How much salary cap space Vancouver Canucks will have in free agency this summer
The Vancouver Canucks playoff chances are looking increasingly bleak.
With this year’s Stanley Cup hopes nearly dead, the focus now must turn to icing the best team next season. The good news is that the Canucks will have some money to play with this summer as they look to improve their roster.
The NHL’s salary cap is taking an aggressive leap from $88 million to $95.5 million next year. As of today, the Canucks are projected to have $14.156 million in cap space, per CapWages.
While the Canucks, along with every NHL team, will benefit from the rising salary cap, some of that money will go towards paying Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s increased buyout penalty. While that’ll cost the club just $2,346,667 this season, that number jumps to $4,766,667 next year, eating up some of that newly available cash. They’ll also be on the hook for $712,500 in retained salary on Ilya Mikheyev’s contract.
New extensions for Nils Höglander ($3 million), Drew O’Connor ($2.5 million), and Marcus Pettersson ($5.5 million) are all kicking in next season. All three players got an increase of at least $1 million on their extension, further taking up cap space for next season.
The Canucks will need to decide how to allocate the roughly $14 million available. Pending unrestricted free agents Brock Boeser, Pius Suter, and Derek Forbort need new contracts, or they’ll hit the open market. Promising forward, Aatu Räty will be a restricted-free agent and will also need a new deal.
Boeser is the biggest fish of all. He reportedly rejected a five-year, $40-million offer which would’ve taken up more than half the Canucks available cap space. The 28-year-old has stepped up recently and has 24 goals in 67 games this season. He’s reportedly seeking a longer deal, but the Canucks don’t seem willing to budge.
Suter is another interesting player the Canucks will need to make a decision on. He’s put together a career year at the perfect time and deserves a massive raise on his current salary of $1.6 million. Thus far, it doesn’t seem like the two sides have come close to an extension.
If the Canucks let Suter and Boeser walk, they’ll need to replace those two key contributors in free agency or via trade. Some of the premier pending free agents are Mitch Marner, Sam Bennett, and Nikolaj Ehlers. After those three, the talent dries up quickly, and there’s no guarantee those big names won’t re-sign with their current teams.
Unfortunately, the free agency market is setting up to be very competitive. The overall talent pool is relatively shallow, and with every team being given cap space to play with, the prices could quickly become exorbitant.
With more than $14 million in projected cap space available, the Canucks will have the financial flexibility needed to make moves. The real challenge will be finding the players needed to improve this team at a palatable cost.