On Monday afternoon, TSN1040 had The Bobfather (Bob McKenzie) join the show for one of his always illuminating interviews.

Naturally, the conversation started with the Canucks pursuit of Carolina Hurricanes defenceman and pending restricted free agent Noah Hanifin. McKenzie offered his read of the Hurricanes situation beyond the Hanifin rumours, suggesting that Justin Faulk and Jeff Skinner could be on the way out, too. With the stage set, McKenzie goes on to confirm the Canucks’ interest in Hanifin is sincere; that’s not where the conversation ends, though.

Though not a report, McKenzie opines that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Canucks have some level of interest in acquiring Buffalo Sabres centre Ryan O’Reilly. Not captured in that tweet is McKenzie going on to add that the Canucks aren’t necessarily opposed to getting some veterans in the lineup.

O’Reilly, 27-years-old, just finished the second of his seven-year contract with the Sabres, valued at $7.5-million annually. Despite playing gruelling shutdown minutes, O’Reilly produced 61 points in 81 games last season and paired that with respectable underlying totals. On a poor possession team, O’Reilly broke even by 5-on-5 shot attempt ratio and just fell short of that same exploit by his expected goal metrics.

The contract seems perhaps a touch rich, but the Canucks are in a relatively good place with the books and have short and long-term flexibility. Going into this off-season, they have about $27-million in cap space assuming a rise to an $80-million ceiling. They could easily make a contract like this work.

It also fits the way that they view the weaponization of their cap space — taking good players on less than ideal contracts off the hands of teams that can’t afford those inefficiencies.

If the Canucks want to run a shutdown line, I can’t think of anyone better suited to the role than O’Reilly. Whether that’s the impetus for an off-season acquisition or not will reveal itself as we get closer to the draft.