Canucks: Conor Garland signs five-year, $24.75 million contract

The Vancouver Canucks continue to check items off of their to-do list.

On Tuesday morning, the team announced that they had signed newest-Canuck and pending-RFA Conor Garland to a five-year, $24.75 million contract. The deal has an AAV of $4.95 million.

In other words, it’s been a pretty exciting week for Garland.

The 25-year-old was part of a blockbuster draft day deal that sent Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and a trio of draft picks (most notably, the Canucks’ ninth overall pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft) to the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for Garland, as well as blueliner Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

Garland was selected by the Coyotes in the fifth round of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, and had spent his entire NHL career with Arizona prior to the trade. The Scituate, Massachusetts native made his debut during the 2018-19 season, where he registered 13 goals and five assists in 47 games. Garland was able to put up 39 points in 68 games during the 2019-20 season, highlighted by a career-high 22 goals. He matched his point totals from the previous year during the 2020-21 campaign, but was able to achieve those stats in just 49 games, rounding out his point-per-game rate at 0.80 for the year.

Garland finished third in team scoring, only behind Phil Kessel (43) and Jakob Chychrun (41), with 10 of those points coming on the powerplay. Garland also posted an average TOI of 17:55 during the pandemic-shortened season, good for second amongst forwards.

In total, Garland has registered 47 goals, 49 assists and 59 PIM in 164 games, and is poised to improve upon those point totals during his time in Vancouver. The 5’10”, 165 pound right winger is expected to make an immediate impact on the team’s top-six forward group, and could be a solid long-term option next to captain Bo Horvat on the second line.

General Manager Jim Benning shared the same sentiment in the team’s official press release.

“We’re pleased to have reached a long-term deal with Conor today. He’s a skilled young player, who plays hard, produces offensively and will complement our top-six forward group.”

Garland’s deal was announced shortly after the team confirmed its intent to buy out netminder Braden Holtby, who had one year left on his deal at $4.3 million AAV.  This transaction also came just two days after forward Jake Virtanen was placed on unconditional waivers for the purposes of a buyout.

The first buyout window was set to close today at 2pm PST.

With the Holtby and Virtanen buyouts complete, the Canucks were able to save $6.3 million on the cap for the upcoming year. On the flip side, they’ll be dinged $2.4 million for the 2022-23 season.

As a result, it appears that Garland’s new deal will be back-loaded, with $18 million expected to be paid out in the final three years, starting in 2023-24. Garland will also have a slightly higher AAV than Sam Bennett, who recently inked a four-year, $17.7 million deal to stay with the Florida Panthers. Garland and Bennett have been drawing comparisons over the past few days given their previous RFA statuses, as well as their similar age and production value.

The Canucks extended a qualifying offer to Garland on Monday morning in order to retain their negotiating rights. He would’ve been eligible to receive an offer sheet at the start of free agency, which is set to kick off on July 28th at 9am PST.

What are your thoughts on Garland’s newest deal with the Canucks? Make sure to drop a comment below!