After trading Bo Horvat during the 2022-2023 season and J.T. Miller last season, the Canucks have parted ways with two high scoring impact players in recent years with little self sufficient scoring additions to replace them.
General Manager Patrik Allvin has brought in some secondary pieces to replace the talent and scoring lost in these moves, including Jake DeBrusk, Evander Kane, Filip Hronek, Filip Chytil, and Kiefer Sherwood, but the Canucks are still lacking reliable top end talent, especially up the middle to facilitate and create for these options.
There’s no denying that in exchanging Horvat and Miller for Filip Hronek, Filip Chytil, Marcus Pettersson, Drew O’Connor, Aatu Räty, and Anthony Beauvillier who has since moved on, there has been a drop off in terms of top tier talent for the Canucks and the question becomes who they can bring in to go from a middling inconsistent team, to a team that can compete with many of the best teams in their conference.
Nazem Kadri
Fresh off playing career game number 1000, Kadri is a competitive and tenacious centre who has displayed great offensive upside, even on a goal challenged team like the Calgary Flames. Kadri has a career points per game of 0.72, but is averaging 0.85 points per game since the start of the 2023-2024 NHL season to now, and is coming off of a career high of 35 goals last season, with 26 of them coming at even strength, tied for 19th best in the NHL.
He supplements this offensive flair by playing confident and assertive hockey, as he has shots on goal totals of 277 (16th) and 279 (6th) respectively each of the last two seasons putting him at just under 3.4 shots on goal per game, while also being among the leagues best in drawing penalties.
In addition to this, Kadri has shown in his career that he is not afraid to get involved physically as he averages well over a hit per game in his career, despite the fact that his hit totals have declined with age, but evidently he can still take a big hit and stand up for himself with the best of them.
Marco Rossi
A name that had swirled in trade rumours for months, Marco Rossi had been connected to the Canucks at points this past summer. Unfortunately for them, their trade offer was not good enough for the Wild per NHL insider Frank Seravalli, and Rossi ended up signing what you could call a bridge deal to remain with the Wild as it was just a three-year $15 million contract.
Perhaps the Wild would like to see how Rossi continues to develop before giving him a long term extension, but the fact that the Wild only gave the promising young forward a short term deal after giving Matt Boldy a seven-year contract, Brock Faber an eight-year contract, and Kiril Kaprizov the biggest contract in NHL history, raises more questions than answers as to what the Wild do not see in Rossi’s game as the price will likely only go up for him in the coming years.
That being said, Rossi currently seems like a perfect fit as a second line centre for a team like the Canucks, especially given how strong his two-way play is. He plays in all situations, is fourth among Wild forwards in ice time at 18:20, and leads the team in even strength Corsi For Percentage at 59% this season, over 4% higher than his next closest teammate.
He is an adept playmaker as he was second on the team with 36 assists last season, and is currently second on the team with nine assists so far this season. In addition to this, he is an efficient shooter as he has a career shooting percentage of 14%, and while being slightly undersized is still able to play quality physical hockey as he has a competitive personality on the ice and is effective along the boards.
Jordan Kyrou
Another player who found himself amongst trade rumours throughout the summer, the speedy and offensively gifted winger is exactly the type of player that the Canucks could use to help replenish some of the offence they traded away in Horvat and Miller.
While the primary need for the Canucks lies at the centre position, who would say no to a player who is coming off of three straight seasons of over 30 goals, and who has had below 70 points just once in the last four seasons, which by the way was 67 points. Kyrou loves to shoot the puck as he has not had a season below 239 shots since 2021-2022, and has averaged over 3.1 shots per game in that time.
Like the aforementioned Rossi, Kyrou also has excellent Corsi For as his career mark is 55.1%, and since the start of the 2023-2024 season to now has not had a Corsi For Percentage below 57.3%.
An interesting part about Kyrou’s statistical profile in recent seasons has been his negative plus minus, especially considering the fact that he does a lot of his scoring at even strength and drives a lot of offensive play. This is likely due to the fact that the Blues have had some inconsistent goaltending and have not been the strongest of teams in recent seasons, but Kyrou's defensive play has progressed as he is able to utilize his excellent speed to chase down pucks.
Bowen Byram
A native of BC, there is not much Byram cannot do on the ice from the back end. The Canucks boast a strong defensive core, so on the surface this does not necessarily satisfy their current needs, but in looking towards the future Byram could be an answer to replace Quinn Hughes should he decide he does not want to remain with the Canucks.
Byram is just 24 years old, but already has a Stanley Cup that he won with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022, and has already played 286 NHL games, including playoffs. With this sort of resume, and the fact that he has demonstrated he can play big minutes so far in his young career, averaging 21:02 in the regular season, he is a hot ticket in trade talks around the NHL as top defenceman are a premium commodity.
A big reason for the trade talks surrounding Byram is the fact that the Buffalo Sabres already have first overall picks Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power who are both left-handed shooting defenceman like Byram, and who are not going anywhere as they are both very important players to the Sabres and are both signed to long term contracts.
Byram’s contract situation is another factor that plays into this, as his contract expires after next season. He was a restricted free agent this past offseason and ended up signing a two-year bridge deal, but Sabres General Manager Kevyn Adams was not hesitant to admit that the Sabres will still entertain trade offers for Byram, likely to do with the fact that the young defenceman will be seeking a much larger contract the next time he hits free agency.
A big challenge the Canucks face in all of this is their salary cap situation, as they currently have just under $1.2 million dollars in cap space at the moment per CapWages. They would undoubtedly have to get creative and find a way to shed salary before taking on any of the aforementioned players, but that being said, these are the types of players who are potentially available that the Canucks will need to target if they want to raise the level of their team.