Canucks expected to gut team this offseason after losing to Oilers

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Noel Drolet
May 22, 2024 (4:34 PM)

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Canucks look to bring on all new talents to contend next season

With the Canucks' surprise division win this year, they've brought themselves from being in the basement of the division to being a young contending team. Rick Tocchet turned this team into a juggernaut, who was only ousted by the cup favourite Oilers in the playoffs.

With this fast turnaround, the Canucks have to be really careful with all their money. They can no longer afford to sign any careless contracts, like the Ilya Mikheyev contract signed just last year. It sounds like GM Patrik Allvin understands this, as they are looking to take a cutthroat approach to this year's free agent pool.

The Canucks have 9 free agents this year, including majority of their blue line. The Canucks seem like they are very scared of signing players to bad contracts, as they've had very public contract disputes with Filip Hronek already.

They have 23M to spend, and will most likely fill spots from outside the team. Hronek is looking for an 8 year contract above 8M, and Vancouver has made it clear that they'd rather let him walk than sign him to that much.

Lindholm is in somewhat the same boat, as he's now 29 and reportedly looking for a 7-8 year contract around 7.5-8M. This contract will not age well for the Canucks, and it seems like Allvin understand that. Lindholm had an underwhelming regular season performance with them, so they seem very weary to keep him around for much longer.

That really just leaves Zadorov, Joshua and Lafferty as small pieces who should be re-signed. All 3 were great depth impact players for the Canucks and could be given contracts. Anyone else is expendable for the team after this season, and luckily for fans it seems like Allvin realizes that.