The Canucks need to seriously consider trading away Tyler Motte

Vancouver Canucks fans, if you never hear from me again, you’ll know why.

Even bringing up the mere possibility of trading fan favourite Tyler Motte will undoubtedly send the team’s Twitter mob my way, so don’t be surprised if I disappear forever.

Jokes aside, with the way this season has gone, Vancouver needs to tell other teams that they’re willing to listen to offers on all their players outside of their core of Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller, Bo Horvat, and Thatcher Demko.

In his latest “31 Thoughts” article, Elliotte Friedman said that Motte and Nate Schmidt have received some interest from rival teams, although a Schmidt deal is very unlikely. It’s important to note that these rumblings are exactly that: just rumblings. No trade was close to happening, but Motte has undoubtedly garnered interest from opposing clubs.

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The reason I bring up Motte in particular is because he might have the most value on the current team outside of Schmidt — who won’t be going anywhere due to Vancouver’s lack of depth on the blueline — the core players I previously mentioned, and Tanner Pearson, another skater who could be moved before the trade deadline.

Just last season, the Lightning gave up a first-round pick to acquire Barclay Goodrow and prospect Anthony Greco while only receiving a third-rounder in return. Motte’s value will likely be slightly less than Goodrow’s was since his offensive game isn’t as refined, but teams will still covet Motte and be willing to part with at least a mid-round pick to acquire him.

More importantly, Jim Benning needs to act fast if he’s seriously considering trading the winger since he only has one year left on his deal. This means that any team who acquires Motte will get at least two playoff runs in before needing to re-sign him, and this was also what made Goodrow particularly attractive to Tampa Bay.

Now, the Canucks could always just re-sign Motte after next season, but that shouldn’t be a high priority for the team. Yes, almost all of Vancouver’s bad salaries will expire by then, but Boeser will also be a restricted free agent and the Canucks will need to spare every penny if they want to keep its core intact, especially since Pettersson’s and Hughes’ new deals could eat up over $15 million this summer.

The only counter-argument to that would be that Vancouver doesn’t have a history of overpaying for bottom-six players, so perhaps they’ll be able to re-sign Motte to a sweet deal like the ones they gave to Loui Eriksson and Antoine Roussel.

What do you think, Canucks fans? Should the team seriously consider trading away Motte? Let us know in the comments below!