Welcome Matt: Canucks in no rush to move J.T. Miller as free agency looms

Jul 11 2022, 11:24 pm

sekeres and price

Our Bodog poll question today asks what you’re most looking forward to as the new NHL year begins this week: trades or free-agent signings?

Alas, not sure I can look forward to free-agent additions unless there are some trades. Or at least one trade.

That’s where the Vancouver Canucks are cap-wise, minus a J.T. Miller deal. They’ve got a couple of million dollars space and won’t be qualifying bottom-six forwards Juho Lammikko and Matthew Highmore, restricted free agents who are figured to eat up much of Vancouver’s remaining dollars.

I suppose the Canucks could use Micheal Ferland’s $3.5 million salary to exceed the cap and go into LTIR, and it will take that sort of gymnastics to sign even the likes of Ilya Mikheyev, Andre Burakovsky, or Valeri Nichushkin, names that have been identified by Canucks fans and media as players to target.

They may be forced to the bargain bin for what (admittedly) is a better lot of cast-off restricted free agents that didn’t get qualifying offers. Dylan Strome, Ondrej Kase, Nicolas Aubé-Kubel can all play in the NHL and there are some decent reclamation projects on that list, but they’re not exactly players who figure to improve you over the long-term.

The Canucks say that they’re under no rush to move Miller and even went as far as to say they expect him at camp. GM Patrik Allvin subtly tweaked the messaging Thursday night at the draft, saying the club didn’t want to take a step back and wasn’t going to shed cap space simply to shed cap space.

Fair enough, but unless cap space is shed, they likely aren’t a player in free agency which puts them in the position of having to make trades or hoping for improvement from within. And where have we heard that before?

I’m sure they won’t admit it yet but sure sounds like they’re prepping this off-season’s Plan B.

Matthew SekeresMatthew Sekeres

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