The Vancouver Canucks are in a comfortable position for Day 1 of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. Yet, they are reported to want more.
After falling from second overall to fifth thanks to the draft lottery, Vancouver Canucks fans obviously weren’t happy. But after getting caught up on all prospects not called Nolan Patrick or Nico Hischier, it doesn’t look too bad after all. Miro Heiskanen, Gabriel Vilardi, Casey Mittelstadt, Cody Glass, Elias Pettersson, Cale Makar — the Canucks will have options.
For the Canucks, however, that doesn’t seem to be enough.
As Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman shared in his ’30 Thoughts,’ the Canucks are seriously interested in moving up to first overall. General manager Jim Benning himself has said he would see what it might take to move up, but we neither knew how far he would want to move up nor what he was willing to give up.
Now Friedman shared what exactly the Canucks have been willing to offer so far.
"Watch New Jersey in the lead-up to the draft. There is a growing suspicion the Devils feel their greatest need is on the blue line, and there are some good ones they like (Miro Heiskanen? Cale Makar?). Anyway, would GM Ray Shero take one of them at the top, or would he move down just a little bit, adding something else, if he knew he could still get what he wanted? Vancouver could use a centre, for example. The compensatory pick from Columbus for hiring John Tortorella (55th overall) is something they dangled to see if it could help them move, but so far, no dice."
There are multiple things we can get out of this quote.
First of all, the Devils might prefer Heiskanen over one of the centres and are willing to move down. I personally have a really hard time settling on a No. 1 in this draft, and Heiskanen is in the mix for it (although, as of today, my order would be Hischier-Patrick-Heiskanen). So, I’m not really surprised, but definitely think it’s an interesting development.
Second, the Canucks believe the gap between the top-two centres (or at least their top one) and guys like Vilardi or Glass is big enough to move up. In fact, they believe it’s big enough to sacrifice some of their much-needed draft picks to get Hischier or Patrick. I’m not sure if I’m on board with that.
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Third, the Canucks offered the 55th pick, which makes sense. After all, it was pretty much a gift from the Columbus Blue Jackets. So, if that pick could help Vancouver move up, it’s almost like they moved up for free. But, again, I’m not really on board with trading this pick. The Canucks should rather pick up a ‘free prospect.’
Last but not least, the Devils are looking for more than a late second-rounder to trade down to fifth. Duh. I actually don’t think they want to move down to fifth at all, at least if they are targeting Heiskanen, because he will likely be gone by then. If they have Makar as their primary target, though, that’s a different story.
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So, to summarise, there are several factors that make a Devils-Canucks trade like this an unlikely one. It’s good to see that Benning considers all options, though.