Canucks winger Conor Garland isn’t eligible to sign a contract extension until next week when the 2025-26 league year officially begins. However, it appears he won’t be waiting for long after that to put pen to paper on a new deal. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports (Twitter link) that significant progress has been made in discussions between the two sides, while Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK and The Athletic adds (Twitter link) that if a deal is finalized, it could be for six years and around $36M.
The 29-year-old has spent the last four seasons with Vancouver after being acquired from Arizona as part of the Oliver Ekman-Larsson trade back at the draft in 2021. A few days after the trade, he signed a five-year, $24.75M deal that will begin its final season in July.
During his time with the Canucks, Garland’s contract has been viewed as fair at times and also above-market to the point where it was believed that there were off-and-on trade discussions when Vancouver was looking to free up salary cap space. At one point in 2023, Garland changed agents and had permission to speak to other teams about a swap but obviously, nothing came to fruition there.
But even during those times, the team made it known that they valued Garland’s contributions and the suggestion that an extension could be wrapped up quickly suggests that’s still very much the case.
Over his first three years with the Canucks, Garland was certainly consistent. His worst season offensively was a 17-goal, 46-point effort while his best goal total was (2023-24) and best point total was 52 (2021-22). This season was more of the same as Garland tallied 19 goals and 31 assists in 81 games while seeing his playing time jump to a career-best 18:39 per game.
With Brock Boeser appearing likely to depart the organization in free agency next week, Vancouver certainly wouldn’t want to lose their next-best right winger the following year. It appears that won’t be happening and that Garland could officially be signing an extension as soon as next week, ensuring he’ll be staying with the Canucks for the long haul.
