Team: 2018-19 Vancouver Canucks

Initial Creation Date: Dec. 25, 2017

Published: Dec. 26, 2017

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Cap increase to 80mil as per rumors.

Draft:
With the loss of Both Horvat and Baertschi, as well as Sutter and rotating injuries to the top defenders, the Canucks are likely to slide further down the standings as the season progresses. Even now, they are the 6th worst team in the league with only a glimmer of hope to make the playoffs at this point with their depleted roster. Such as it is, the canucks will likely be picking fairly high in a very deep draft, while it is exceptionally unlikely they will have a shot at Rasmus Dahlin, they will likely have a shot at either Andrei Svechnikov or Brady Tkachuk. That latter of which would make up for selecting Juolevi over Matthew Tkachuk. Both Svechnikov and B.Tkachuk are considered to be NHL ready right now and could make the 18/19 roster out of camp is selected.

Trades:
The Canucks cannot afford to keep Gudbranson and have little choice to move him leading up to the dealine, or risk losing him for nothing in the summer. A willing trading partner to work with around the deadline would likely be limited to contenders who wanted to add some long term stability vs a strict rental player. So a Trade-&sign deal would likely return the most value for the Canucks. Such a deal is possible with Washington, with the major piece coming back to Vancouver being Vrána. The inclusion of Orpik is both a dump of a bad contract on an older player, and freeing up the space needed to sign Guddy to an extension in the 5-6mil range, which is what he is expected to get as a UFA. The Caps have wanted to be rid of Orpik's Contract since it was signed and the Canucks can eat the final year with the cap space freed up by the expired Sedin contracts.
The inclusion of the Toronto 3rd rounder is sweetener to take the full load of the Orpik contract without any retained salary.

Vegas has had considerable issues with staying healthy in net, and MAF has not had the consistency I'm sure he'd like in the playoffs the last few years, As such they need to address the looming problem of shoring up the goaltending situation going into the playoffs, while giving Subban some breathing room on his development curve. Nilsson has had a decent enough season and with one additional season at a reasonable rate, he would provide some additional dept going into and through the playoffs, and would be a tradable assets next year to mitigate losses. This makes him slightly more valuable than a standard rental player, and should bring back a decent prospect like Nicolas Hague.

Vanek was acquired as potential rade bait and he has had a decent enough year to return a mid-high 3rd rounder or a prospect with diminished value. Philly could take a flyer on Vanek as some extra scoring depth to make the final push for the playoffs, and Pascal Laberge might be the perfect low-risk trade. He suffered a pretty serious a concussion last year and has not been able to return to the form that got him drafted 36th overall in 2016, and has been sliding down Philly's depth chart this year.

If the possibility of trading either Edler or Tanev was presented leading up to the deadline, and the Canucks are well out of the hunt, I have to think Benning would seriously consider it if the returns were high enough. An A-grade prospect and a couple of 2nd/3rd picks, maybe a decent roster player for Tanev, a B-grade prospect, a 3rd rounder and a late rounder for Edler. I don't think Benning is looking to blow up the D-core considering how hard it is for the Canuck backend to stay healthy, so i doubt such a scenario presents itself that would be enticing enough for JB to pull the trigger on such a trade.

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