Canucks are buying out Ekman-Larsson's massive contract: report

Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s time with the Vancouver Canucks is coming to an end.

The 31-year-old defenceman is being bought out by the team, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

There is word this afternoon that Vancouver will buy out Oliver Ekman-Larsson. He will be an unrestricted free agent.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) June 16, 2023

The move will save the Canucks more than $7 million in salary cap space next season but will cost them in the years to come.

Ekman-Larsson was scheduled to count $7.26 million against the Canucks’ salary cap in each of the next four seasons. Instead, the team will spread the pain until 2030-31.

Buying out Ekman-Larsson’s contract is costly (CapFriendly.com)

The veteran defenceman’s cap hit drops to $146,667 next season for the Canucks, but will rise to over $2.3 million in 2024-25. He’ll count over $4.7 million against the Canucks’ cap in 2025-26 and 2026-27, and then over $2.1 million from 2027-28 to 2030-31.

The Arizona Coyotes will also be penalized for the buyout too, given they retained $990,000 of Ekman-Larsson’s contract in the 2021 trade involving him, though to a much lesser extent. The worst they’ll be dinged is $650,000 in 2025-26 and 2026-27.

Ekman-Larsson was acquired less than two years ago by former Canucks GM Jim Benning in a blockbuster trade with the Coyotes. The Canucks gave up the ninth overall pick in the 2021 draft as part of the deal, which saw Benning offload three terrible contracts (Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel) that all expired one year later. Conor Garland was also part of the deal.

Despite evidence to the contrary at the time of the deal, Benning expected Ekman-Larsson to be a top-pairing defenceman.

“He’ll be a top pairing guy, can play a lot of minutes, PP, PK, can be a matchup guy playing against the other team’s top lines,” Benning told reporters the day the trade was made. “What he’s going to bring to our whole team is going to be immense.”

Instead, the former All-Star was a shadow of his former self, particularly last season when he finished with a team-worst -24 plus-minus rating.

Ekman-Larsson will become an unrestricted free agent once the buyout is finalized. His next deal won’t come close to the eight-year, $66 million deal he signed with Arizona five years ago.

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