Price is Right: Will the Canucks have buyout candidates this offseason?

Our friend Rick Dhaliwal has done some reporting on this, other have wondered, and some have outright demanded it. If the Vancouver Canucks can’t find trade partners to create cap space for this year and next, should they just buy guys out to achieve that goal?

According to Dhaliwal, if management can’t move bad contracts, they’ll look at buyouts this offseason.#Canucks

Donnie and Dhali

— BuckFoston (@BuckFoston_) December 12, 2022

Remember, these aren’t compliance buyouts. It’s not just the owner’s money, it’s cap space too. And the term and structure of these contracts don’t really scream buyout.

So let’s take a look at who would be candidates. And no, the likes of J.T. Miller, Tyler Myers, and Brock Boeser are not on this list. If these players are not Canucks at season’s end, then it would be because of trade. They would have to have value for something, even if it’s not what you were hoping for.

As for the peripheral players, the most common names you’ll hear are Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Tanner Pearson, and maybe, just maybe, Conor Garland. All other players that you might want to criticize are either going into their final year and have value, or have contract values under $1.5 million per season.

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Let’s start with Pearson because it’s the most modest of savings. He only makes $3.25 million per season on the cap. And only with one year left, you could just let it run out. But if they bought him out. that’s just over a $1.4 million cap hit next year, and just over $900,000 the year after that. It’s a modest savings of $1.8ish million, with very little cost the following year. Maybe a no brainer.

Especially considering the Canucks will finally say goodbye to the Braden Holtby and Jake Virtanen cap hits next year, so that Pearson hit would be like it never happened.

The other interesting options are the two guys that came over in the deals for Eriksson-Beagle-Roussel. And hasn’t that aged like a banana?

Well, Garland is an option there if his scoring drought doesn’t right itself. Garland has three years left at $4.95 million. But if the Canucks bought him out this summer, he’d merely be $838,000 for the next two years. Then $1.838 million for another four. That’s a long time, but not a huge number, and it will be against the backdrop of an NHL cap number that is likely to be at, and eventually over $90 million. You’d rather trade the player, but it’s not crazy.

Crazy is buying out OEL.

Buying out Ekman-Larsson would come at a significant cost (CapFriendly.com)

If ever there was a time to buy him out, it would be this summer, because it would provide an almost total savings ($8.083M) for the following year, leaving him counting just $146,667 on the cap! But after that, look out below. Seven more years of payment, with two years of $4.7 million and five more in the range of $2.1 million to $2.3 million. Just too much for too long.

It’s a little depressing for fans, never mind management to always see cap hits for players that have long left the organization. I get that. But if the trade market doesn’t materialize, maybe the Canucks can digest one or two to get some wiggle room.