Canucks extend qualifying offers to eight players

The Canucks have extended qualifying offers to Brock Boeser, Reid Boucher, Nikolay Goldobin, Josh Leivo, Tyler Motte, Francis Perron, Brogan Rafferty and Josh Teves. This means Vancouver will retain their negotiating rights.

The Canucks did not issue qualifying offers to Brendan Gaunce, Markus Granlund, Ben Hutton,Yan-Pavel Laplante and Derrick Pouliot. These players will become Unrestricted Free Agents on July 1st.

The most notable name the Canucks didn’t qualify was Hutton. The 26-year-old was coming off a two-year, $5.6-million deal with Vancouver. He had five goals and 20 points with a minus-23 rating in 69 games last season. While the team appears to be giving up on Hutton, there have been rumblings the Canucks may look to sign Hutton on a cheap deal once he becomes a UFA.

The Canucks also didn’t qualify Granlund, who was a solid supporting scorer for the team last year. The 26-year-old had 12 goals and 22 points in 77 games last season. He had signed a one-year contract worth $1.475 million prior to last season.

The most important player the Canucks need to sign before 2019-20 is Boeser. The latest is that talks are ongoing and the Canucks expect to get him locked up at some point in the near future.

With the Canucks moving on from a few supporting players, Elliotte Friedman said on Sportsnet 650 he heard from one Canuck at the end of the year that the team “could have 6-7 new players next year.”

Based on what we’ve seen from GM Jim Benning thus far, it certainly looks like the Canucks will have a healthy dose of fresh faces in the lineup on opening night.