I haven't posted here in a long time - but it's sure been a week in Canuck-land, and sometimes, you just gotta write about it.
As fervent deadline-watchers saw, the Canucks did a surprising two-step in the leadup to the trade deadline. They started by moving out Bo Horvat, then Luke Schenn and Riley Stillman, bringing back useful draft picks and youth. It looked, for all purposes, that management was finally admitting they needed to tear things down. That image was reversed quickly when they flipped draft picks to acquire Filip Hronek. As others have said, Hronek is a good player on a good contract, but the Canucks as they currently stand are perhaps the wrong place for him.
Patrik Allvin announced yesterday that "my expectation is to make the playoffs with the players we have here." As of today, the Canucks are 19 points out of a playoff spot. How much can they really be expected to improve by next season? Yes, their goaltending has been a mess with Demko hurt, and if he is healthy next year, he will make a difference. Aside from Demko, though, injuries haven't been a serious issue for the Canucks this year; none of the team's core players have missed more than a game or two.
Instead, a lot of things have actually gone right for the Canucks this year. Pettersson and Hughes are having the best years of their careers. Bo Horvat was, too, before he was dealt. Andrei Kuzmenko has provided incredible production on a bargain-basement contract, and while some will say JT Miller is having an 'off year', he's still on pace for a 74-point season, which would be the second-highest total of his career. Brock Boeser, also apparently having an off year, is still on pace for 60 points despite reduced PP time.
Which begs the question: where will this team improve? You can't bank on those core players to be much better than they have been. At the end of the day, you have to look at the elephant in the room: the Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Tyler Myers contracts, and the combined $13,260,000 in cap space that they occupy. They dutifully chew up a lot of ice time, but their defensive metrics have been exceptionally bad in the last two years. Can you really bank on them making a major improvement at their age?
Allvin commented yesterday that clearing cap space isn't so easy. He is right. Is it possible to move their contracts? Maybe, with some combination of paying out draft picks and/or salary retention. Buyouts aren't a real solution either; in the end, the team still has to pay 2/3 of the total cap hit, spread out over double the length of time. An OEL buyout would be on the books until the end of the 2030-31 season.
Allvin is going to be in the difficult position of needing to clear cap space this summer. The Canucks' salary commitments for 2023-24 are, shockingly, already over the cap. JT Miller is getting a $2.75 million raise; Kuzmenko's salary is going up by a eye-popping $4.6 million.
If you can't move Myers or OEL, what are Allvin's options? He will need to trade at least one of Miller, Boeser, Conor Garland, or perhaps Anthony Beauvillier. Subtracting any of those players will make the team worse; all of them can be useful offensive contributors, albeit at salaries that are richer than other teams might want to pay. Once one or two of them are moved out, however, Allvin will be be crossing his fingers that a younger player (Podkolzin, Hoglander, Raty) is able to replace their production in a top-six role. That's a hard bet to win.
Ultimately, you end up back in the same place: with, maybe, a slightly juggled forward group and the same two black holes that OEL and Myers represent on the roster. Yeah, you've added Filip Hronek, who will help, but that's probably off-set by losing Horvat and not having a high-end centre to replace him. No matter what you do, all Patrik Allvin can do is shuffle the deck chairs. There is no way for this team to be a serious contender in 2023-24, and it's hard to bank on them even making the playoffs. Trying to do so is just extending the pain for the franchise.
Canucks Twitter has been loudly calling for a real rebuild. I get that it's a lot harder for Allvin and the organization to commit to one; publicly admitting to one is an admission of failure to the current core. There's no doubt that Hughes and Pettersson would rather have a shot at the playoffs next year than to be told the team is not going to try to win. It's not the kind of thing that will help to sell players on committing to the team in the long term. That being said, players aren't stupid; if they see that there is a real long-term plan in place, they can be convinced to buy in.
Allvin had some serious missed opportunities to help the team's prospects for 2024-25 and onward. JT Miller's value, in particular, is not going to go up, and his no-move clause kicks in with the new contract. He is a useful player now, and can help a team win. By the end of 2024-25, though, he will be 32 years old, with five years left on his deal. It's very possible the contract will look like OEL's by that time, and will be the next anchor that drags the team down through its next young core. The missed opportunity to move him - even for a small return - could end up being a curse for the team through another generation.
