Ranking the trades and signings made by Canucks GM Allvin after one year

Jan 26 2023, 4:27 pm

The Vancouver Canucks made history on January 26, 2022, whenĀ Patrik Allvin officially became the first Swedish general manager in NHL history.

It was a feel-good story at the time.

Fast forward to today, and nothing about the Canucks really feels good.

Under Allvin’s watch, the Canucks have arguably been the most disappointing team in the NHL. That led to the messy firing of Bruce Boudreau and the subsequent, unpopular hiring of Rick Tocchet as head coach.

The coaching drama has temporarily overshadowed all of the trades and signings made by Allvin so far. We’ll summarize and rank those moves here.

Trades made by the Canucks

Allvin has made six trades since taking over the Canucks. Here’s all six of them, ranked from best to worst.

  1. Traded Travis Hamonic to the Ottawa Senators for a third-round pick.
  2. Acquired Ethan Bear and Lane Pederson from the Carolina Hurricanes for a fifth-round pick.
  3. Traded Tyler Motte to the New York Rangers for a fourth-round pick.
  4. Acquired Travis Dermott from the Toronto Maple Leafs for a third-round pick.
  5. Acquired Jack Studnicka from the Boston Bruins for Michael DiPietro and Jonathan Myrenberg.
  6. Traded Jason Dickinson and a second-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for Riley Stillman.

Getting rid of Hamonic and his $3 million salary was Allvin’s first ā€“ and best ā€“ move so far. The Canucks used that draft pick to select defenceman Elias Pettersson, who’s already one of the organization’s best prospects.

Bear has arguably been the Canucks best right-shot defender this season, and the acquisition cost of a fifth-round pick was easy to stomach.

Lane Pederson was also a nice find. He scored 17 goals in 18 games for the Abbotsford Canucks before being recalled on December 17, 2022.

The Canucks had to monetize Tyler Motte at last year’s trade deadline, and Allvin was able to do that by acquiring a 2024 fourth-round pick.

It’s fair to question if the Dermott acquisition was in fact “good.” The 26-year-old blueliner looked steady last season, but a concussion suffered in training camp forced him to miss the first 37 games of the 2022-23 campaign. He’s looked better in recent games, but it’s still fair to wonder if he’s anything more than a depth defenceman.

The last two trades on Allvin’s resume aren’t looking so stellar.

Jack Studnicka was once a promising prospect for the Bruins, but he struggled to produce offence or have success defensively in 37 career NHL games prior to joining the Canucks. Studnicka has been unimpressive in 28 games in Vancouver, and his 38.9% expected goal differential is the worst among all Canucks who have played at least 20 games.

Jonathan Myrenberg is a prospect on the rise, and 6’3″ defencemen who shoot right are hard players to find if you don’t draft them.

Allvin’s worst trade so far was the cap-clearing trade of Dickinson. The Canucks GM attached a 2024 second-round pick as a sweetener to get rid of Dickinson’s $2.65 million cap hit.

In that deal, the Canucks acquired Stillman, who’s been atrocious. And, his cap hit is $1.35 million, so Vancouver’s savings were minimal.

Signings made by Allvin

Allvin has made 23 signings for the Canucks. We won’t go through all of them, but we’ll cover the biggest ones.

  1. Andrei Kuzmenko (a one-year deal worth $925,000)
  2. Overseas free agent hits (Nils Aman, Filip Johansson)
  3. Dakota Joshua (a two-year deal worth $825,000/season)
  4. Re-stocked the farm
  5. Ilya Mikheyev (a four-year deal worth $4.75 million/season)
  6. Curtis Lazar (a three-year deal worth $1 million/season)
  7. Brock Boeser (extended for three years at $6.65 million/season)
  8. JT Miller (extended for seven years at $8 million/season)

About 20 NHL teams were chasing Kuzmenko before he chose Vancouver. While that signing might have been partly luck, the Russian winger has been electric.

Allvin unearthed two European free agents this offseason in Nils Aman and Filip Johansson. Aman surprisingly played 35 games for the Canucks before being sent to Abbotsford. Johansson, a right-shot defenceman and former first-round pick, is having a career year in Sweden and is expected to come to North America next season.

Joshua has been hot and cold, but it’s hard to complain about a fourth-liner who’s physical and has seven goals in 44 games.

Allvin did give the Abbotsford Canucks a boost. The team currently sits fifth in the AHL’s Western Conference with a 23-12-2-2 record. Key re-signings, along with new additions such as Christian Wolanin, Collin Delia, winger Arshdeep Bains, and Canucks prospect Linus Karlsson have helped the cause.

Mikheyev has been worth his contract so far, but it’s fair to wonder if the capped-out Canucks needed to add another expensive, middle-six winger.

There’s been no bottom line for Lazar offensively. He hasn’t scored since the third game of the season and doesn’t have a point in his last 28 games.

Boeser has looked lost and out of place with the Canucks all season long. Allvin was partially handcuffed by the winger’s $7.5 million qualifying offer last offseason, so he did manage to do an admirable job of negotiating around that.

Regardless, Boeser has become a third-line winger for the Canucks making $6.65 million per season. It’s currently an extremely inefficient contract.

But none of Allvin’s current signings are more short-sighted than the Miller extension. It made sense for the organization to monetize Miller and move him at the trade deadline (or even the draft) last season.

His even-strength scoring has dipped drastically, and his defensive play has been horrid. And his seven-year, $56 million contract doesn’t even kick in until next season.

If things don’t improve, Miller’s contract will become the next immovable albatross ā€“ something that Canucks fans have become far too accustomed to.

Trevor BeggsTrevor Beggs

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