When Elliotte Friedman talks, people listen. He is one of the best in the business when it comes to breaking hockey related news, and yesterday the NHL insider tweeted that the Canucks have made veteran players available outside of Quinn Hughes at the moment.
Sources: Canucks make "veterans" available, but not Hughes at this timehttps://t.co/HAPShtJW6B
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) November 25, 2025
Could this report mark the beginning of the end for the Canucks going forward? The Canucks have been floating around in the standings as a fringe playoff team for most of the season, but are trending in the wrong direction recently as they are losers of three in a row and six of their last seven games.
The team has dealt with a significant amount of injuries so far this season, and have been an absolute disaster under the hood statistically.
Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin has stated his desire to avoid a full scale rebuild, and has maintained the position that he prefers to try and get younger, perhaps just management speak in order to ensure the wrong message is not sent to Captain Quinn Hughes, as he is unsigned beyond next season.
And speaking of Hughes, Friedman appeared on Real Kyper and Bourne where Nick Kypreos stated that “we are all under the impression that he (Hughes) wants to win now, and if he doesn’t see a window of it, that we all believe he is going to walk, and isin’t that where this is leading to,” to which Friedman followed up with “it doesn’t look pretty right now” and that Hughes has looked “really miserable” in some of his recent post game scrums.
As of now, it has been made clear that Hughes and defenceman Filip Hronek do not appear to be in the conversation as far as trades go, but that there are some upcoming unrestricted free agents and a few players with term that could possibly be on the table.
A few weeks ago we explored some potential Canucks who could be available by trade given the situation of the team and the statuses of the players in question, and given the information provided by Elliotte Friedman it is likely that these players satisfy the criteria of what Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin prefers to deal in order to avoid a full scale rebuild.
The situation the Canucks are currently in is unfavourable to say the least, and appears to only be getting worse by day as the news and talk surrounding the team is anything but positive. If the Canucks are unable to find a way to turn the team around, and Quinn Hughes decides he does not want to remain with the team, it will be nearly impossible to avoid a full scale rebuild.