As tweeted out by CapFriendly, and reported by Rick Dhaliwal of Donnie & Dhali, the Vancouver Canucks have activated Tanner Pearson off of long-term injury reserve and brought him onto the Canucks’ roster.
Vancouver #Canucks officially activated Tanner Pearson of IR/LTIR yesterday.
This is significant because it means that he is no longer considered an LTI candidate, and tentatively leaves the club $1,709,167 over the cap even if they place Poolman on LTIR.
The Canucks could…
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) September 19, 2023
As shown in the tweet above, the Canucks are now $1,709,167 over the salary cap ceiling of $83,500,000.
Tucker Poolman is expected to remain on LTIR and that $1,709,167 over the cap includes Poolman’s $2,500,000 salary going to LTIR and not being on the active roster.
So, how do the Canucks get themselves to be cap-compliant?
There are a few options as the team can look to move a salary to get them under the cap or they can play with the roster and run with less than 23 players on their roster.
We’ve exhausted all the potential trades for the Canucks. Tyler Myers now has his buyout paid out and there’s a lot of money on the wings with Brock Boeser, Conor Garland and Anthony Beauvillier.
Stephan Roget gave some theories about how the Canucks could get under the cap in THIS article.
The Canucks have the ability to have a 20, 21 or 22-man roster for the opening night of the 2023-24 season. A 21-man roster would give them space but it would likely require a veteran who makes more than $1,034,833. You can bury up to $1,150,000 of an NHL contract in the AHL. The obvious answer here would be Tanner Pearson and there are some other moves that the Canucks can make to balance the chequebook as close as they can to being up to the top end of the salary cap on opening night, even with 20, 21, 22 or 23 players on their roster.
We could see a money-in-money-out trade in the coming weeks or the Canucks can fan-dangle their way with a 20, 21 or 22-man roster on opening night.
There’s work to do for the Canucks to be cap compliant but their current roster is currently $1,709,167 over the $83,500,000 limit. Expect more to come in the next couple of weeks as the regular season approaches. The Canucks may end up having another trick up their sleeve to make every penny count as they navigate their way to getting under the cap for the beginning of the 2023-24 season.
We can see that there are enough players making between $775,000 and $1,100,000 for the Canucks to be able to shuffle the deck chairs but it may result in some players having to pass through waivers.
