Vancouver Canucks Free Agency updates: What we know so far

Nikolay Goldobin and Ben Hutton

After Russian media reports stated that Nikolay Goldobin was KHL bound, Goldobin and his camp refuted the claims and said that the plan is for him to re-sign with the Canucks and come into camp next year ready to challenge for a spot in the lineup.

Currently, it looks as though Goldobin will be extended a qualifying offer. We’ve already seen the team elect to not qualify the contracts of Brendan Gaunce and Derrick Pouliot, but it would appear that the team won’t be parting ways with Goldobin — for now, that is.

The same is the case with Ben Hutton. Although one of the Canucks few tradeable assets, Hutton will likely be extended a qualifying offer and re-signed. This is the safe move, and with Olli Juolevi not being a certainty to make the team right out of camp, it would make sense for Benning to lock down one of the Canucks few homegrown defencemen for at least another year.

Artemi Panarin

You knew this one was coming. I told myself I wouldn’t report on a player liking a comment on social media, but when Artemi Panarin liked a second comment on Instagram yesterday about him coming to play for the Canucks, I just couldn’t help myself.

Most of you have already heard about this, as it was trending all over Canucks Twitter and has been talked about by many already. But for those of you who don’t know, Panarin liked the following comment on Instagram: “Panarin to Pettersson… he scores!!!! Plz sign with Vancouver”

That looks like it could be chance to me, which is why I didn’t report on it when it happened. Then the second comment happened yesterday. The comment read: “Vancouver is the nicest city in the world. See you soon *bread emoji*” As if Canucks fans weren’t going crazy enough after the first comment, the second one made everyone even more certain that Panarin is at least considering coming to Vancouver.

Then I decided to do a little bit more searching and found this photo on Panarin’s Instagram from when Columbus was in Vancouver. While it may not be much, you show me another time he captioned a photo with the name of a city along with three thumbs up emojis. I’ll wait.

While it would certainly give the Canucks one of the most dangerous first lines in hockey, it may still be a longshot for the team to land him. At least it seems like he’s entertaining the thought I guess?

So there you have it folks! That’s all you need to know about the Canucks current free agent status one month away from free agency frenzy day. Who do you think the Canucks will sign on July 1st? Let me know in the comments section below, as always, I’d loved to hear from each and every one of you.