The NHL Trade Deadline is just a mere seven hours away, and the Vancouver Canucks have three pending unrestricted free agents (Brock Boeser, Pius Suter and Derek Forbort) to decide whether to trade, and keep for what&#8217;s left of their playoff push.
The Canucks made one move already by sending one of their non-pending UFA defenceman Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers in exchange for the San Jose Sharks&#8217; third-round pick, which was acquired earlier in the day along with Brendan Brisson from the Vegas Golden Knights for Reilly Smith.
Now that Soucy is in the rear-view mirror, where does this leave the Canucks blue line?
Vancouver has seven defencemen on the current roster. Here are their defencemen, split up by their handedness:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-140717 size-full" src="https://publish.canucksarmy.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/03/Canucks-D.png" alt="" width="269" height="108" />
Currently, captain Quinn Hughes is out with an injury, with no real timeline for his return. So, really, the Canucks have six available defenders on the roster that can play right now after the Soucy trade.
Can they really afford to part with Derek Forbort? Especially in a season where Hughes has been in and out of the lineup with various injuries? Especially considering they&#8217;re still vying for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Probably not.
However, with some of these trades lately, it&#8217;s hard not to see the prices being paid for some bottom pairing defenceman and not get intrigued by what that return could be.
So far, these have been the defenceman trades this past week:
<blockquote>Ryan Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey and Hank Kempf to the Colorado Avalanche for Calvin de Haan, Juuso Parssinen, a conditional 2025 second and fourth round picks.
Seth Jones and a 2026 fourth-round pick to the Florida Panthers for Spencer Knight and a 2026 first-round pick.
Vincent Desharnais to the San Jose Sharks for a 2025 fifth-round pick.
Brian Dumoulin to the New Jersey Devils for Herman Traff and a 2025 second-round pick.
Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers for a 2025 third-round pick.</blockquote>
Those are some hefty returns for the types of players they are. Lindgren and Soucy were players who had extreme downfalls from their play last season. The same goes for Dumoulin, but it&#8217;s unfair to judge him, considering it was his first year on a new team, the Anaheim Ducks. Heck, even Vincent Desharnais, making $2 million next season, garnered a fifth-round pick.
It&#8217;s probably safe to assume that the Forbort would come somewhere in the middle of what Soucy and Desharnais returned at a fourth-round pick.
To put it into perspective, here is the calibre of players that returned a fourth-round pick at last season&#8217;s 2023-24 trade deadline:
<blockquote>Erik Johnson, Colin Miller, Jack Roslovic and, to a lesser extent, Chad Ruhwedel.</blockquote>
Forbort probably finds himself in the middle of this group, so valuing him at a fourth-round pick in a hotter market seems fitting.
Would you be happy with the Canucks trading Forbort for a fourth-round pick?
But now, let&#8217;s think about what the defence looks like now without Forbort and an injured Hughes.
You&#8217;re now asking one of Abbotsford&#8217;s defencemen to come up and start meaningful games in Vancouver. Only four defenceman have played NHL games that are currently in Abbotsford (Akito Hirose [10] and Cole McWard [6]), with just two playing over 10 games (Christian Wolanin [86] and Guillaume Brisebois [30]).
There&#8217;s always the possibility that the Canucks can trade Forbort and try and find a cheaper replacement who can be a placeholder until Hughes is healthy. But again, that&#8217;s going to be hard to do, especially in such short order in a seller&#8217;s market.
But here&#8217;s why it still might be worth it for the Canucks. Tom Willander&#8217;s season in the NCAA is coming to an end, and he&#8217;s ready to turn pro. Willander could join the Canucks as early as the end of March. You&#8217;re likely going to want to give him a taste in the NHL, not to mention he&#8217;s probably going to want to sign to play in the NHL as well.
So, you&#8217;re going to need to make room for him.
And at that point, if you keep Forbort, you&#8217;re going to have eight defenceman who can play. Sure, Mancini is an easy player you can send back down to Abbotsford. But then what?
Are you healthy-scratching one of Pettersson or Willander to make room for Forbort? Or are you healthy-scratching Forbort?
If it&#8217;s the latter, then that just seems like a wasted opportunity to grab an asset.
There are a lot of possibilities here. What would you prefer, Canucks fans? Given all of these options, what would you like to see the Canucks do with Derek Forbort? Let us know in the comments below!
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Get ready, hockey fans! The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@daily_faceoff">Daily Faceoff Deadline</a> is happening on March 7th from 11 AM to 4 PM Eastern, and you won’t want to miss it. We’ll be LIVE, breaking down every trade and big move as it happens, with instant reactions and expert analysis from the Daily Faceoff crew. Plus, we&#8217;ve got special guests lined up throughout the show, offering exclusive insights from some of the biggest names in the game. From blockbuster trades to surprise moves, we’re covering it all. Tune in to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@daily_faceoff">Daily Faceoff YouTube channel</a> and follow Daily Faceoff socials on March 7th to catch all the action!

The NHL Trade Deadline is just a mere seven hours away, and the Vancouver Canucks have three pending unrestricted free agents (Brock Boeser, Pius Suter and Derek Forbort) to decide whether to trade, and keep for what's left of their playoff push.

The Canucks made one move already by sending one of their non-pending UFA defenceman Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers in exchange for the San Jose Sharks' third-round pick, which was acquired earlier in the day along with Brendan Brisson from the Vegas Golden Knights for Reilly Smith.

Now that Soucy is in the rear-view mirror, where does this leave the Canucks blue line?

Vancouver has seven defencemen on the current roster. Here are their defencemen, split up by their handedness:

<img class="alignnone wp-image-140717 size-full" src="https://publish.canucksarmy.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/03/Canucks-D.png" alt="" width="269" height="108" />

Currently, captain Quinn Hughes is out with an injury, with no real timeline for his return. So, really, the Canucks have six available defenders on the roster that can play right now after the Soucy trade.

Can they really afford to part with Derek Forbort? Especially in a season where Hughes has been in and out of the lineup with various injuries? Especially considering they're still vying for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Probably not.

However, with some of these trades lately, it's hard not to see the prices being paid for some bottom pairing defenceman and not get intrigued by what that return could be.

So far, these have been the defenceman trades this past week:
<blockquote>Ryan Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey and Hank Kempf to the Colorado Avalanche for Calvin de Haan, Juuso Parssinen, a conditional 2025 second and fourth round picks.

Seth Jones and a 2026 fourth-round pick to the Florida Panthers for Spencer Knight and a 2026 first-round pick.

Vincent Desharnais to the San Jose Sharks for a 2025 fifth-round pick.

Brian Dumoulin to the New Jersey Devils for Herman Traff and a 2025 second-round pick.

Carson Soucy to the New York Rangers for a 2025 third-round pick.</blockquote>
Those are some hefty returns for the types of players they are. Lindgren and Soucy were players who had extreme downfalls from their play last season. The same goes for Dumoulin, but it's unfair to judge him, considering it was his first year on a new team, the Anaheim Ducks. Heck, even Vincent Desharnais, making $2 million next season, garnered a fifth-round pick.

It's probably safe to assume that the Forbort would come somewhere in the middle of what Soucy and Desharnais returned at a fourth-round pick.

To put it into perspective, here is the calibre of players that returned a fourth-round pick at last season's 2023-24 trade deadline:
<blockquote>Erik Johnson, Colin Miller, Jack Roslovic and, to a lesser extent, Chad Ruhwedel.</blockquote>
Forbort probably finds himself in the middle of this group, so valuing him at a fourth-round pick in a hotter market seems fitting.

Would you be happy with the Canucks trading Forbort for a fourth-round pick?

But now, let's think about what the defence looks like now without Forbort and an injured Hughes.

You're now asking one of Abbotsford's defencemen to come up and start meaningful games in Vancouver. Only four defenceman have played NHL games that are currently in Abbotsford (Akito Hirose [10] and Cole McWard [6]), with just two playing over 10 games (Christian Wolanin [86] and Guillaume Brisebois [30]).

There's always the possibility that the Canucks can trade Forbort and try and find a cheaper replacement who can be a placeholder until Hughes is healthy. But again, that's going to be hard to do, especially in such short order in a seller's market.

But here's why it still might be worth it for the Canucks. Tom Willander's season in the NCAA is coming to an end, and he's ready to turn pro. Willander could join the Canucks as early as the end of March. You're likely going to want to give him a taste in the NHL, not to mention he's probably going to want to sign to play in the NHL as well.

So, you're going to need to make room for him.

And at that point, if you keep Forbort, you're going to have eight defenceman who can play. Sure, Mancini is an easy player you can send back down to Abbotsford. But then what?

Are you healthy-scratching one of Pettersson or Willander to make room for Forbort? Or are you healthy-scratching Forbort?

If it's the latter, then that just seems like a wasted opportunity to grab an asset.

There are a lot of possibilities here. What would you prefer, Canucks fans? Given all of these options, what would you like to see the Canucks do with Derek Forbort? Let us know in the comments below!

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@daily_faceoff"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-139755" src="https://publish.canucksarmy.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2099/08/TradeDeadline-2025_programmatic_Article-727x404-2.png" alt="" width="728" height="405" /></a>

Get ready, hockey fans! The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@daily_faceoff">Daily Faceoff Deadline</a> is happening on March 7th from 11 AM to 4 PM Eastern, and you won’t want to miss it. We’ll be LIVE, breaking down every trade and big move as it happens, with instant reactions and expert analysis from the Daily Faceoff crew. Plus, we've got special guests lined up throughout the show, offering exclusive insights from some of the biggest names in the game. From blockbuster trades to surprise moves, we’re covering it all. Tune in to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@daily_faceoff">Daily Faceoff YouTube channel</a> and follow Daily Faceoff socials on March 7th to catch all the action!

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