Welcome Matt: Which available top-four defencemen will Canucks chase in a trade?

The good news for the Vancouver Canucks is that a weak free-agent crop of defencemen is offset by a strong class of d-men available via trade.

Our poll question today lists Samuel Girard, Noah Hanifin, Colton Parayko, and Brett Pesce, but you could put many other names on that list.

Which defenceman should the #Canucks target in a trade?

(REPLY WITH OTHER)

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From the highest-end guys like Erik Karlsson, to lesser-known names like Andrew Peeke, and many in between: Justin Faulk, Matt Grzelcyk, Derek Forbort, Travis Sanheim, Joel Edmundson, and Cody Ceci.

So a lack of available defencemen is not the problem, and now the Canucks have to decide who to target and how much of their $7.1 million in newfound cap space they want to allocate on a top-four defenceman.

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As TSN’s Darren Dreger tells us, they’d also like to add a third-line centre and a big winger, so the offseason dance is now coming to light.

How do you improve the club’s two weakest positions, while still having enough leftover to add size on the wing?

Third-line centre may well prove more difficult to fill.

The trade candidates — Scott Laughton, Michael McLeod, Adam Henrique, Barclay Goodrow — are imperfect and the free-agent class — J.T. Compher, Ryan O’Reilly, Evan Rodrigues, David Kampf — may well get bid up given the scarcity.

The big winger should be the third priority and addressed once the spend on the other two positions is known. That’s mid-July shopping, but the other spots could well be filled in the next 10 days.