Daily Faceoff released their annual NHL salary cap rankings, and the Vancouver Canucks received a spot among the top half of the league. Well, they’re hanging onto the top half by a thread, as they were ranked 16th of the top 32 teams.
Daily Faceoff weighs its rankings using six categories: Good Contract Percentage, Quality Cheap Deals, Contracts with No-Trade/No-Movement Clauses, Dead Cap Space, Quality of Core, and Cap Space to Skill Differential.
Vancouver ranked 11th in these rankings in 2023, so its fall to 16th indicates some regression in these categories.
Good Contract Percentage drops from eighth to 13th, Dead Cap Space goes from 16th to 20th, Quality of Core moves down from 14th to 24th, and Cap Space to Skill differential drops from 17th to 19th.
However, the Canucks Quality Cheap Deals jumped from 16th to seventh and Contracts with No-Trade/No-Movement Clauses went from seventh to fifth.
Vancouver’s management group went to work this offseason. They addressed their forward core by signing Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen, Kiefer Sherwood, and Daniel Sprong. They also helped out the backend by signing big defencemen Derek Forbort and Vincent Desharnais and goaltender Jiri Patera.
Only DeBrusk and Heinen received any sort of trade/movement protection among the eight signed free agents. DeBrusk has a full no-movement clause for the first three seasons of his deal, with the final four years having a 15-team modified no-trade clause. Heinen has a 12-team modified no-trade clause for both years of his two-year contract.
Canucks also handled some in-house business, re-signing Elias Pettersson, Dakota Joshua, Teddy Blueger, Filip Hronek, Tyler Myers and Arturs Silovs. All of which, outside of Silovs, received some sort of trade protection.
Pettersson has no trade protection this season but then has a full no-movement clause in the final seven years of his deal. Joshua has a 12-team modified no-trade clause on his four-year deal, while Blueger receives the same trade protection for his two-year contract. Hronek, like Pettersson, has no trade protection in year one but then has a no-movement clause for the following three years and a 15-team modified no-trade clause for the final four seasons. And Myers has a no-movement clause in the first two seasons and a 12-team modified no-trade clause in the final year of his deal.
Daily Faceoff has only released three-quarters of their rankings thus far. Here are how the rest of the Pacific division ranks up against the Canucks:
- 16th – Vancouver Canucks (2023 – 11th)
- 18th – Edmonton Oilers (2023 – 32nd)
- 23rd – San Jose Sharks (2023 – 27th)
- 25th – Seattle Kraken (2023 – 14th)
- 27th – Los Angeles Kings (2023 – 21st)
Fellow Pacific division members, the Calgary Flames, Vegas Golden Knights, and Anaheim Ducks all earn a spot in the top eight of the rankings.
The teams Daily Faceoff ranks above Canucks in this rendition of the rankings are:
- 15th – Buffalo Sabres (2023 – 12th)
- 14th – Winnipeg Jets (2023 – 17th)
- 13th – New York Rangers (2023 – 8th)
- 12th – Boston Bruins (2023 – 5th)
- 11th – Toronto Maple Leafs (2023 – 20th)
- 10th – Utah Hockey Club (2023 – 15th)
- 9th – Dallas Stars (2023 – 3rd)
