NHL
Adam Foote's first season as Canucks head coach has been a challenging one. Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images
LAS VEGAS — The deadline that will accompany the NHL’s Olympic roster freeze, which hits at noon Pacific Time on Wednesday, shouldn’t be viewed as a prequel for the actual trade deadline.
There may be some activity. Perhaps a significant trade will go down. The far higher leverage, action-spurring pressure point on March 6, however, is still the main event.
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Functionally, we should view Wednesday’s deadline for the Olympic roster freeze as being more similar to the holiday roster freeze in mid-December. And it’s worth noting that the holiday roster freeze deadline did ultimately stimulate a couple of transactions, with the Phillip Danault to Montreal trade and the Mason Marchment to Columbus deal.
Unless a budget-conscious team is exceptionally motivated to duck paying a player’s salary through the Olympic break, or is eager to avoid any Olympic injury risk with a pending unrestricted free agent, though, there just isn’t nearly as much incentive for teams to get deals done now versus waiting until late February when the NHL starts up again.
According to Canucks team sources, Vancouver has been active in trade talks, but the team doesn’t feel much pressure to execute a deal before the freeze.
As of late Tuesday evening, Vancouver still had a few irons in the fire, and management intends to keep exploring its options. However, the Canucks won’t execute a trade unless their price is met for one of their pending unrestricted free agents — namely Evander Kane, Teddy Blueger and David Kämpf — or, even less likely, for one of their veteran players with term. Those prices haven’t been met yet, and that makes it somewhat difficult to gauge whether or not we should expect some activity from Vancouver as Wednesday morning unfolds.
It seems most likely that the Canucks will be quiet before the Olympic roster freeze kicks in, after which there will be no trades permitted across the NHL until Feb. 22. As everyone in NHL executive circles likes to remind reporters ahead of these sorts of transactional bottlenecks, however, all of that can change with one phone call.
There was a scenario a few weeks ago where the Canucks might’ve been more motivated to sell a depth forward prior to the Olympic roster freeze. If Vancouver had been fully healthy, there would have been some sense of urgency to execute a trade that would’ve sent out a forward for the purpose of making it easier for the Canucks to manage their 23-man roster on the other side of the Olympic break. That urgency has evaporated as forward injuries impacting Brock Boeser (concussion), Nils Höglander (lower body) and Filip Chytil (migraines) have mounted over the past week.
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In the meantime, what was a remarkably compressed Eastern Conference playoff race has rather suddenly shifted. With teams like Ottawa, Toronto, Philadelphia and Washington hitting significant ruts in January, while teams like Buffalo continue to run red hot, the battle for the final wild-card spots in the East is far more stratified today than it looked even two weeks ago.
For most of the past six weeks, the Canucks, Calgary Flames and New York Rangers have really been the only teams with “For Sale” signs mounted in their store front window. At some point, surely, they’ll be joined by some of the Eastern Conference teams facing a steep uphill climb to qualify for the playoffs. To this point, the Canucks don’t feel as if the market dynamics have shifted with additional sellers entering the marketplace.
Here’s some of what I’m hearing about the Canucks’ plans and posture in advance of the NHL Olympic roster freeze.
It has been widely reported that the Canucks are “listening” on their veteran players, dating back to a memo the club circulated to NHL teams in the fall.
The parameters of what Vancouver is willing to consider have since expanded to include just about everybody on the roster aside from defenceman Filip Hronek and a few veteran players with no-move protection and no desire to consider being dealt.
The Canucks, however, have a significant number of veteran players, all of whom are in their late 20s or early 30s, have significant cap hits and term remaining on their contracts, which carry at least some variety of no-move or no-trade protection. Vancouver currently has eight players that match this description: Elias Pettersson, Conor Garland, Boeser, Jake DeBrusk, Marcus Pettersson, Hronek, Kevin Lankinen and Thatcher Demko.
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Given the rebuilding direction that Vancouver appears to be headed in over the next couple of seasons, it’s only logical to wonder about what the future might hold for some of those players.
For now, we know that the Canucks are “listening.” And I can add that among this veteran group of eight players, I sense that Garland — whose no-move clause doesn’t kick in until July 1 — and Boeser should be considered the most likely of Vancouver’s veteran players who could realistically be moved before the deadline.
It’s important to note, however, that even though the Canucks feel firmly that they have to be open to everything, given their overall direction and the state of this roster, the club isn’t proactively pursuing deals that would see it shed a high-salaried veteran with term. The “listening” posture isn’t just a tactful or politically safe way of preparing the fan base for significant pieces to be sent out as part of this nascent rebuilding effort.
General manager Patrik Allvin, who’s manning the phones for the Canucks as the trade deadline approaches, isn’t shutting down conversations concerning Vancouver’s more established veteran players. But he’s not proactively shopping the veterans with term and turning over every possible stone in seeking to shed their contracts, either.
With four goals and five points in seven games since returning from injury in late January, Canucks centre Teddy Blueger is running hot at the moment.
The 31-year-old pivot, a genuine penalty killing specialist, is set to represent Latvia at the 2026 Olympics. He’ll likely serve as Latvia’s first-line centre, which carries some measure of upside for Vancouver — in that a strong performance in high-profile, high-pressure games could reinforce his trade value, and some measure of injury risk as well.
Blueger is a very interesting trade chip from a Vancouver perspective. While he’s widely viewed as a fourth-line pivot around the league, and served as a 13th forward for the Vegas Golden Knights on their Stanley Cup run in 2023, Blueger has played the best hockey of his career since arriving in Vancouver ahead of the 2023-24 campaign.
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Across 159 Canucks games, Blueger has produced 60 points — a better than 30-point per 82 game pace with zero power-play time — while often slotting into a middle-six role and performing well in those minutes.
Given how Blueger has performed for Vancouver, and given the significant premium price that teams around the NHL are demanding for centres, the Canucks have set a relatively high price point for Blueger in trade talks. Why, exactly, given that Blueger has played the best hockey of his career across the past few seasons, should the veteran pivot be available for any less than the third-round pick that he returned to the Pittsburgh Penguins back in 2023 when he was sold to Vegas at the deadline? Shouldn’t he actually carry more value today than he did back then, especially given the market dynamics surrounding NHL centres (and the lack of quality options available)?
Based on what I’m hearing about Blueger’s market value, Vancouver is looking for at least a third-round pick as it considers selling Blueger before the trade deadline, and it may actually take somewhat more than that for a team to actually land him ahead of deadline day.
We know from how the Canucks handled the Kiefer Sherwood trade that the club will move decisively if it receives what it views as a fair offer. And for now, as with both Kane and Kämpf, Vancouver’s price hasn’t yet been met on Blueger.
It’s been an extraordinarily difficult season for all involved with the Canucks, but it’s been an especially tough run out for first-year bench boss Adam Foote.
Hired for the purpose of maintaining continuity after Rick Tocchet’s departure and because of his strong relationship with Quinn Hughes, who has since been traded, Foote’s first opportunity to serve as an NHL bench boss has been a challenging one.
Sabotaged by a devastating run of injuries down the middle of his forward group, which caused his club to fall beneath a baseline level of functionality at centre, and battered by an endless cacophony of off-ice drama, including a midseason trade that sent Hughes out the door, Foote simply hasn’t had enough talent to lean on. He’s barely been able to rely on a stable, predictable lineup on a game-to-game basis.
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All of that is context for what we’ve seen unfold around this team, but it doesn’t necessarily excuse it or explain it away. The Canucks’ defensive solidity has cratered, and the club has objectively gotten away from the structural game that had become its calling card during Tocchet’s Vancouver tenure.
Beyond that, it’s worth noting that the reasons that Foote was the organization’s choice to succeed Tocchet — the close personal relationship with Hughes, in particular — may not necessarily fit in with what the club wants to prioritize behind the bench going forward.
Last week on Sekeres and Price, TSN’s Darren Dreger reported the club had no interest in replacing Foote ahead of or during the Olympic break. I checked in with team sources on the matter this week and can confirm Dreger’s reporting and add some additional context.
Based on what I’m hearing, the club sees no reason to consider an in-season change behind the bench. Internally, the decision has effectively already been made. Foote will at least remain behind the Canucks bench to finish out this season.
Vancouver, obviously, will have a lot to evaluate organizationally this summer in looking at where things went wrong this season, what needs to change and where accountability for one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history should fall. Evaluating Foote’s coaching performance will be a major part of that process. However, with where the club is positioned and all that Foote has had to deal with, the Canucks have no appetite to change coaches in-season.
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Thomas Drance covers the Vancouver Canucks as a senior writer for The Athletic. He is also the co-host of the Canucks Hour on Sportsnet 650. His career in hockey media — as a journalist, editor and author — has included stops at Canucks Army, The Score, Triumph Publishing, the Nation Network and Sportsnet. Previously, he was vice president, public relations and communications, for the Florida Panthers for three seasons. Follow Thomas on Twitter @ThomasDrance
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