Rutherford drops hints on future Vancouver Canucks trades
Vancouver Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford hasn’t earned his reputation without cause.
Rutherford is known as one of the most aggressive executives when it comes to transactions. He’s not afraid to swing a trade when he thinks it can improve his club, and it feels like he’s got some deals in the works.
After a disappointing season, the Canucks need to add multiple impact players this summer to return to contender status.
“It’s not easy… the more teams we have in the league and the more parity there is, there’s not as many players out there to get,” said Rutherford on Sportsnet’s Canucks Central. “But, I will say with the parity in the league, it just takes one or two players for your team to drop in the standings, and it takes one or two players, the right players, to move up in the standings.”
Rutherford sees trades as the best way the Canucks can acquire those impact players this summer. He’s previously spoken about the team’s need for a centre and that’ll likely be the position group the Canucks target.
“We’ll be aggressive. We’re certainly not going to be desperate… if we can make a deal and do whatever we need to do to improve our team, we’re going to do it. We’re not going to end up trading all our young guys or all our draft picks, but we’re going to be open to all options to make this team better.”
The Canucks have some future assets they can use to trade for an impact contributor. They have the 15th pick in this summer’s draft, which Rutherford has already confirmed is on the table. They also have a handful of young defencemen who are showing a lot of promise, including Elias Pettersson, Victor Mancini, the recently signed Tom Willander, and more.
“Teams are aware that we have depth on defence, Patrik gets calls on them. We would be very careful what defencemen we may trade, if any, we have them prioritized, of course, like all teams do. But that is an area where we could possibly move somebody to improve our forwards.”
Of course, the Canucks could add players other ways, including through free agency. However, it seems clear that the team views trades as the main way forward.
“We’d prefer to do it in the free agent market, but how many players are going to be available? Most teams have cap space now, so it’s going to be very competitive. I suggested that it’s probably going to be through the trade market for us to upgrade the team because that’s one thing that we can control.”
“We’re going to be in the free agent market if we still have cap space at that time, and do our best to pick up a player or two, but we may get our work done before that if players come along that we think can improve our team and we’ll trade for them.”
The Canucks will have roughly $14 million to spend in free agency this summer. Rutherford saying they might burn through that money before July 1 implies they could be bringing in some major salary cap commitments.
This is a big summer for the Canucks that’ll have a major influence on the direction of the franchise. It sure sounds like management will try to be aggressive and the results of those moves will decide where this team finishes in next year’s standings.