Vancouver Canucks have interesting decision to make on the waiver wire
The Vancouver Canucks are a long way from last place after a 2-2-0 start to the season, but they retain top priority on the waiver wire until Nov. 1.
That means the Canucks get first shot at any player put on waivers over the next few weeks, including a relatively recent first-round pick of the Calgary Flames.
The Flames placed Connor Zary on waivers on Monday. The 25-year-old forward was the 24th-overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, and seemed to be on the right path towards becoming an impactful young player for the Flames.
Zary was a dynamic, dangerous player in his first couple of years in the NHL, scoring at about half a point per game with 27 goals and 61 points in 117 games. Knee injuries robbed Zary of some of his dynamism, however, and he didn’t look like the same player last season.
Should the Canucks take a chance on Zary getting back to that more dynamic version of himself?
Connor Zary is on waivers. He's been a decent two-way contributor but lack of footspeed and size mixed with a lack of progress as a producer has clearly soured the Flames on him. Good motor though, willing to play through contact and has nice hands. pic.twitter.com/E2cEC5487y
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) October 5, 2026
One major knock against Zary is that the Calgary Flames gave up on him.
Early in the season, it already appears that the Flames will thoroughly out-tank the Canucks. They’ve lost their first three games and lost them badly, getting outscored 16-to-3. They haven’t been playing worldbeaters either, losing once to the Canucks and twice to the Seattle Kraken.
If Zary can’t stick with the Flames, then why would any other team want him?
But that’s not the whole story. There’s history and friction between Zary and the Flames, who reportedly tried to trade the young forward during the offseason.
Zary bounced between lines all of last season, rarely getting a chance to develop any consistent chemistry with his linemates. It was a frustrating year for the young forward, and there was a sense around the Flames that part of that frustration was with his head coach, partly fueled by comments he made at his end-of-year press conference.
“When you have younger guys with talent and skill, you don’t want to hold them back,” said Zary. “You don’t want to put a leash on them, right? You want them to go out there — at the end of the day, who gives a sh*t if they go out there and make a mistake? It’s going to happen.”
Zary was speaking specifically about rookie defenceman Zayne Parekh, but it’s hard not to infer friction between himself and Flames head coach Ryan Huska.
Seeing Zary play just two games this season, then get scratched and waived, just feeds that inference.
There’s an opportunity for the Canucks to give Zary a new environment — a more positive, supportive environment — to get his game back together.
Is Zary a fit for the Canucks?
Even with Filip Chytil out with an injury, claiming Zary would mean cutting another player from the Canucks’ roster. That would mean potentially sending the waiver-exempt Victor Mancini down to the Abbotsford Canucks or risking losing a player like Arshdeep Bains on waivers.
Aside from lineup concerns, the question is whether Zary is the type of player that general manager Ryan Johnson is looking for.
“People that know me know I like size, I like speed, I like character,” said Johnson early in the offseason. “I like stiffness by committee and not through one person or one line. Stiffness is contagious, and when one commits to it, it usually ends up trickling down to lines or to guys that you wouldn’t necessarily think are stiff players.”
Zary’s speed has taken a hit, and he isn’t the biggest player at 6-foot-0 and 179 lbs, but he has generally been seen as a decent two-way forward with good character. And he definitely fits one other criterion for Johnson.
“I rely heavily on leadership,” said Johnson during the summer. “It’s no secret that a lot of guys that I brought in, whether AHL contracts or NHL two-way contracts, if you look at it, I bet you 80 per cent of them were captains somewhere. I always check: have they worn a letter on their jersey?”
Zary was the captain of the Kamloops Blazers in his final year in the WHL, and he was praised for his leadership coming out of the 2020 NHL Draft, with some comparing him to former Canucks captain Bo Horvat.
Zary also has some versatility as a natural centre who has mostly played on the wing for the Flames, similar to Paul Cotter, who has found success up the middle for the Canucks.
There would be little cost to the Canucks to claim Zary, aside from his $3.775 million cap hit through next season, but the Canucks are a long way from the salary cap. Seeing whether the Canucks claim Zary could go a long way towards defining for fans what type of team Johnson wants the Canucks to be.
If the Canucks instead claim 6-foot-4 defenceman Matthew Robertson from the New York Rangers, who also went on waivers on Monday, that will also be telling.