Following the
Brock Boeser fiasco from
Saturday night, Elliotte Friedman believes there could be a larger story afoot here. Boeser has already received permission to discuss a trade with other teams, but that could be the tip of the iceberg.
The Canucks are in a terrible position. They are strapped to the salary cap and sit at the bottom of the NHL standings; quite literally the worst position to be in as a front office. There's a saying that is quite fitting here:
"If you are a GM and you're drowning, other GMs don't throw you a life raft; they throw you an anvil."
Canucks GM Patrik Allvin and President Jim Rutherford have to get money off of their books, no ifs, ands, or buts. Vancouver currently has $0 in cap space with just under $5 million on LTIR; they have to move some players.
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In order to do that, they will inevitably operate at a loss on at least one trade; Boeser is likely one of them, given his contract and his awful start to the season.
Friedman suggests that Boeser is just the start and a greater dismantling sits on the horizon. One with
Bo Horvat,
Luke Schenn, even
Thatcher Demko, among others all being sent out of town in the name of a reset or a rebuild.
"To me there's actually a bigger story here as I think about it 24 hours later - and that this might be the start of a dismantling. And what I think [they're going to] say is 'we have to create cap room, we have to change our mix. And if that means if we trade Boeser and maybe our return isn't great we still at least create the cap room and I think that's a possibility here.'"
It's been said that the only true
untouchables on the roster are
Elias Pettersson and
Quinn Hughes. Anyone else could be had for the right price, and if the Canucks are heading for a rebuild, does it make sense to hang onto Horvat or Demko? I don't envy Allvin and Rutherford for having to make that decision because there is a slim chance it pans out for them.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Vancouver has some tough decisions to make. And with
Connor Bedard up for grabs this summer, the option to strip it down to the studs and engage a full tank-job has to be enticing.
What would you do?
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