Is there an opportunity for Vancouver Canucks to get Barzal out of New York?
It has not been a banner week for New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal.
Not for anything he did on the ice, but because of what happened off of it.
The 28-year-old was late catching a team bus before the Islanders played against the Carolina Hurricanes last week. That led to head coach Patrick Roy scratching his highest-paid forward.
Longtime hockey reporter Arthur Staple then dropped an interesting note regarding Barzal’s status with the Islanders.
Quick thoughts on #Isles Barzal disciplinary scratch tonight in Raleigh:
— When you see this happen, it's usually not the first time. It's the last straw.
— Having said that, Patrick Roy and Mathieu Darche better be right about this move. Barzal is 28, not 18 — everyoneā¦
— Arthur Staple (@StapeNHL) October 30, 2025
“When you see this happen, it’s usually not the first time. It’s the last straw,” Staple said on social media.
If Barzal is on his way out with the Islanders, it does make you wonder if the Vancouver Canucks make a serious push to bring the B.C. native out west.
The Canucks’ depth issue at centre is an obvious problem for the franchise. That’s been magnified this season, largely due to Filip Chytil’s absence from the lineup.
CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal reported this week that the Canucks are going to be in on every centre that becomes available.
There’s too much strain on Elias Pettersson to be an offensive force for this Canucks team with Filip Chytil out of the lineup. The Canucks also can’t just rely on Kiefer Sherwood to score 29 per cent of the team’s goals.
Barzal has been with the Islanders ever since being drafted 16th overall by the franchise back in 2015. He’s coming off a down season where he played just 30 games; however, he did register 80 points the season prior.
Unlike most forwards on this Canucks roster, Barzal is a legitimate, first-line talent. He has averaged over 1.9 points per 60 in eight of his nine NHL seasons, including this one. That’s usually the barometer for first-line calibre production.
One of the issues with the Canucks centre depth, and their forward unit as a whole, is that they utterly lack top forwards who can feed their teammates the puck.
That’s an area where Barzal excels. Since the beginning of the 2023-24 campaign, Barzal ranks top 10 in terms of primary assists at 5-on-5.
Barzal’s playmaking ability puts him among elite company. (Natural Stat Trick)
Of course, acquiring Barzal wouldn’t be cheap.
The Islanders traded away centre Brock Nelson at the trade deadline last season for a package that included a first-round pick, a third-round pick, and a top prospect in Calum Ritchie.
Any trade package to acquire Barzal likely has to start at that price.
The Canucks would also have to include a player with salary in any trade to get Barzal, considering that the Coquitlam native has six years left on his deal worth $9.15 million per season.
Barzal has a 22-team no-trade list in his contract. While he didn’t grow up a Canucks fan, he obviously has local ties to the area.
And hey, at least he shouldn’t have to worry about playing in front of a sparsely filled home-ice arena in Vancouver.
As president Jim Rutherford has said previously, this team is in a precarious spot between building for the future and winning now as long as Quinn Hughes remains in Vancouver.
The path to contention for the Canucks is clear. Their defence and goaltending need to be among the NHL’s best.
While the goaltending has delivered, they’ve been more permissive defensively than expected so far. Based on the talent they have on defence, that should trend in a more positive direction.
However, a massive part of their defensive deficiencies stems from the fact that they don’t employ enough dangerous offensive players to keep the puck in the opposite end of the rink.
Acquiring a player like Barzal would go a long way towards alleviating that issue.