll just “kind of run out of time” on making improvements to the team?
We don’t think so, and here’s why.
The first reason is the front office group themselves, and primarily the duo of GM Patrik Allvin and POHO Jim Rutherford. They’ve got a reputation for getting their business done and done early. Each season that they’ve been in control, the major expected transactions have each seemed to come ahead of schedule. Bo Horvat and JT Miller were each traded in January, months ahead of the Trade Deadline. The pickups of Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm were both also notably early arrivals.
These two are not the kind to sit and wait around. No doubt, they’ve been busy.
They’ve also sort of told us that they may have something in the works, or perhaps an already-complete-trade-in-waiting. When asked about free agency in mid-May, Rutherford straight-up said “We’re going to be in the free agent market if we still have cap space at that time, we may get our work done before then.”
Rutherford has a reputation for many things, but being cryptic isn’t one of them. If he says there’s a good chance his team is inactive in free agency because it’s already acquired a bunch of cap via trade, assume there’s a very good chance it’s going to happen. In fact, assume there’s a very good chance it already effectively has.
So, Rutherford’s words could very well hint at a trade already in place, or mostly in place. Why would the Canucks potentially be sitting on that?
The second reason at play is common courtesy. There’s no love lost between the Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers, and barely any to be lost between the Canucks and Florida Panthers. On the surface of it, who cares about interrupting these Stanley Cup Finals? Honestly, there’s some appeal to it.
But, for better or for worse, NHL general managers tend to try to avoid announcing major deals while the playoffs are still ongoing. And Rutherford and Allvin are definitely the type of hockey guys who, for the most part, respect such traditions.
The Stanley Cup Finals could go as late as June 20, 2025. That is, itself, just a week before the draft. This could all be a case of the Canucks waiting for that week-in-between to announce their trade (or trades), so as to keep the focus as much on the game-action as possible.
Of course, there’s another set of finals to consider as our third factor, and they might be more directly relevant here. On Sunday evening, the Abbotsford Canucks punched their ticket to the Calder Cup Finals with a defeat of the Texas Stars. They’ll go on to face the Charlotte Checkers, but the series won’t begin until Friday, June 13.
That series could run as late as Wednesday, June 25. That’s just two days ahead of the draft! And while waiting that long to make a trade could certainly be construed as cutting it close, it’s not quite the same as already having made the trade and simply waiting to announce it.
There could be a couple reasons at play here. Similar to the Stanley Cup Finals, the Canucks could simply not want to take any spotlight away from the run that Abbotsford is on. The Vancouver side of the franchise dominates headlines for literally every other portion of the year, so why take away from Abbotsford’s one opportunity to be the sole focus?
There’s also a very real possibility that some players playing in Abbotsford right now could be involved in one or more trades. If that were the case, waiting until the playoffs are over is an absolute must. Can you imagine the blow to morale it would be in Abbotsford if someone like Linus Karlsson were dealt away on the cusp of the Calder Cup Finals? It’s almost unthinkable.
And our fourth, and final, reason why the Canucks might just be sitting on a trade without announcing it is the high probability that said trade involves their 2025 first round selection, slotted at 15th overall.
That’s quite far into the draft. And that means there’s a good chance that certain teams are interested in the pick, but only if certain draftees are still available when it actually comes time for the 15th selection.
It could be possible that the Canucks have a somewhat conditional deal on the table – one that will only have the trigger pulled on it if the team they’re trading with still sees their preferred selection on the board at 15OA.
Now, we realize this would be a slightly different circumstance than those previously mentioned, because this one carries with it the possibility of the deal not going through if certain prospects aren’t available. And, sure, for those looking for a reason to worry, it could be found there.
But we’d be surprised if such a conditional trade were to be in place without a serious backup plan or two also in place.
This would certainly seem to be ample reason to believe that the Canucks aren’t waiting around to make a trade, and instead only waiting around to make a trade official. Of course, until the trade call actually occurs, there’s no real way for us to know the difference.
That’s both the hard and the fun thing about it all.
