Team: 2020-21 Vancouver Canucks

Initial Creation Date: Jan. 12, 2020

Published: Jan. 12, 2020

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

The daily standings can be deceiving when teams have played a different number of games. When you look at the Pacific Division after all teams had played exactly 41 games, Vancouver was in first place. Their offense was third in the Western Conference (behind only Colorado and Nashville) and first in the Division. I think that they won't fall off in the second half, and should be a playoff team this year.

I'm reacting to a couple of recent projections which promote the acquisition of a rental at the trade deadline -- Chris Kreider or Mark Hoffman, for example. I want to see what the roster would look like WITHOUT such a move -- which, in my mind, is ill-conceived inasmuch as they already owe Tampa their first-round pick for J. T. Miller. Simply keeping their current roster intact (with the exception of Troy Stecher) and building from within seems to be a viable strategy for the Canucks.

Nevertheless, in a hard cap world, one of their veteran players will probably have to go. I'm suggesting Stecher because there are several teams that need an experienced RhD (Anaheim, Las Vegas, Winnipeg and Toronto) come immediately to mind, and I think he would have the largest market. I just chose Toronto at random; I'm acquiring two decent prospects, but an actual trade might be for draft picks (of which Las Vegas has extra) instead.

Vancouver might choose to deal Sven Baertschi or buy him out to generate additional cap space.

P.S. I'd appreciate hearing from the real Canuck cognoscenti about the chances of signing Lockwood after Michigan's season is over, or whether he'll pull an Adam Fox.